Recommended Reads

I cannot remember the books I have read any more than the meals I have eaten. Even so, they have made me.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

What follows is a list of books I’ve read which I’ve found useful, entertaining, thought-provoking, or otherwise worth recommending. Maybe you will too?

Leadership & Working in Tech

Accelerate
Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
Why should you read it?
If you want to build and maintain a high performance team in tech you need to read this. For me at least, this book is the birth place of what are commonly known as DORA metrics today and it provides data-backed why's for so much of what's needed to crush goals as a team that ships. Reading this book was nothing short of transformational for me circa 2019.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick Lencioni
Why should you read it?
This fable style book should probably be required reading for anyone who needs to be part of a team.

Growing Groups Into Teams
Pam Fox Rollin, Kobe Bogaert
Why should you read it?
Pam, her co-authors, and teammates know what they're talking about. With permission, Pam & Altus builds on the concepts introduced by Patrick Lencioni and takes it to new heights. If you've got a great group of people and you want to build an even better team - read this!

Managing the Unmanageable
Ron Lichty, Mickey W. Mantle
Why should you read it?
I've had the immense pleasure of working with Ron and receiving 1:1 mentoring from him and I'm very aligned with his approaches to software development, team building, agile practices, and many other things. This book, like Ron, is full of little nuggets of wisdom, rules of thumb, and generally helpful advice based on real world experience.

The Phoenix Project
Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, Georg Spafford
Why should you read it?
This book blew my mind when I read it circa 2014 because I had never really had workflows and resource constraints and prioritization so clearly related and their importance made so obvious. It was like flicking a switch in my brain and ever since then I've been able to almost close my eyes and watch little factories (workflows/work centers) doing their thing everywhere at work. ...and it's a fun fable-style read to boot. I think it's marketed to IT but IMO it's useful for any team that wants to get something done; especially if that something is building software.

Essentialism
Greg McKeown
Why should you read it?
A mistake that's so commmon most people don't see it as a mistake is trying to do too many things at once. This book will help you.

The Advantage
Patrick Lencioni
Why should you read it?
This one drops the fable format from Five Dysfunctions and goes deep on the various organizational dysfunctions we'll all (probably) face.

General Interest

More books from the likes of Margaret Atwood, Ray Kurzweil, Cory Doctrow, William Gibson, and a few others coming soon…