Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?

Aside from development, some of my responsibilities up to this point have already included project management, staff management and proposal writing. Now I am joining the senior management team and taking on more strategic responsibilities, including determining the direction of many of the company’s future plans and projects.

There are several paths I am looking at for preparing myself for my new responsibilities. I thought I’d start a discussion as out of the demographic on HN, I am sure I am not the only one in such a situation.

Self-teaching directions I’ve been looking at so far are: - Business Analyst processes. - Agile planning - Agile requirements modeling - Effective proposals - Business development

Although there is certainly no absence of literature in this area, I've found it hard to find good recommendations. Does anyone have any suggestions for specific books in those areas, or any other areas that would benefit a developer taking on a more strategic role?

Agile/XP practices are a good starting place in-between cowboy programming and micro-management hell -- as long as you don't take them as a recipe book. They're simply best practices that you can and should learn. Then prune/modify as necessary. There are really too many books to list separately. I'd advise joining a local Agile User's Group and noticing who has their shit in one sock. Then find out what they're doing. You can also bring in external coaches.

You need a couple of good books on the people part of things. I can guarantee you that the people part of things is where you'll screw up. "Drive" is really good. http://amzn.to/1qtZdEd So is PeopleWare http://amzn.to/1iBnasO

For strategic stuff, especially in a growing company, you're going to have to master large work queues without having them eat you alive. If you'll allow me to self-promote, my Backlogs series is geared exactly towards this problem. http://tiny-giant-books.com/backlogs.htm

One observation: as you grow, it's not enough that you pay extremely careful attention to whom you hire. You also need to create an on-boarding system where new hires can learn and adopt the culture -- things like pair programming, how the build works, good coding etiquette, and so on. Setting the table for strategy to work is actually more important than whatever the strategy is.

Second observation: I imagine you're going to be swimming in business book recommendations. Business books are like dieting books: everybody has a few favorites. (I imagine this is because the material inside matches how they already feel). Better to identify specific areas, like Agile Requirements Modeling, and find books targeting those areas. Then look for practical advice. Otherwise you'll just have a ton of books that you'll spend hundreds of hours reading and not really have much to show for it at the end of the process.

Six Thinking Hats - best way to think like an analyst (and to lead meetings that are effective)

Both of these are killer and quick and easy books.

Some people find it too academic but it covers pretty much all of the essentials of strategy and business policy practices.

1. Follow people in the same field 2. Ready up on blogs and posts : I use Zite, Flipboard and medium 3. A book that helped me to a large extent is Good to great by Jim Collins (http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Companies-Leap-Others/dp/00...)

Also The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman http://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-World-Class-Business-Educ...

4. Video from people in the same field. 5. This article https://medium.com/@noah_weiss/50-articles-and-books-that-wi...

Some great tools:

1. Trello - Project/product and pretty much manage any thing 2. Qlikview - Data Analysis : Excel on Steroids

It's a very short list, but I am learning on the job :)