If you are in the bay area then we should go grab coffee some time. I was in your position a year ago and I'm more than happy to share my experiences and struggles.
Send me an email and we can connect.
Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
41–50 of 84 posts
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#42Karate kid learned from a book in the beginning.
Wax on. Wax off.
Obviously a book won't do. You need a training montage.
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#43In the last five years moved from development, to leading the development team to more of a product management role. Fully agree with that DanielBMarkham it's "the people part of things is where you'll screw up", so I'd focus on communication and team-building as much as processes. I've found a few books really useful: * The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6667514-th…
Can you elaborate on the purchasing of executive summaries? Sounds interesting; I also like to forage and often find that, for certain books, I really just want the technical footnotes.
Sure. There are plenty of summaries available on Amazon, for instance, this summary of Good to Great (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008VGWCHY/ref=oh_aui_d_d...).
There are also some really great mini books like Scrum: a Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007P5N8D4/ref=oh_aui_d_d...)
Also, I haven't tried these yet, but there are a number of subscription services available for summaries like http://www.summary.com/ and http://www.getabstract.com/en/
The other way of cheating is by watching talks by the authors, which give you the key concepts from the book in an hour. For example Simon Sinek presenting Why Leaders Eat Last (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRcHdeUG9Y)
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#44Developing strategy, relies on understanding the patterns evident in the mechanics of doing business, (startups and mature corps alike).
To that end, I strongly recommend Michael Porter, who literally wrote the book on modern "Competitive Strategy". There is no other single source of strategic theory that is better than this. Anybody that has taken a b-school class on strategy worth their tuition will recall concepts like Porter's 5-forces.
Other answers seem to offer more recently offered books and some might dare to argue his frameworks are dated but really it's in a robust, tried-and-true-kind of way. Other books that try to cover defining strategy, value chain, industry analysis are often derivative of his work.
If you don't end up reading it at least get a list of his key concepts and google the shit out of them. They all seem like a "duh, i knew that" on paper, but you should have these theories in your back pocket whenever you need to formulate a battleplan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_generic_strategies
http://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Strategy-Techniques-Indust...
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#45Take a look at the concept of servant leadership. I've worked at one business that used it, and it was phenomenal. The crux of it is that bosses are only as successful as the people doing the actual work, so the boss should focus on what is needed for them to be successful.
http://www.amazon.com/Servant-Leadership-Legitimate-Greatnes...
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#46Honestly I would get a mentor. Find someone either in your org or out of your org that has the skills and career you would like to work towards and start talking to them. If you hit it off you may have found someone who can help you through the bumpy parts of your career and help you plan your next steps. Some people charge for this as career coaching and that can also have some value but it's challenging to sort out…
> get a mentor
Seems easier said than done. I wouldn't want to share details of what I do with random people. Probably not with coworkers either unless it's strictly related to the job at hand, but at that point the advice they can give you is also more limited. Also, you need to find someone with more experience than you, so you don't have much to bring to the deal.
> Books are wonderful but nothing beats interacting with successful people.
That I can certainly agree with.
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#47Consider the book 'Becoming a Technical Leader' [1], by Jerry Weinberg. He and his students (e.g. Johanna Rothman, Esther Derby) have a whole host of excellent books and courses in the space you describe. They're also very approachable, if you want to discuss these matters.
[1] http://www.geraldmweinberg.com/Site/Technical_Leader.html
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#48Getting a mentor will help, usually someone outside the company that you trust enough to question them honestly (too many people try to get mentored by people they think of as infallible and then fail to ask questions when their understanding is incomplete).
If you are looking for reading material, consider putting the books "Execution" and "Facing Reality" (by Larry Bossidy with Ram Charan) on your list. I found these to be a good concise description of some of the more 'meta' aspects of senior leadership.
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#49It sounds like you've taken the most important step, which is appreciating that "what got you here won't get you there".
One of my favorite books when stepping into a new role is M. Watkins, "The First 90 Days", which is very helpful in formalizing an effective approach to succeeding quickly when in a new management role.
It is worth trying to get some education in people management. While much of it is common-sense, it's worthwhile covering the basics -- the applicable laws, managing conflicts, that sort of thing. I have yet to find a good, practical book on organizational engineering (if anyone has a suggestion, please post it), but this is an area that I feel someone in your role should seek to understand well, because it has a big impact on the success of a business.
One of the most important, fundamental skills for a senior level manager is understanding finance. I recommend B. Knight, "Financial Intelligence" as a primer.
My favorite book on business strategy is M. Porter "Competitive Strategy", however, this book and all other business strategy books should be taken with a large grain of salt. They often suffer from survivorship bias, being applicable only to certain industries and times, and in at least one famous case, allegedly faking the data used to draw their conclusions. I treat business strategy books as leisure reading that simply provides another perspective.
Re: Ask HN: Dev promoted to more strategic role in startup. What literature?
#50Foundations of Business Strategy started last week on Coursera:
https://www.coursera.org/course/strategy101
Probably not too late to catch up.