anything by W. Edwards Deming
Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#22I tried leaving Dilbert cartoons around. People don't recognise themselves, even though everyone else can see it clear as day.
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#23Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering (http://www.amazon.com/Facts-Fallacies-Software-Engineering-R...). It may be starting to get a little dated, so it's hard to say that all the referenced research is still applicable in the same way. But it's a good antidote to a common problem everywhere I've worked: the idea that our team is in some way special or unique in a way that implies reasonable standards of software engineering practice don't apply. It's almost always part of a rationalization cycle that justifies the way things have always been done or some kind of Taylorist management practice.
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#24http://www.amazon.com/Red-Team-Succeed-Thinking-Enemy/dp/046...
Phenomenal modern look into the practice of alternative analysis
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#25Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#26Making Things Happen;
Unfortunately, I read this book when it was too late for me, but definitely something to read if you ever get into management. The politics section itself is worth the price:
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#27Everyone Needs a Mentor - David Clutterbuck [1] Flat Army - Dan Pontefract [2] [1] http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Needs-Mentor-David-Clutterbuc... [2] http://www.danpontefract.com/the-book/
Flat Army summary: https://www.ebscohost.com/uploads/corpLearn/pdf/Flat-Army.pd...
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#28It would be great if my manager read anything at all. Having been through a few managers; the good ones read, the bad ones don't read. It doesn't matter what they read, the last good one I had pretty much only read WW2 novels. That being said, I think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an important read for anyone in technology. It changed how I approach and appreciate technology.
How did it change how you think about technology?
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#29It would be great if my manager read anything at all. Having been through a few managers; the good ones read, the bad ones don't read. It doesn't matter what they read, the last good one I had pretty much only read WW2 novels. That being said, I think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an important read for anyone in technology. It changed how I approach and appreciate technology.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is amazing and I happened to read it at just the right time in my life where it shaped a lot of how I think about technology and the different ways to approach it.
Care to explain? I didn't really get anything like that from the book.
Re: Ask HN: What books do you wish your manager would read?
#30In context of software development these books (and other works by same people) might be interesting. I have not read them all yet but have been recommended by a colleague. My perspective is defined by being a developer in circa 100 people company.
* The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month
* Facts and fallacies of software engineering by Robert L. Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Glass
* Lessons learned from 25 years of process improvement: The Rise and Fall of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/basili/publications/proceedings...