Exploring Extreme Programming
Managing the Design Factory, Donald Reinertsen. Free Press, 1997. Reinertsen comes at managing design from the manufacturing product development side, but a lot of his tools seem appropriate for software product development as well. “When we begin a design we Continue reading Review – Managing the Design Factory
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox. North River Press, 1992 (2nd rev. edition). A combination love story and manufacturing treatise. Inventory and high utilization are signs of sub-optimizing the whole system. (Reviewed Dec., ’02)
First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals, Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister. Free Press, 2002. While targeted at group leaders in professional practices (e.g., legal firms), this book has a lot to teach coaches and Continue reading Review – First Among Equals
The Thinker’s Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving, Morgan D. Jones. Three Rivers Press, 1995. Tools and exercises for helping you analyze problems, including problem restatement, decision trees, matrices, ranking, hypothesis testing, and utility analysis. (Reviewed Dec., ’02)
Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre, Keith Johnstone. Routledge, 1979. Improvisational acting techniques are influencing the training world. They help you look at everything that happens as something you can say, “Yes, and” to, and create new and interesting things. Johnstone Continue reading Review – Impro
Training Games: Everything You Need to Know About Using Games to Reinforce Learning, Susan El-Shamy. Stylus Publishing, 2001. Describes some theory indicating how games help learning, classifies games a few ways, and considers electronic games. Considers the mechanics of playing Continue reading Review – Training Games
The refactoring grid is a toy designed to give you a feel for what refactoring is like, by working in a simple, non-code domain. [Michael Wainer has made game pieces available here: http://www.cs.siu.edu/~wainer/Pieces4RefGame/pieces4RefGame.html ] The Domain There is a grid Continue reading Refactoring Grid