XPlorations
| Books for Coaches
| July, 2003
|
Coaching and Teamwork
The Little
Book of Coaching: Motivating People to Be Winners
Blanchard, Kenneth H., and Don Shula. Harper Business,
2001. ISBN 0-06662103-8.
A thin book with some nice quotes but not a "deep"
approach. Organizes its ideas by the COACH acronym: Conviction-driven,
Overlearning, Audible-ready, Consistency, Honesty-based.Constantine on Peopleware
Constantine, Larry L. Prentice Hall, 1995. ISBN
0-13331976-8.
"Great software doesn't come from tools, it comes from
people." Teamwork, project management, human-computer interaction, and more.
Effective Coaching
Cook, Marshall J. McGraw-Hill, 1999. ISBN 0-07-071864-4.
This is part of a line called "Briefcase Books": "Learn the 10 advantages of
good coaching"; "Acquire the 12 traits of an effective coach"; etc. This book is
a little formulaic and too focused on "supervisor as coach," but contains good
ideas nonetheless.
Peopleware: Productive People and Teams
(2/e)
DeMarco, Tom, and Timothy Lister. Dorset
House, 1999. ISBN 0-9326-3343-9.
Classic work describing what really affects
teams' performance: the people, the environment, and team chemistry.
Getting it Done: How to Lead When You're
Not in Charge
Fisher, Roger, and Alan Sharp.
HarperCollins, 1998. ISBN 0-88730-842-2.
"Lateral leadership." Purpose,
thinking, learning, engagement, and feedback, as tools for developing teams.
"Ask, offer, and do" as techniques for coaching.
Masterful Coaching Fieldbook
Hargrove, Robert. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000. ISBN
0-7879-4755-5.
Building relationships, stretch goals, and feedback;
teachable points of view. Takes somewhat of an executive coach or personal coach
viewpoint, but this doesn't overwhelm the general message.
Mentoring: The TAO of Giving and
Receiving Wisdom
Huang, Chungliang Al, and Jerry
Lynch. HarperCollins, 1995. ISBN 0-06-21520-1.
A wisdom book… A
poetic/artistic book you can come back to many times.
Building Trust: In Business, Politics,
Relationships, and Life
Solomon,Robert C., and
Fernando Flores. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-512685-8.
What it means
to establish trust, and the challenges of "self-trust" and "authentic" trust.
The Psychology of Computer Programming:
Silver Anniversary Edition
Weinberg, Gerald M.
Dorset House Publishing, 1998. ISBN 0-932633-42-0.
Characteristics of
programmers as individuals and in teams; egoless programming.
Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Getting
and Giving Advice Successfully
Weinberg, Gerald M.
Dorset House Publishing, 1985. ISBN 0-932633-01-3.
More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant's Tool
Kit
Weinberg, Gerald M. Dorset House Publishing,
2002. ISBN 0-932633-52-8.
Gentle ways to work with teams, and metaphors for
roles and aspects of consulting.
Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic
Problem-Solving Approach
Weinberg, Gerald M.
Dorset House Publishing, 1986. ISBN 0-932633-02-1.
Leadership, motivation,
organization, and transformation. Communication models. Congruence. Mastering
yourself as a step toward helping others.
Team Tools
The Inner Game of Work:
Focus, Learning, Pleasure, and Mobility in the Workplace
Gallwey, W. Timothy. Random House, 2000. ISBN
0-375-75817-8.
This applies the "inner game of tennis" to work in general.
Conversational tools and other tools for understanding yourself and others. A
couple quotes: "Coaching is an art that must be learned mostly from experience."
"I had to learn how to teach less, so more could be learned."
The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory
Decision-Making
Kaner, Sam, et al. New Society
Publishers, 1996. ISBN 0-86571-347-2.
Facilitation tools, advice on
meetings. Ways to build sustainable agreements. Ways to get others'
perspectives. Mechanisms for deciding.
Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for
Team Reviews
Kerth, Norman L. Dorset House
Publishing, 2001. ISBN 0-932633-44-7.
How to do end-of-project
retrospectives. There's a lot of time/concern about making sure people can feel
safe enough to contribute. It doesn't address "small" retrospectives per se but
some techniques can be adapted.
Software for Your Head: Core Protocols
for Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision
McCarthy, Jim, and Michele McCarthy. Addison-Wesley, 2001.
ISBN 0-201-60456-6.
Interesting. Uses facilitation techniques (e.g.,
consensus) and goal setting in a team-centered environment.
The Manager Pool: Patterns for Radical
Leadership
Olson, Don Sherwood, and Carol L.
Stimmel. Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-72583-5.
Patterns for managing software
teams. Keeping a team focused, what to do about overtime, creating a fun
environment, taking responsibility, and many others.
Improving Yourself
Intuition at
Work: Why Developing Your Gut Instincts Will Make You Better at What
You Do
Klein, Gary. Doubleday, 2002. ISBN
0385502885.
Suggests that intuition has an important role. He found that
expert firefighters used mental simulation to examine one option, rather than
systematically comparing a number of options. The book provides decision games
and other tools that can suggest ways to improve intuition.
Mastery: The Keys to Success and
Long-Term Fulfillment
Leonard, George. Plume
Books, 1991. ISBN 0-452-26756-0.
Keys to mastery; change and homeostasis;
energy; and pitfalls.
Software Craftsmanship: The New
Imperative
McBreen, Pete. Addison-Wesley, 2001.
ISBN 0-201-73386-2.
Software as a craft; professional growth through the
apprenticeship model of apprentice, journeyman, and master craftsman.
The Reflective Practitioner: How
Professionals Think In Action
Schön, Donald. Basic
Books, Inc., 1983. ISBN 0-465-06878-2.
Using "reflection-in-action" to help
face challenges; "design as a reflective conversation with the situation";
generative metaphors; the reflective stance.
Agile Methods & Techniques
Test-Driven Development: By Example
Beck, Kent. Addison Wesley Longman, 2000. ISBN
0-32114653-0.
An introduction to the test-driven approach to design.
Demonstrates the small cycle of "make the test fail, then make the test pass,
then refactor it clean."
Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace
Change
Beck, Kent. Addison Wesley Longman, 2000.
ISBN 0-201-61641-6.
The original XP book. Values and practices of XP. A good
place to start.
Agile Software Development
Cockburn, Alistair. Addison-Wesley, 2002. ISBN
0-201-69969-9.
Software development as a "cooperative game of invention and
communication," agility and self-adaptation, people, information radiators, and
the Crystal family of methodologies.
Agile Software Development
Ecosystems
Highsmith, Jim. Addison-Wesley, 2002.
ISBN 0-201-76043-6.
Agility, practices, people, collaboration, simplicity,
and adaptability. Overview of several of the agile methods, and interviews with
key figures in the agile arena.
Adventures
in C#
Jeffries, Ron. Microsoft Press, 2003.
How
XP's programming approach can help you learn a new language. Works its way
through a non-trivial application (an XML editor).
Extreme Programming Installed
Jeffries, Ron, Ann Anderson, and Chet Hendrickson.
Addison-Wesley, 2001. ISBN 0-201-70842-6.
XP from the perspective of members
of the first XP team. Circle of Life, steering, test first by intention, "we'll
try," how to estimate anything, and more.
Agile Software Development: Principles,
Patterns, and Practices
Martin, Robert C. Prentice
Hall, 2002. ISBN 0-13-597444-5.
An exposition of the agile manifesto, and a
dive into principles important to object-oriented programming, supported with
patterns and case studies.
Agile Software Development with
Scrum
Schwaber, Ken, and Mike Beedle. Prentice
Hall, 2002. ISBN 0-13-067634-9.
Scrum relies on a team self-organizing
around its goals. The Scrum approach: meet daily, use 30-day sprints, and manage
the backlog and the release. There is experience managing larger projects as
well. Scrum's values include commitment, focus, openness, respect, and courage.
Refactoring Workbook
Wake, William C. Addison-Wesley, 2003. ISBN 0-32110929-5.
Hands-on practice of refactoring. The first part is organized by "smell";
the last part consists of medium-sized programs to refactor.
Extreme Programming Explored
Wake, William C. Addison-Wesley, 2002. ISBN 0-201-73397-8.
XP: team practices, metaphors, planning games, and daily activities of
customers, programmers, and managers.
[Version of July, 2003.]
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