Books for Coaches

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.]