Exploring Extreme Programming
User Stories Applied, Mike Cohn. Addison-Wesley, 2004. This book is all about user stories, focused on the XP-style customer or the Scrum-style product owner (although programmers and others should know this material as well). Mike describes what stories are, how Continue reading Review – User Stories Applied
Leadership is an Art, by Max DePree. This is a thin “inspirational” book (you have to be in a certain mood), written by the CEO of Herman Miller (the furniture company). You can read it in a sitting, but it’s Continue reading Review – Leadership is an Art
Agile Management for Software Engineering, David J. Anderson. Prentice Hall, 2004. This book applies throughput accounting to software development. (This approach originated in Theory of Constraints and fits with lean manufacturing) Throughput accounting focuses on the rate of sales as Continue reading Review – Agile Management
Self-Working Handkerchief Magic, Karl Fulves. Dover Press, 1988. Fulves has a number of collections of simple magic tricks. I enjoy playing with some of them even though I’d never perform them for others. My interest in origami stretches to cloth Continue reading Review – Self-Working Handkerchief Magic
Ant, The Definitive Guide, by Jesse Tilly & Eric M. Burke. O’Reilly, 2002. ISBN 0-596-00184-3. This is a classic O’Reilly animal book showing – what else? – a horned lizard on the cover. But it’s classic member of the series Continue reading Review – Ant
Radical Project Management, by Rob Thomsett. Prentice Hall, 2002. I don’t know why the title says “Radical”, as throughout the book it’s “eXtreme Project Management.” Thomsett develops a project management approach that considers value throughout the project’s whole life cycle. Continue reading Review – Radical Project Management
The Knowledge-Creating Company, by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi. Oxford University Press, This book describes how organizations can use the dynamics of knowledge creation; I’ve created an extended description and discussion as an XPlorations article. (Reviewed Feb., ’04)
DSDM: Business Focused Development, 2/e, by the DSDM Consortium, edited by Jennifer Stapleton. Addison-Wesley, 2003. DSDM is an agile software method. It grew out of experience with RAD (Rapid Application Development) in the mid-1990s. Its focus is most heavy on Continue reading Review – DSDM
Hidden Order, John H. Holland. Addison-Wesley, 1995. This is a readable and interesting introduction to Holland’s approach to complex adaptive systems. It touches on agents and emergence, and considers models that are being designed and built in software. The clarity Continue reading Review – Hidden Order
Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. Cambridge University Press, 1991. Learning is a social activity, not a pouring of knowledge from one person to another. The thesis of this book is that when people want to Continue reading Review – Situated Learning