Software, musings, and life
The good news is that I won the blogging contest that was tied to the recent conference. Yay! Now I just need to carve out a huge block of time to read through these 12 great books.
This may take a while...
I’ll tackle the first 3 in order, most likely. After that, I’ll see what looks the most interesting at the time.
I didn’t get around to writing this weekend, but to keep my semi-regular post streak going I’m going to do a relatively easy entry. I’ll be following up with the rest of my Much Ado About Agile VI posts shortly.
After last year’s Agile Vancouver conference, I wrote about my to-read list, books that were either written by presenters or featured prominently in presentations. How did I do with getting through this list? Let’s see.
First up, books I didn’t read:
No particular reason that I didn’t read these, they just haven’t bubbled to the top of my list. The Fifth Discipline is seemingly a fixture on my to-read list, so that should probably be the one (from these three) that I get to soonest.
And now, the books I read, with a short summary of my thoughts.
The meat of this book is written in the style of patterns, much like Design Patterns, or the original, A Pattern Language. It presents a framework for introducing change into organizations, and its’ smart writing and non-linear style had my flipping between sections for hours at a time – this is this style of book that would thrive as a Wiki. I can’t say that I’ve used any of the techniques knowingly since I read the book, but that’s primarily because I haven’t tried to drive any widespread organizational change in the last year. The next time I try, I’ll be laying out a game plan based on this material.
Focused on moving retrospectives away from dull conversations about what did and didn’t work, this book is a quick read. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success in applying the suggestions in this book. I’m not sure if it’s because of team dynamics, or my inability to successfully implement the approach, but I find that whenever I try to make use of one of the activities it falls flat. Perhaps it’s just a habit thing – do it a few times and it will get easier. I haven’t given up yet, so I may yet post again on the subject.
Nothing really groundbreaking here, but it is a good starter for anyone looking to go into management, and a reference for those of us already in the role. Much of it I see as common sense, but that’s speaking as someone with 3 years experience managing a team where I know everyone and am quite familiar with the way the organization works. Side note – I had this in my backpack during this year’s conference, and happened to see Esther Derby and Johanna Rothman standing next to each other after Johanna’s keynote, so I now have a signed copy 
So, I read 50% of the books – that’s not too terrible, given that I’ve read a ton of other books in the last year. One thing that I didn’t adopt was the SQR3 method, which is unfortunate – I find that I’m doing a lot of reading, but my recall and long-term understanding is not where it could be. Re-reading last year’s post (and thus rediscovering SQR3), and listening to the recent Manager Tools podcast on How to Read a Book has me committed to improving my reading style. Marking notes in the margin may be difficult with ebooks (I love my new Kindle), but that’s no excuse – either through the Kindle’s notation interface, or through hand-written notes in a notebook, I’ve resolved to improve my non-fiction reading.
My team has recently adjusted some of its process to adapt to changes in our organization, and I thought that this was a good chance to get on a regular retrospective schedule. As a team, we are very good at communicating, and we are constantly reflecting on successes and failures. Because we address most issues in real-time, weekly (then bi-weekly, then monthly, then occasional) retrospectives became relatively quick, limited-value rehashes of the tired old “What Worked / What Didn’t Work / Actions required” formula. If we were going to start doing retrospectives more often, I wanted to make sure that we were getting something out of them.
Chatting with Esther Derby at the recent Agile Vancouver conference, and seeing her present, made me quite interested in her books. There’s been a copy of Agile Retrospectives sitting around the office that I had skimmed a few times over the years, but now that I was intent on improving my team’s retrospectives I sat down and read it cover to cover. It’s a great book with many sample exercises that have proven effective for a variety of teams, but it’s probably the psychological and sociological theories and general frameworks for group learning that I found the most interesting.
Our first of the “new” retrospectives was on Tuesday of this week, and I think it could be considered a success based on the feedback I’ve received. It was great to see that, despite some relatively major changes in focus for us, the team is generally on the same page with respect to how were are working together. We came up with a few explicit actions, but my primary goal for this retrospective was to get a baseline of the team with respect to their thoughts on the current project, adherence to team values (which we defined), and general team satisfaction.
We’re definitely going to maintain our current practice of doing immediate retrospectives, root cause analysis, and other corrective techniques, as it’s working well for us. I think these new retrospectives will be a chance to look at things at a higher level, measure trends, and ensure that the team is still aligned with the company and with each other.
After seeing the pile of books I want to read grow and grow, while not actually reading anything due to indecision of what to start next, I’ve decided to implement a reading kanban. I’ve never really used a personal kanban, but I thought that having the titles I want to read laid out in front of me (sorted by category) could spur me to action.
To start out, I think I’ll have allow myself to have three titles in progress – one fiction book, and two books out of the three categories of technical, business, and personal growth. I’m already well into a personal growth book (How to See Yourself As You Really Are), and I’m just starting a business book (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team). I have a raft of technical and business books to choose from, but limiting my WIP will ensure that I actual finish some of them. I only have 2 or 3 fiction books that I’m considering, so I’m less concerned with burning through those.
I’ll try to write up my thoughts on any books I find particularly interesting, and will also try to report back in a few months to see how the book kanban is going.
More than any other conference I’ve been to, this year’s Much Ado About Agile conference has left me with a pile of books that I want to read. I’ve actually put off reading a few career-related books recently because I’ve felt that the information isn’t sticking, but I’m going to try out the SQR3 method (as mentioned in Declan Whelan’s presentation) to see if I can up the retention level.
Here’s the list of books that I wrote down as “must-haves” – if you were a presenter at the conference and don’t see your book here, it’s probably because I didn’t attend your session!
The Fifth Discipline wasn’t written by a presenter, but was mentioned by several. It’s been on my “to-read” list for a while, but being called out as a wonderful reference on both systems thinking and organizational learning means that I’m going to actually suck it up and get a copy.
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