What to read to the project manager: books about personnel management, soft skills and DevOps
We at IT Guilds pay special attention to project management issues and help other companies implement tools that optimize work in IT departments.
Today we have put together some useful books for PMs. The selection includes literature, which is recommended for reading in thematic threads on Hacker News, Reddit and Quora.
/ Unsplash / Pj Accetturo
The book in a compact form provides the knowledge that the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) possess. And there is an opinion that it should have been called “MBA 101 for programmers,” since the material is useful not only for managers, but also for developers who want to learn the intricacies of PM’s work.
The book provides an opportunity to carry out reverse engineering of tasks performed by managers in order to better understand the reasons for their decisions. The author - entrepreneur Joe Owen (Jo Owen) - analyzes all these tasks on living examples, which he collected during an interview with two thousand managers of different "calibers".
The book will teach you how to manage both projects and the development team. It was written by consultant Brett Harned, who trained PMs at companies like Zappos, MTV, and Monotype. The author tells how to plan tasks and anticipate potential weaknesses in the development process even before they manifest. It also addresses the topic of soft skills and explains which ones need to be developed in the first place - and, most importantly, how to do it. Interestingly, at the end of each chapter there is a TL; DR section, which can be used as a checklist when working on your tasks.
The book was written by Michael Lopp (Michael Lopp) - a developer with twenty years of experience - he managed to work at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, Borland and Pinterest.
Michael discusses the problems that PM have to solve in the team of developers. Here are a few topics: how to work with lazy people, how to deal with "star" programmers, and how to bring a project to its logical conclusion with such a team. He illustrates the cases with stories from Silicon Valley and, if you like Michael's style, we recommend that you pay attention to one of his latest books, How to Manage Intellectuals , as an additional reading . I, nerds and geeks . "
This is a book devoted to the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) method , which is used to manage projects. The essence of the method is to identify key goals and 3-5 measurable parameters for assessing results. The goal is considered to be achieved if 70–75% of the established plan is completed in the allotted time period. Completed 100% of the task speaks of its insufficiently ambitious statement.
The developer of this method and former Intel employee, John Doerr, tells how to correctly formulate goals in the context of OKR and motivate the team to fulfill them. Bill Gates and, who would have thought, Bono also share their experiences using this method.
/ Unsplash / Lysander Yuen
First of all, the book is not focused on professional PMs, but on people with no experience, who sometimes have to manage small projects. One of its authors was Kory Kogon, who was responsible for the development of a series of international standards ISO 9000 , describing the provisions of the theory of total quality management ( TQM ). Therefore, under the cover you will find a large number of examples illustrating all stages of the project management process: from planning to monitoring and completion.
Readers note that most cases come from non-technical areas - for example, the launch of a new healthcare program in a hospital. However, the book uses official terminology from the Project Management Knowledge Base ( PMBOK ), which is being developed by the world-wide Project Management Institute (PMI). Therefore, the skills gained after reading the material can be applied in any field - even in software development.
Holacracy is one of those concepts that cause a lot of controversy. For example, it is used in Valve. How they do this is described in the 56-page Valve Employee Book . The book was appreciated by many people, including on Habré . In it you can find useful information about the organization of work processes.
But there are those who believe that there are more minuses than pluses in holacocracy. One resident at Hacker News noted that a lack of strict controls can lead to lower quality processes like customer service. He cited Valve 's poor technical support as an example. Anyway, in the Employee Book everyone will find something for themselves. It is up to you to decide which approaches to implement and which not.
This book is slightly different from the rest of the compilation. It can be attributed to the genre of fiction. She tells a story familiar to all PMs in the IT field: “A story about a project that goes beyond the budget and does not fit in time.” The hero of the book will have 90 days to solve all the problems. As you read, you, along with the main character, will learn how to use DevOps to connect with different departments of the company and build business processes in a development team. All practical recommendations are based on the experience of the authors - George Spafford, head of the Gartner research laboratory and Gene Kim, founder of Tripwire software development company.
Of course, it is impossible to cover all available materials on this topic within the framework of one article. Therefore, if you have favorite books that you think PM should read, share them in the comments.
Some materials for additional reading from our corporate blog:
Today we have put together some useful books for PMs. The selection includes literature, which is recommended for reading in thematic threads on Hacker News, Reddit and Quora.
/ Unsplash / Pj Accetturo
1. The Mobile MBA: 112 Skills to Take You Further, Faster
The book in a compact form provides the knowledge that the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) possess. And there is an opinion that it should have been called “MBA 101 for programmers,” since the material is useful not only for managers, but also for developers who want to learn the intricacies of PM’s work.
The book provides an opportunity to carry out reverse engineering of tasks performed by managers in order to better understand the reasons for their decisions. The author - entrepreneur Joe Owen (Jo Owen) - analyzes all these tasks on living examples, which he collected during an interview with two thousand managers of different "calibers".
2. Project Management for Humans: Helping People Get Things Done
The book will teach you how to manage both projects and the development team. It was written by consultant Brett Harned, who trained PMs at companies like Zappos, MTV, and Monotype. The author tells how to plan tasks and anticipate potential weaknesses in the development process even before they manifest. It also addresses the topic of soft skills and explains which ones need to be developed in the first place - and, most importantly, how to do it. Interestingly, at the end of each chapter there is a TL; DR section, which can be used as a checklist when working on your tasks.
3. Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager
The book was written by Michael Lopp (Michael Lopp) - a developer with twenty years of experience - he managed to work at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, Borland and Pinterest.
Michael discusses the problems that PM have to solve in the team of developers. Here are a few topics: how to work with lazy people, how to deal with "star" programmers, and how to bring a project to its logical conclusion with such a team. He illustrates the cases with stories from Silicon Valley and, if you like Michael's style, we recommend that you pay attention to one of his latest books, How to Manage Intellectuals , as an additional reading . I, nerds and geeks . "
4. “Measure the most important: how Google, Intel and other companies achieve growth with OKR”
This is a book devoted to the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) method , which is used to manage projects. The essence of the method is to identify key goals and 3-5 measurable parameters for assessing results. The goal is considered to be achieved if 70–75% of the established plan is completed in the allotted time period. Completed 100% of the task speaks of its insufficiently ambitious statement.
The developer of this method and former Intel employee, John Doerr, tells how to correctly formulate goals in the context of OKR and motivate the team to fulfill them. Bill Gates and, who would have thought, Bono also share their experiences using this method.
/ Unsplash / Lysander Yuen
5. Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager
First of all, the book is not focused on professional PMs, but on people with no experience, who sometimes have to manage small projects. One of its authors was Kory Kogon, who was responsible for the development of a series of international standards ISO 9000 , describing the provisions of the theory of total quality management ( TQM ). Therefore, under the cover you will find a large number of examples illustrating all stages of the project management process: from planning to monitoring and completion.
Readers note that most cases come from non-technical areas - for example, the launch of a new healthcare program in a hospital. However, the book uses official terminology from the Project Management Knowledge Base ( PMBOK ), which is being developed by the world-wide Project Management Institute (PMI). Therefore, the skills gained after reading the material can be applied in any field - even in software development.
6. Valve Employee Book
Holacracy is one of those concepts that cause a lot of controversy. For example, it is used in Valve. How they do this is described in the 56-page Valve Employee Book . The book was appreciated by many people, including on Habré . In it you can find useful information about the organization of work processes.
But there are those who believe that there are more minuses than pluses in holacocracy. One resident at Hacker News noted that a lack of strict controls can lead to lower quality processes like customer service. He cited Valve 's poor technical support as an example. Anyway, in the Employee Book everyone will find something for themselves. It is up to you to decide which approaches to implement and which not.
7. “The Phoenix Project. A novel about how DevOps is changing the business for the better "
This book is slightly different from the rest of the compilation. It can be attributed to the genre of fiction. She tells a story familiar to all PMs in the IT field: “A story about a project that goes beyond the budget and does not fit in time.” The hero of the book will have 90 days to solve all the problems. As you read, you, along with the main character, will learn how to use DevOps to connect with different departments of the company and build business processes in a development team. All practical recommendations are based on the experience of the authors - George Spafford, head of the Gartner research laboratory and Gene Kim, founder of Tripwire software development company.
Of course, it is impossible to cover all available materials on this topic within the framework of one article. Therefore, if you have favorite books that you think PM should read, share them in the comments.
Some materials for additional reading from our corporate blog:
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