Book review

Lean methodologies, DevOps, small cycles, CI/CD, no overtime, freedom, quality, culture, sustainable work… cool stuff. A lot of people talk about them in positive terms but Nicole Forsgrem, Jez Humble and Gene Kim decided to go one step further: demonstrate that these things work.

Rafael Gómez Blanes wrote this amazing book that I think is a must for all developers and managers in the IT world. His experiece in the Software Development world is the key he uses to highlight what works and what does not. It’s a book that touches almost all or perhaps all the parts of Software Development Culture the way I see it.

For me, if there is a book where trying to highlight just a few quotes is difficult, this is the book. I think it is also the book that I have recommended the most to friends and colleagues.

Sarah Drasner wrote this marvelous book about technical team manager role.

It is a fact that most of us started leading by accident. We studied to be the best technicians and, suddenly, one day we find ourselves leading a team. And no one probably has ever told us about people, communication and so many other things necessary to do it well. If this is your case, read Sarah’s book. If it is not, if you are not a manager, even if you never want to be a manager… read it anyway. We should all know what a good manager does.

Ok, I’ve cheated here: it’s not one book but two. But written by the same guys, following a similar philosophy and they are very easy to read with big typeface and lots of great art. Actually they have some other cool books.

Jason Fried and David H. Hansson work at 37signals, a software company where the culture is very important and special. They are pioneers working remotely and they encourage their people to work smart, in a calm environment, at a sustainable pace, promoting respect for their lifes from work. They go against growth as a measure of a company’s success.

I really love these 2 books.

Organizations are effective only to the extent that all their workers are totally and eternally busy. Written by Tom DeMarco more than 20 years ago, this book fights again this idea. Companies need workers with "slack", with gaps of freedom in their they by day. These gaps will allow your company to change, improve, reinvent and grow.