Books for novice executives or why reading is so important
Any person who wants to become a specialist in their field should read professional literature. It doesn't matter who he is: a testing engineer, programmer or manager. Obtaining book knowledge is especially important for managers of any level.
Imagine, a programmer can play around with his local code, come up with any architecture and rewrite it several times, run untested code for compilation and get a lot of Achtungs from the compiler. It is a business manager who works with people and has no right to make mistakes. He can not experiment: try one approach, get stuck and roll back in a relationship with a person back. Although some managers are constantly throwing away such experiments.
Lately, beginning Tmlids and product managers often address me with questions: what to read about management? What to read on the topic of planning? What to read about risk management?
I read and read quite a lot of books. I write down the good books that I liked and then recommend. I decided to make a small selection of must have books that every novice supervisor should read. One of the requirements for these books to be not only useful, but also interesting. Books should interest a person to develop in management, in no case demotivate.
No sooner said than done. I have a list of 47 books! Mdaaa, I thought, probably this is too much and may scare a beginner - I reduced this list about 2 times. Then I thought and ... shortened the list two more times. Total, below is a list of books that I would recommend to novice managers and in general to everyone who is interested in the IT field.
We start with easy and exciting books:
We continue reading books on the development of soft skills, time management and leadership:
In this place, if the topic of management is still interesting, and you have not returned to programming, you can proceed to reading more thorough books:
If you have read all these books, understood them and started to put them into practice, you will be able to look for books on your interests, depending on what exactly you are hooked on and what you want to develop in yourself.
A little advice on how to read books. Take notes when reading a book. For example, I read through an e-book and in the course of reading I single out interesting and catching thoughts. Further, the notes fall into a single file, which I periodically re-read - this is the best way to keep in memory the most important parts of the books read. It helps me to remember interesting ideas, inspires me and energizes. Write and re-read , because the comprehension of what you read is the key point, and it should not stop once you have finished reading the book.
And, finally, the last tip: read along with professional literature artistic books . Fiction shows the world from a new point of view, makes you look at everything through a new lens, helps to discover new ideas. In fiction, a lot of attention is paid to the motivation of heroes, analysis of their behavior, and their interaction. Due to this, you develop your own skills of interacting with other people, learn to put yourself in the shoes of others and treat them with understanding.
Have a good reading and great books!
Imagine, a programmer can play around with his local code, come up with any architecture and rewrite it several times, run untested code for compilation and get a lot of Achtungs from the compiler. It is a business manager who works with people and has no right to make mistakes. He can not experiment: try one approach, get stuck and roll back in a relationship with a person back. Although some managers are constantly throwing away such experiments.
Lately, beginning Tmlids and product managers often address me with questions: what to read about management? What to read on the topic of planning? What to read about risk management?
I read and read quite a lot of books. I write down the good books that I liked and then recommend. I decided to make a small selection of must have books that every novice supervisor should read. One of the requirements for these books to be not only useful, but also interesting. Books should interest a person to develop in management, in no case demotivate.
No sooner said than done. I have a list of 47 books! Mdaaa, I thought, probably this is too much and may scare a beginner - I reduced this list about 2 times. Then I thought and ... shortened the list two more times. Total, below is a list of books that I would recommend to novice managers and in general to everyone who is interested in the IT field.
We start with easy and exciting books:
- Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister “The human factor. Successful projects and teams »
- Jason Fried, David Heinmeyer Hansson " Getting Real "
- Jason Fried, David Heinmeyer Hansson " Rework: Business without prejudice "
- Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford "Project" Phoenix ". A novel about how DevOps is changing business for the better. ”
We continue reading books on the development of soft skills, time management and leadership:
- Stephen R. Covey “The Seven Skills of Highly Effective People. Powerful personal development tools "
- Timothy Ferris " How to work 4 hours a week and at the same time not hang around in the office" from call to call, live anywhere and get rich "
- Dale Carnegie " How to make friends and influence people "
- Itzhak Adizes “ Development of leaders. How to understand your management style and communicate effectively with carriers of other styles. ”
In this place, if the topic of management is still interesting, and you have not returned to programming, you can proceed to reading more thorough books:
- Frederick Brooks, Hill Chapel " Mythical Man-Month, or How Software Systems are Created "
- Steve McConnell " How much does a software project cost ?"
- Timothy Lister, Tom DeMarco " Waltzing with the Bears: Risk Management in Software Development Projects "
- Sergey Arkhipenkov " Lectures on the management of software projects "
- Sergey Arkhipenkov “ Management of the software development team. Applied thought "
If you have read all these books, understood them and started to put them into practice, you will be able to look for books on your interests, depending on what exactly you are hooked on and what you want to develop in yourself.
A little advice on how to read books. Take notes when reading a book. For example, I read through an e-book and in the course of reading I single out interesting and catching thoughts. Further, the notes fall into a single file, which I periodically re-read - this is the best way to keep in memory the most important parts of the books read. It helps me to remember interesting ideas, inspires me and energizes. Write and re-read , because the comprehension of what you read is the key point, and it should not stop once you have finished reading the book.
And, finally, the last tip: read along with professional literature artistic books . Fiction shows the world from a new point of view, makes you look at everything through a new lens, helps to discover new ideas. In fiction, a lot of attention is paid to the motivation of heroes, analysis of their behavior, and their interaction. Due to this, you develop your own skills of interacting with other people, learn to put yourself in the shoes of others and treat them with understanding.
Have a good reading and great books!