Recommended Readings
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
I came to this book through Greg's podcast, which I found through Cal Newport's podcast, and by the time I got to it, I'd already listened to a fair bit of Greg's content. I was intrigued by the idea of Essentialism. It has a nice dovetail with the Deep Work concept that Cal Newport is (in)famous for. The core tenet of Greg's Essentialism philosophy is "less but better", which I really liked. I liked the "less but better" concept, I liked the bits about effortless execution, and I liked the bits about using routine, habits and their triggers. However, as I turned each page and nodded my head I kept thinking "Yup, this is good, but give me more substance". As I got near the end of the book I sat back and contemplated what I'd read, how I'd apply it to my life and teams. At that point, while I felt that the book was a worthwhile read, I wasn't sure I was going to add it to my recommended reading list. And then... And then I got to the final chapter which is geared for leaders in organizations! It's excellent and I wish there was a whole book dedicated to that. However, that chapter wouldn't have been as good or made as much sense without the concepts in the first parts of the book. So, my recommendation is, if you lead people and are interested in high-performing teams you should read it—the whole thing.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
I almost didn't include this book in the list because I initially found it depressing and demotivating because of the focus on BIG successes and creating a company 10 times better than its next competitor. The seemingly insurmountable and unlikely convergence of a 10x idea, with someone with the drive and belief to build a successful company, AND having excellent execution to accomplish it, initially put me off it. However, once I put all that into a box on the shelf and focused on what he was saying, it was inspirational. My inner contrarian was certainly gleeful at parts of the book and revealed in the idea of: yes, but what if... I found the sections about history, globalization, and definite vs indefinite optimism interesting. I also found his insights on startups, small companies, and the last-mover advantage interesting and insightful. In particular, this quote resonated with me: > "A new company's most important strength is new thinking: even more important than nimbleness, small size affords space to think." If you're interested in business, startups, or starting a business, it's worth a read.
The Joy of UX
A good (re)introduction to usability and user experience. I found the concept of personas a good tool to help define the user experience. The 10 commandments in chapter seven are good guidelines for designing a user-centric interface. The chapter on telemetry has a reasonably good explanation of what metrics to collect. There is also a brief discussion of the number of users that are required to run a good usability test and it was much lower than I expected. The author suggests that 3 test users are a reasonable minimum number. Finally, the two case studies tie the concepts together using real-world examples using the various techniques.
Peopleware - Productive Projects and Teams
This was one of the first books I read when I started managing a team and I can't recommend it enough. Peopleware is one of those books that you hear referenced over and over in our industry and it's for good reason. It reinforced the hazy, roughly-defined idea of what type of manager I wanted to be, and provided a solid basis for what made a good team work effectively, productively and happily together. I still pull it off my shelf periodically for a refresher.
The Year Without Pants
The Year Without Pants is a humorous insight into how Automattic runs, from a new team lead's perspective. It's a great read for anyone interested in Automattic's unconventional, effective and distributed management philosphy. Actually, it's a pretty great read for anyone, but I think it'll be most appreciated by software folks. This book really reinforced my belief that remote teams are the future and that being a remote team doesn't mean sacrificing relationships, collaboration or company culture.