Learning never stops
One of the greatest pleasures in life as I get older is to learn. And I love how the lessons you learn can apply to so many parts of your life. Pep Confidential, a book on Pep Guardiola’s time at Bayern Munich gave such amazing insight into the strategy and tactics employed by the great man. It also has lessons in leadership and strategy and planning. I will try to write a blog post highlighting the lessons from that book that I take into my role. This can apply to history books and science videos and political commentators.
Now, I could keep all those insights to myself but I thought that would be selfish. So this is a (growing) list of resources that I found useful that may be of use to you too. Worth noting, the books point to affiliate links at http://uk.bookshop.org, which supports independent booksellers. These are obviously available as eBooks and most also available as audiobooks (one of my favourite ways to “read” these days).
Books
Legacy by James Kerr - this is a book about the most successful team in sport. The New Zealand All Blacks. But it isn’t really about the sport but about the lessons that can be taken from them in how they became the best. It chapter begins with short statements that highlight a key aspect of the All Black way. One of my favourites is
BE A GOOD ANCESTOR Plant trees you’ll never see
Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein - this book surprised me in the impact it had. The premise of this book is a bit of an antidote of the 10,000 hours of doing something to become an expert. Range focuses on the idea that diversity of experience is a key element of many high achievers. It has had an impact on how I approach my learnings to being more varied.
Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth - I came across OKRs while working with Equal Experts. Fairly neutral to them at the time but thought I would read up about them and understand more. This is written by one of the disciples of the creator of OKRs, Andy Grove at Intel. I’ve come to like OKRs as a tool to strive for excellence, but even if you don’t use them, there are many excellent management and leadership and business lessons to be taken out of them.
REST in Practice: Hypermedia and Systems Architecture - This is the first techie book on the list and undoubtedly one of the best I have read. While it is ostensibly about REST, some of the lessons that are gained out of it are good architectural practice. It’s written in a highly readable manner and works as an excellent reference material. Should be on the reading list of any good architect.
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and Devops: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations - Not sure there is a book on this list that I reference as often or quote as much. This book is about the science and approach taken to produce the State of DevOps report by DORA (now part of Google). It gives huge backing to some of the practices we advocate. A book useful for devs and execs alike.
Building Evolutionary Architectures - One of many from the Thoughtworks stable of writers, this is a very good resource to reference. Includes some excellent tips, such as fitness functions and internal versioning.
