Books for Work

This is a collection of books I've read that I have found useful in the context of work.

Wrong Way

Wrong Way by Joanne McNeil is about Teresa, a young woman who bounces between short time gigs until one day she lands a role at AllOver, a Meta/Google/Amazon parody that is launching a self-driving car service. However, the claims of how it works vs. how is actually does are vastly different. Teresa finds herself in a "good job" that slowly strips more and more of her humanity from her.

Over the course of the week that I was listening to this audiobook, I was caught in a layoff round at my then-employer. I think it's stuck with me a lot more because of that experience. However, I do find its perspective on how work can both give purpose and be completely dehumanizing to be insightful.

The Phoenix Project

The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford is a book about organizing software projects told in the format of a YA novel. The sequel The Unicorn Project is more dev focused, and both have good insights on the craft, and how to tie business value to engineering concerns.

This book introduces the basics of Lean software methodology in an accessible way. As a reader, we follow the protagonist Bill Palmer as he's thrown into a leadership position and is handed responsibility for delivering a hopelessly behind schedule and over budget project meant to turn his company around. He's mentored by an eccentric board member Erik Reid, who walks him through several relevant strategies that allow him to empower his team to identify what and how to shape their work to ultimately deliver something of worth.

Trusted Advisor

This was a popular book at a consulting shop I worked at in the 2010's. This book, written by David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford, focuses largely on how to work with people to build long-lasting relationships built on trust.

To be honest, I need to reread this one. I read through it once as part of a book club at work, but I don't recall any of the specific advice beyond things that feel obvious in building trust like listening to what the other person is saying, and finding ways to be a person that people can rely upon for advice.

Resilient Management

Resilient Management by Lara Hogan is a great overall book about how to set up a practice in people management. This book has tons of good advice on mentoring and growing the people on a technical team, as well as valuable insight on how to survive in periods of crisis in an organization.