Writer of The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter and books on software engineering careers; previously an engineering manager at Uber, Skype and Skyscanner.
loved
Written in the '80s, yet a timeless novel on what management is about, may that be a manager of a team, an organization or an industrial plant.
His continuously-updated public reading list of software engineering and management books, newsletters and podcasts he recommends (page last modified 2024-12-16; the page states none of the links are affiliate or sponsored).
Founder and CEO of Get Lighthouse, a management-coaching software company; former product lead at KISSmetrics who writes about leadership and product management.
likedaffiliate link
If you're tired of the average business book following the Lesson – Case Study – Lesson – Case Study format, this book is a breath of fresh air. It's a novel that talks about how a guy turned around a factory and saved his marriage. It's a bit longer than I'd like, but it was a nice change of pace. However, the main lesson is simple: focus on your company's goal of making money and fix your bottlenecks.
His continuously-updated books page, where every book he reads gets a 1-10 rating and a "Why Read it" note; the book links carry his Amazon affiliate tag. The page carries no publication date for individual entries — its own metadata gives article:published_time 2012-12-16 and article:modified_time 2020-10-28, and books were added across that whole span. (undated page)
Strategy writer and Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, where he was Dean from 1998 to 2013; co-author with A.G. Lafley of Playing to Win.
disliked
The bad news is that at the time of the writing of the book — and more so now, 40 years later — there was absolutely nothing new in these two conceptual insights.
Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights piece assessing a popular strategy book against Playing to Win
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