Book Backlog

November 25th, 2009 Jason Leave a comment Go to comments

Currently Reading: Collaboration Explained by Jean Tabaka

I’m only through the first chapter but I wanted to read this book to help teams collaborate better.  I find that sometimes I’m missing the tools and techniques to prevent teams from ’spinning’ sometimes so my goal is to learn how to handle these situations plus help myself become a better facilitator and help teams collaborate better.

Recently Read: What Type am I? by Renee Baron

I discovered I am INTP personality type.  This book helped me understand the 16 different personality types and 4 temperaments.  I felt this was important at this stage of my career because it has helped me understand, on a basic level, why people act the way they do.  I have found that this has helped me in daily life by giving me better communication skills now that I understand a bit more about personalities.  I plan to read this again and want to be able to recognize patterns in individuals so I can be a more effective coach and communicator.

What’s on the Backlog?

  1. Agile Coaching by Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley:  This book has had great reviews and I’m interesting in learning new coaching techniques.
  2. Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn:  All of Mike’s books are just freaking awesome, I expect this one to be no different.
  3. Agile Java by Jeff Langr:  This one has been slipping and slipping.  I started it a couple of months ago but it’s more out of interest and for being able to work better with the teams I’m engaged with now.  I’m not really passionate about it which is why it keeps slipping but this is a GREAT book for anyone wanting to learn Java using TDD approach.
  4. Are Your Lights On? by Gerald Weinberg and Donald Gause: This was recommended at AYE this year and it’s about being aware enough to find out what the real problem is.  This will probably get bumped above Agile Java.

There are many more on the list, but this backlog is enough to keep me busy until January.  I estimate I can read about 100 pages per week tops given my current schedule.  All are relatively short compared to Agile Java so it’ll likely get bumped.