books

How I write books (my new book)

Regular readers will know I write books – quite a few by now, it gets embarrassing.

Being an author is a great conversation starter, when people hear you’ve written a book or two they want to know more – everyone seems to have a dream of writing their own book. It also means that people seek me out to ask my advice about a book they are writing, or thinking about writing.

So, I’ve started to write down all the advice I give to people in a new book – How I write books.

I’m following my usual pattern so you can buy early versions on LeanPub now – I released it last week and it immediately sold a few copies. As usual at this stage everything is in a state of flux; spelling, punctuation, grammar and all that jazz will be fixed later. Of course, anyone buying now will get free updates as they become available all the way to the final version.

If you do buy, then please let me know what you think.


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Agile OKRs extra – yet another book

I blogged last week that I had begun work on a new book – How I Write Books which is now a work in progress at LeanPub – signup and be the first to know when the draft is published.

Well a funny thing happened while I was setting up my tool chain to write that book: I found another book! Well, perhaps half a book is a better description.

Succeeding with OKRs in Agile Extra is a companion to last year’s best seller, Succeeding with OKRs in Agile. But it isn’t a complete book in its own right, it isn’t really a sequel, it is a companion. It contains a mix of material. Material which didn’t really fit in the first book, material with was’t needed, ideas which didn’t develop far enough and some unfinished chapters.

As such it is like my Xanpan Appendix, unused material which is still interesting and might appear elsewhere in time.

I really want to work on How I write books so I don’t have any immediate plans to progress extra. If you enjoyed Succeeding with OKRs in Agile, if you would like to know more, or if you would like to just see how a writer’s mind works check out Succeeding with OKRs in Agile Extra.

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How I write books – A book about books

In the last 15 years I’ve written and published 3 books with publishers, published 5 books myself, plus edited one conference proceedings and pushed out three “mini books” (one with 3 editions) which I never publicised.

In addition I’ve contributed forwards and chapters to at least six books and had two books translated.

Then there are countless magazine and journal articles but they stretch back further, closer to 25 years – and this blog from 2005.

Not bad for a kid who was thrown out of school after asking a teacher how to spell “at” – age of eight, a diagnosed dyslexic who had to learn to read three times – I can’t read my own handwriting its so bad.

As a result I’ve learned a lot about writing and publishing. In the last few years I’ve spoken to many people who want to know how to write and publish their own book. A couple of years ago Steve Smith suggested I write a book about writing books. I’ve been avoiding that until this month.

Now I’ve started: How I write books, https://leanpub.com/howIwrite – sign-up to be the first to known when the MVP is published. And if there is anything you would like me to write about in the book please let me know.

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Top agile books which aren’t about agile or software

Christmas is almost here and the end of the year is nye. That means it is time for newspapers and journals to start publishing “Top books of the year” lists and “Christmas recommendations.” So, prompted by a recent thread on LinkedIn I thought I’d offer up my own book list: top books for agile folk from outside of agile (and software).

That is: books which are not explicitly about agile (or software development) but which contain a valuable message, and possibly techniques for those wanting to expand their knowledge of, well, agile.

Most of the books I’m about to list address philosophical, or mindset, underpinnings of agile: how to think in an agile way, rather than “how to do agile.” That might disappoint but think about it, how could a book from outside agile tell you how to do agile?

Well, actually, there are three which do.

First The Goal: written in the style of a novel this book explores the theory of constraints and elementary queuing theory, without mentioning either by name. Since it is written as a novel – with characters and back story! – this is an easy read. But please, don’t judge it as a novel, judge it for the message inside.

Next up is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: I blogged a few months ago how these habits could also underpin a team working style. Whether you read this for yourself or with an eye on your team this book does contain actionable advice – and some ideas on how to think. It can be a bit of a cringe in places and I’m not sure I agree with all the ideas but it is still a worthwhile read.

Finally in this section is a book at the opposite end of readability: Factory Physics.

Make no mistake this is a text book so it sets out to teach and can be hard going in places – there are plenty of equations. But, if it is a solid grounding in queuing theory, variability, lead times and the like you want then this is the book to go to. In fact, it might be the only book.

That is it for hands on books which will tell you how to do things on Monday morning. The books which are ones I consider “philosophy” – how to think. Thats my way of putting it, a more popular way of putting it is: Mindset. These are books which have shaped my thinking, my mindset, and as such underpin my approach to all things agile – and more!

First here is The Fifth Discipline. This may be the founding text in the field of organizaional learning, ultimately all agile learning and applying that learning. The “learning view” underpinned my own first book and that still fundamentally shapes my approach to working with individuals, teams and companies.

My next choice continues the organizational learning theme and is the source of perhaps the most famous quote from the that field:

“We understand that the only competitive advantage the company of the future will have is its managers’ ability to learn faster than then their competitors.”

The Living Company presents an alternative view of companies and organizations: rather than being rational profit maximising entities this book encourages you to see companies as living organisms. As such the organizations true goal is to live and continue living. Trade, and even profit, is simply a means to an end. And like all successful living things companies must learn and adapt, those that don’t will die.

Living Company is not alone in presenting an alternative narrative of how companies work. My penultimate book presents an alternative view of that most sacred of management practices: strategy.

The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning is a major work that not only charts the historical rise of strategic planning and the subsequent fall it also present an alternative view of what strategy is and how companies come by strategies: strategy is a consistent pattern of behaviour, strategy is part plan but is also emergent and changes in respect to what happens. Strategy claims to be forward looking but is equally retrospective, strategy offers a story to link past events together.

Along the way Rise and Fall accidentally explains where the waterfall comes from (Robert McNamara), how planning is controlling and why even with almost unlimited resources (GE and Gosplan) the best attempts at planning have failed. If you harbour any ambition to implement Scrum at the corporate level make sure you read this book.

All the books above are over 10 years old and had I written this list 10 years ago it would probably be the same. But two years ago I read Grow the Pie, this advances the discussion of why companies exist and how to be a successful company – the secret is to have purpose and benefit society. Written before the pandemic it is now more relevant than ever. Again it isn’t an easy read but it pays back in thoroughness of argument and reasoning. And if for no other reason, read Grow the Pie to really understand what constitutes value.

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