Need to know more about a concept? To open up to new working approaches or be inspired?
Discover the book selection especially curated by our experts! Whether you are an agile coach, scrum master, or product manager, or are more tech-craftsmanship-oriented, you will undoubtedly find essential references here with which to complete your library.
Agile Coach: 3 essential books
1. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization – Peter Senge
In this new edition of this great management classic (already around for over 25 years!), Peter Senge proves that the systemic approach is more than ever at the heart of business news.
A professor at MIT and author recognised for his books on management, leadership and education, in this book Peter Senge emphasises the importance of developing your ability to learn faster than the competition. At the centre of his thinking: deconstructing our tendency to split up problems (integrated from childhood) instead of considering them as a whole.
A particularly relevant approach to adopt as part of an agile approach.
2. Turn the Ship Around – L. David Marquet and Stephen R Covey
A former Navy captain, David Marquet commanded the nuclear attack submarine USS Santa Fe from 1999 to 2001. It was when he realised that his crew were following orders without questioning them, even when they were impossible to follow, that he decided to radically change the way he led his troops. His approach consisted in waking up the leader lying dormant in each of his collaborators, to create a work environment where everyone takes responsibility for their actions. Result: the USS Santa Fe went from the worst submarine in its fleet, to the most efficient!
The lessons he learned from this experience are invaluable in any work setting, and especially in stressful professional environments, where teams work under pressure. It’s clear to see why this first book quickly became a reference in team management.
3. Management 3.0 – Jurgen Appelo
A true bible for understanding how agile organisations and teams work, Management 3.0 introduces a realistic approach to leading, managing and developing an agile team or organisation.
Jurgen Appelo also takes advantage of this book to give concrete keys and practical tools to empower his readers in solving problems they may encounter.
If you are looking for a pragmatic book, to develop the commitment of your teams, to make them more active, creative, innovative and motivated, while keeping in sight alignment with the company’s objectives: Management 3.0 is for you!
Product Management: our book selection
1. Sprint – Jake Knapp
Sprint is the reference book on design sprint: this creative process developed and popularised by Jake Knapp, in particular, was born between 2010 and 2016 while he was working as a project designer at Google Ventures.
This innovative methodology has become essential to quickly assess the potential and relevance of an idea or a project. It is also applicable to large international groups as well as to very small structures.
To absorb the essence of the design sprint, there is nothing more effective than reading what its creator has to say about it, who in this book carefully details each step of the process.
2. INSPIRED, How to create tech products customers love – Marty Cagan
Marty Cagan is one of the product management’s spiritual leaders: he is one of the architects of the success of companies such as eBay or AOL (to name a few).
In his book, Inspired, How to create tech products customers love, he shares the secrets of an organisation that can design, develop and deploy products and solutions capable of arousing the enthusiasm of its customers.
How to assemble your dream team? How to adopt an efficient work process? How to develop a strong product culture? etc. These are all questions to which Marty Cagan provides answers in his book, a true bible of product management, which is very effectively based on many personal anecdotes.
3. Escaping the Build Trap – Melissa Perri
The promise of Melissa Perri’s book is beautiful: to help you succeed in remaining customer-centric and to avoid turning your products into featureless devices.
Through the personal experiences of its author and those of some of the most successful product managers of their generation (who have worked at Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, and Netflix, etc.), this book unveils the foundations of excellence in product management, to avoid falling into an infernal cycle of development of uninteresting features. It also gives a lot of practical advice on how to successfully create a product culture that both benefits the company, large or small, in a results- and not task-oriented way, and brings value to the customer.
Escaping the Build Trap is simply a must-have in any product manager’s library!
3 books to put in the hands of any Scrum Master
1. The Scrum Guide – Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber
We’re not going to beat around the bush: the Scrum Guide is the essential ‘bible’ for mastering the Scrum framework. The authors of this guide, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, are indeed the creators of Scrum, developed in the early 1990s.
Their guide aims to define the Scrum framework, in order to support its readers towards a better understanding of this framework. The first version of the guide was released in 2010, and is updated regularly, allowing it to keep up-to-date with the evolutions of Scrum over the years.
Best of all: the Scrum Guide (2020 version) is available for free online!
2. Scrum – A Pocket Guide – A Smart Travel Companion – 3rd edition Gunther Verheyen
A complete and practical pocket guide, to help shape the Scrum framework correctly, whatever your field or industry.
This 3 rd edition offers a clear and comprehensive overview of Scrum, enhanced by a practitioner and user of the framework, Gunther Verheyen, since 2003. It also helps to understand the concrete objective behind each of the rules of the Scrum environment, while providing an interesting historical perspective on Scrum and the agile movement in a more global way.
An integral book for your shelf if you want to learn or re-learn Scrum!
3. 97 Things Every Scrum Practitioner Should Know – Gunther Verheyen et al.
Designed as a very complete toolbox, 97 Things Every Scrum Practitioner Should Know is full of expert advice on issues and challenges specific to the Scrum framework.
Based on real life experiences, the 97 tactics and strategies in this book will give you all the essential information you need to know on how to apply, tune, and modify Scrum to fit into your own framework.
This book is intended both for people new to Scrum, and for those who wish to assess and improve their understanding of this framework.
Software Craftsmanship: the tech books selected by our experts
1. Release it! Design and Deploy Production Ready Software (Second Edition) – Michael T Nygard
Michael Nygard has been a programmer and architect for over 15 years. He put his skills at the service, in particular, of the American government, as well as of the banking and financial sectors.
The new edition of his book Release it! Design and Deploy Production Ready Software details how to design systems that run longer, with fewer failures, and recover better in the event of a problem.
A true bestseller, it is an absolutely essential pragmatic guide to the engineering of production systems, which provides concrete answers to the problems of today’s systems, which are larger, more complex and highly virtualised.
2. Domain Driven Design – Vaughn Vernon
Domain Driven Design (DDD) is an approach increasingly used by developers around the world. Vaughn Vernon’s book is a highly accessible guide to the basics of DDD: what is its philosophy? What issues can DDD address? How does it work and how can we best take advantage of this approach?
The author draws on his 20 years of experience on the subject to pragmatically share the essential information you need to know to get results quickly, and simply demystify the intricacies and complexities of DDD.
A true reference point therefore, essential if you are looking for a concise, readable and easily applicable work on the approach of Domain Driven Design.
3. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship – Robert C. Martin
A code does not have to be clean to work. The problem is that badly written code can ultimately cause serious malfunctions, and lead to a considerable waste of resources.
Robert C. Martin, the famous software engineer, offers here a very concrete book to help you learn to differentiate between good and bad code, write good code, transform bad code into good code, and format your code for readability maximum.
Are you a developer, software engineer, project manager or system analyst? This book is a must for producing better code!
4. The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride – Sandro Mancuso
To conclude this selection, we could not leave out the book by Sandro Mancuso, The Software Craftsman.
In his book, Sandro Mancuso offers inspiring advocacy on Software Craftsmanship, an approach that puts the skills and know-how of developers back at the heart of software production. The functional aspect of the product is not enough, the design of qualitative software, carried by craftsmen proud of their work, is at the centre of this approach.
A powerful book, which paves the way for technical excellence, coupled with maximised customer satisfaction.
