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Enterprise:Management:Reading

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About the Reading page

Following is a list of interesting reading material, of certain value to the Project Manager acting in an Information Technology environment. We apologize for that little information on this page, which is still under construction. Please stay tuned.
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Dealing with change and "Who moved my Cheese"

An "must read" on the topic is "Who Moved My Cheese" [1] (local copy). It is a fiction novel by Spencer Johnson, carrying simple yet striking message, extremely relevant for all of us, as we live through the up- and downswings of the economic cycles. The story of "Who Moved My Cheese" is a simple parable that would help dealing with change, at work or in personal life. Its characters are two little men (Hem and Haw) and two mice (Sniff and Scurry), living in a maze and in perpetual hunt for "Cheese", a a metaphor for whatever one wants in life - job, health, relationships or peace of mind. The life in the maze is cozy as long as the Cheese is plentiful. One day though, when the Cheese disappears, the little men are ill prepared to deal with the sudden change, whereas the two mice show they are well prepared and would soon find new and plentiful Cheese. Finally, Haw realizes he has to adapt and, laughing of himself, embarks on the quest to find new Cheese, and, as he progresses through the maze, writing on the walls all he learned from adapting to change. During this time, his partner, Hem, unable to adapt to the discomfort of the changed situation, is left behind and his final fate is unknown, while Haw still hopes the best for him. The story ends with Haw realising that when you can read the “Writing on the wall”, you can do well in changing times. The analogy with real life is easy, as the past decade or so saw an unprecedented upswing and downturn in the high-tech sector. The "Writing on the wall" is that sudden, unforeseen changes are going to be an integral part of our personal and professional lives for the foreseeable future, and we have to take them as granted and adapt.

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Interviews with Alan Cooper

Alan Cooper is considered the Father of Visual Basic, a leading authority on customer experience through interface design, through "interaction design" discipline. His books are "must read" for the Information Technology professional. In the two interviews he goes to the roots of the "malaise" in the Software industry, by advocationg for a systematic approach based on sound "engineering" principles.
  • Why We Don't Build Software for Users [2] local copy
  • An audience with Alan Cooper [3]


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Eric S. Raymond "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and other articles

Eric S. Raymond, one of the originators of the Open Source movement, has written a series of 3 captivating articles on the "ecology" of the movement. All three articles were published in hardcover by O'Reilly Associates as "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". Here are the articles.

Here are other writings by Eric S. Raymond.

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Fred Brooks "The Mythical man-month" and related readings

The Brooks’ Law says that adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Brooks developed the law through observation of many projects and derived the generalization. In fact the saying goes that "developing the first 90% of a program takes 90% of the planned time, but the remaining 10% takes the other 90% of the time". Fred Brooks' theory is that, in order to succeed, staff working on large development projects should be organized in small, "surgical" teams.

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Build or buy decisions - COTS software pros and cons

David Carney, a senior SEI member authored of this brief and humorous look on issues related to COTS products, is using the Maoist-style "Little Red Book" approach of the 60's, using glimpses of ancient Chinese wisdom. The humorous (but to be taken very seriously) "Quotations from Chairman David" is an official SEI document.

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Barry Boehm - the father of Software Economics

Barry Boehm's "Software Engineering Economics" (Prentice Hall, 1981) is still a "must have book" for the practitioner, and, despite the advent of new methodologies, its fundamental ideas are still valid. The book documents the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) for Software. Barry Boehm created the Spiral Model of software development, which influenced the RUP, the Agile methodology and other modern approaches to software project life cycle, which may have enabled today's Geekonomics".
  • Safe and Simple Software Cost Analysis - a COCOMO II introduction [16] local copy
  • Agile Software Development and Boehm's Spiral model [17] local copy
  • Steve Mc Connell's "Best influences on Software Engineering" article (local copy) praises Barry Boehm's contribution.
  • Barry Boehm COCOMO II book and personal page


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Carl von Clausewitz about business

Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a great Prussian military strategist, and is acknowledged as the most important of the major strategic theorists. He is most known for his "Von Kriege" (On War) opus, probably the most important modern work ever written on the theory of warfare and of military strategy. Clausewitz was a junior foreign officer in the Russian army in 1812 and he even appears as a minor character in Tolstoy's "War and Peace". He played a role in the resurrection of Prussia after the Napoleonian wars of 1806/07. Clausewitz played a key role at the Battle of Wavre, in the final victory against Napoleon at Waterloo, in his role of chief of staff of the Prussian army corps. One of the most famous theses of his "On War" opus, is that "Business is war": Rather than comparing [war] to art we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of human interests and activities; and it is still closer to politics, which in turn may be considered as a kind of commerce on a larger scale. Here are some resources about Carl von Clausewitz life and ideas
  • William A. Levinson's page on Carl von Clausewitz's "Business is War" thesis [18]
  • The "Clausewitz home page" [19]
William A. Levinson's book The Way of Strategy applies to business management the principles of the great military thinkers - von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Miyamoto Musashi and others.

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Sun-Tzu and the Art of War

Sun Tzu (in Chinese "Master Sun"), the legendary Chinese general and author of the oldest treaty on war and strategy, was a contemporary of Confucius and a member of the military aristocracy. He lived during the era of "Fighting Kingdoms", known as the "Spring and Autumn Period" and his strategic skills assured the success of his master's campaigns. His treaty, the Art of War, although addressed to the ancient Chinese military establishment, has yet a lot of applicability to modern business strategies.

Here is the book and a few resources
  • Art of War - translated by W. Lidwell [20]
  • Art of War - translated by Lionel Gilles - web version [21]
  • Art of War - translated by Lionel Gilles [22]


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Bill Joy's "Why the future does not need us"

In his article, Bill Joy rings a loud alarm bell about what the future might soon have in store for us if converging and accelerated innovation in the “hot” areas of genomics, nanotechnology and robotics continues to evolve within the current market driven framework. At the time and long after, his opinions were vividly debated and raised many more challenging questions on the matter. According to Bill Joy, the same innovation capability that has been for more than 200 years an engine of social and economic progress for our species, risks to become soon a threat to our survival by its unforeseen side effects. At the time Bill Joy’s ideas seemed extremely controversial even for some fellow scientists well familiar with the topics, good examples being Microsoft’s Myhrvold and the renowned computer scientist at MIT Michael L. Dartouzos,, who replied to Joy in his famous “Not by reason alone” article. Dartouzos’ critique does not diminish the alarming value of Joy’s argument, just puts under question our ability to predict the future and our “ex-ante” reasoning and forecast of “good” or “bad” outcomes of radical innovation. Dartouzos’ stance in itself brings us to even more alarming conclusions, as he advocates a “wait and see” attitude. For millions of years the human species have learnt by experience and by mistakes, however there is an increasingly alarming pattern, highlighted by Joy, that bad experiences and mistakes may become so costly for humankind that no “reboot” would be possible. To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s comment toward US, until now the human species “have invariably done the right thing but only after exploring all other alternatives”. This is exactly what Bill Joy is warning us against – to let the system regulate itself through the free play of political, market and social factors would almost certainly bring us to the brink of a catastrophic abyss of no return.

Here is the essay and a few related materials
  • Relinquishment or Regulation: Dealing with Apocalyptic Technological Threats [23]
  • Why the future does not need us - an essay by Bill Joy [24]
  • Amory Lovins's from Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) related concerns about transgenics and nuclear fission [25]
  • A tale a two botanies - or the threats of transgenic crops [26]
  • "Not by Reason Alone" by Michael L. Dertouzos [27]


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Dave Isenberg and "The Dawn of the Stupid Network

This is Dave Isenberg - the man who was kicked-out of AT&T after publishing his essay "The rise of the stupid network": Dave Isenberg challenged the wisdom of the business reasons behind the "Intelligent Networks" initiatives carried on by the big telecoms. He examines the economic impact of the new technologies in the decentralization of network-based services, and the advent of new classes of services, eroding the telecom monopolies. The first version of the article "THe Rise of the Stupid Network", was followed by a second version, originally published as the cover story of ACM Networker 2.1, February/March 1998.
  • The "Rise of the Stupid Network" article [28]
  • The "Dawn of the stupid Network" article [29]
After his demise from AT&T he continued, in his "Smart Letters", to advocate the need for changing the big-telecom culture:

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Interviews with Eric Schmidt

Here are two insightful interviews with Eric Schmidt, now CEO at Google. The first one, "How to manage Geeks", illustrates Eric Schmidt's approach to turning around Novell fortunes.
  • How to Manage Geeks [30]
  • Eric Schmidt PhD, Chairman & CEO Novell - transcript of a "Video History" Interview in 2000 [31]


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Philip Greenspun - Managing Software Engineers

An interesting (but a bit dated, after the dot-com crash) on management approaches in high-tech companies. Still actual, at least if we look at how software engineers (aka geeks) thrive at Google.
  • Managing Software Engineers [32]


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Project failures

The book "My Life is Failure report" is a summation of over a decade of work on project failure, by Standish Group.

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Other interesting business reading resources

The very dynamics which caused the social web to grow are the results of years of spin from media, marketing and management. Most of the tricks have been centric to sales and marketing but also to employer-employee relationships, which, according to a Gallup study, may cost the US economy more than $300 billion a year, due to employee disengagement.
  • The Walmart Blog - Wal-Mart's buyers blog about products they evaluate and solicit input from customers
  • Jim Clemmer's Moose on the Table book - a metaphor helping management teams to speak-out and address long-standing issues
  • Boston Group George Stalk's Memo to the CEO series - watch-for strategies for leaders, from Harvard Business School Press
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