[Book Review] Scaling up - Rockefeller Habits 2.0

This book has so much knowledge to offer that I might have to forego my resolution to keep my reviews short, I'll still try. My recent obsession is with understanding how companies can solve the scale problem and that's why I picked this up, I was also hoping it will offer some insights that could be applied at ThoughtWorks as we try to scale our unique culture.

Warning: This book is a marketing tool for Gazelles, a management consulting firm that helps fledgling businesses scale up, and at times they have marketed their services subtly and on other occasions they have been quite upfront, that said, this book still offers a wealth of knowledge to draw from.

Why read?

The book is definitely worth a read since it offers frameworks to help managers align thought processes irrespective of the business they are operating, it also offers tangible tools that leaders can use to have a structured approach to manage high growth companies, and most importantly it offers examples (and context) that make concepts sticky and relatable. Another reason why I really liked this book is that it offers tons of good references of books and HBR (Harvard Business Review) articles to build deeper knowledge in specific areas (I hope to get through most of them in due course).

Most of the concepts and approaches that are shared in this book would seem common sense, but it’s mind-numbing to see so many large/small global organizations fail to implement them, mostly due to management lethargy/ineptitude. 

Key concepts that provoked my grey cells

• Continuous investment in training programs - The author/s spend a lot of time on the importance of hiring the right people and setting the right culture for teams to perform to potential. They also emphasize on investing continuously on upskilling your staff through meaningful training programs, something that most organizations tend to overlook.
• Cash is more important than profitability for a growing org - Cash flow is not something that naturally comes to our minds when we talk about performance, most of us tend to rely on the P&L statement and Balance sheets. In my view, the book lays down the right amount of emphasis on cash being a valid measure for success.
• Goal Alignment across the org - Does everyone in your organization understand and can articulate the BHAG® (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)? Have you formulated a short-term target for this quarter? Does everyone in the org know how they can contribute to this target?
• What’s your critical number? - If you get down to it then you should be able to define a critical number that helps each employee know how they are performing, there are interesting tools that have been shared in the book that can help your organization dig out that critical number.
• Great brands don’t try to please everyone - If you try to please everyone then its quite likely you will end up pleasing no one, the book talks through examples where organizations have targeted a fraction of the market and made sure that they service those clients well and these organizations are among the most profitable in their Industry.
• Don’t be afraid to fire unreasonable clients - Building a strong team and fixing people issues can sometimes mean that you need to fire those “unreasonable” customers who drain out the positive energies from your employees.

Also, sharing some other quotes from the book that really resonated with me.

Coming up next: Review of "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team"

[Book Review] Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck

Image courtesy: www.bookdepository.com

For the longest time I was really been intimidated by the term "Extreme Programming" (XP) because for me the words represented an extreme form of something that I had very little experience or knowledge*. That is the reason I had kept myself away from reading literature on this concept although teams at ThoughtWorks had been following the values of XP long before I joined the organization. I read this book to strengthen my understanding of the core concepts of XP and deliver the same via a workshop.

The key takeaways from the book was the emphasis on the core values of XP and the supporting role that the principles and practices play in successful adoption of this discipline. The book focuses on the "human" nature of software development and on the social dynamics (of mutual trust, respect, communication) that can make or break teams.

"values bring purpose to practices, practices bring accountability to values" Beck, Kent. Extreme Programming Explained

As a practitioner, I found a couple of perspectives thought-provoking:

• Frequent pair rotation (possibly multiple times a day!) - In practice, we have found this to be really challenging in projects where the code base grows over many years. Sharing context efficiently with all team members becomes fairly challenging.
• Estimation in hours - Having spent a long time trying to understand points based estimation and convincing team members & customers about its merits v/s the traditional approach of using time/hours it was a little disconcerting hearing the author talk about hour based estimation.

Overall the book is a must read if you want to start the journey towards XP but if you have been a practitioner for a while you may feel that the author misses out on presenting detailed/indepth insights on some of the important topics. Even some of the anecdotes could have been more descriptive to keep the readers more engaged and to enhance their understanding of the concepts.

* I have no formal programming education, having completed my business degree specializing in Marketing & Finance. My primary role in my professional career spanning 10 years has been of a Business Analyst.

[Book Review] Freakonomics - The hidden side of everything!

This book has been out there for a long time now and has been on my list of must reads forever, and I am really glad that I eventually got down to finishing it.

For those who haven't picked it up as yet thinking that this would talk about complicated "economics" topics you might need to readjust that sentiment, this book is more about having a data oriented approach to understanding and solving real life problems. I also really enjoyed the insights that the authors brought about by analysing the available data. Actually, the really commendable bit is that they were able to get access to such a varied set of data.

I really enjoyed the analysis & interpretation that was offered for the sudden decline in crime rates in the US, the inner workings of gangs, and on what parenting approaches are likely to yield better results. I also liked the way the authors explained some basic concepts of statistics (variance), the examples used were simple and really hit home.

My key takeaway was that our perceptions can be really far away from the data driven reality and to suspend my judgement till there is hard data to back "well established" facts.