For about four months, I’ve had a draft of a blog post on books that have changed my point of view. I didn’t publish because I felt like no one would care. But after reading Henrik’s post about this books, I had to follow suit.
I’ve always read a lot. But a few books stand out.
I read this book ten years ago, but I still remember how it changed me. It changed me in my professional role, but it also changed me in my interactions with my family and friends.
This book is about the learning organisation. It’s really interesting sharing the anecdotes of how big corporations can change by making an effort to learn from each other and it’s clients.
This book, and it’s sequels, made me constantly aware of bottlenecks. I can’t drive down the highway without thinking about what could be done to make the movement of cars more effective.
In Sweden, the word “konsult” is often used of people that work as freelance developers. This book changed how I view a consultant. It also made me use my intuition and my feelings as powerful tools in a client engagement.
I love how this book changed my view of software development. I liked the simile between coding and climbing, and how he explained that making great applications really is all about moving ideas from brain to brain. Everyone working in an agile team should read this book.
This is not really a business book, but more and more I’ve come to realise that consulting is about changing behaviours, and changing behaviours is about understanding how groups interact. This book gave me some great tools to use to better understand group dynamics.