Gladwell 10 year-anniversary: 10 books we recommend you reading

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.

"The Unicorn Project" is a novel that follows Maxine, a software engineer, as she works to transform a failing project within her company. Through her journey, the book explores DevOps principles like collaboration and automation, emphasizing the importance of breaking down silos and fostering innovation for successful digital transformations.

The Power of Scrum tells the inspiring story of Mark Resting, CTO of a software company struggling with a major client and a project with more problems than solutions and a marriage in crisis. But, when he meets Jerry, a West-coast expert in Scrum, light at the end of the tunnel begins to appear, Mark begins to reluctantly hope things will work out. The road is bumpy, but Jerry skillfully brings Mark’s developers from a world of project crisis into a revolutionary approach that can save the day.

The benefits of adopting agile ways of working are well-understood in the digital world. But those in cyber-physical systems (combining software, hardware, and firmware) think it is risky. But with today's speed of change, maybe the risk is in not changing.

Industrial DevOps: Build Better Systems Faster shows readers how applying Agile and DevOps ways of working into cyber-physical systems presents the opportunity to reap huge rewards, including increased adaptability, shorter delivery schedules, reduced development cost, increased quality, and higher transparency into delivery.

In the new world of work, agility is a business imperative. From small tech start-ups or large traditional companies, organizations need to be fast, flexible and digitally empowered to succeed. However, too many companies are stuck with siloed, compliance-driven HR processes that work in opposition to the business rather than supporting it. This results in the view that HR is slow and out of touch. However, Agile HRshows that this doesn't need to be the case. It is a practical guide written specifically for people professionals on how the HR function can develop agile processes and practices that save time, boost performance and support overall business goals.

In The ART of Avoiding a Train Wreck, Em and Adrienne share their “trade secrets” for launching and operating powerful and effective Agile Release Trains. There's a lot at stake when launching an Agile Release Train. When taking on an Enterprise Lean-Agile Transformation you only get one shot at a first impression. Runaway trains are expensive. Money gets wasted, time gets lost and the reputational damage can take years to repair.Going well beyond the standard SAFe training, this book deep dives into the practical tips and tricks that only over 15 years of combined real world experience can teach.

How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years, we've been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn't matter―that it can't provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance―and what drives it―using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research, making the information accessible for readers to apply in their own organizations.

In the Age of Software, will your business dominate and maintain relevance―or will it become a digital relic?
As tech giants and startups disrupt every market, those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the 21st century, just as the masters of mass production defined the landscape in the 20th. Unfortunately, business and technology leaders are woefully ill-equipped to solve the problems posed by digital transformation.
In Project to Product, Value Stream Network pioneer and technology business leader Dr. Mik Kersten introduces the Flow Framework―a new way of seeing, measuring, and managing software delivery

As an agile coach, you can help project teams become outstanding at agile, creating products that make them proud and helping organizations reap the powerful benefits of teams that deliver both innovation and excellence.
In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You’ll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn’t, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring.

Enter the world of Product Management as never seen before. This unique journey illuminates the multifaceted universe of creating, managing, and optimizing products in an age of unprecedented technological innovation and societal shifts. Drawing from an in-depth exploration of topics ranging from crafting compelling product visions, understanding the impact of technology and society, strategy agility, to mastering pricing strategies, the essence of this work transcends the traditional narratives of Product Management.