I found this book in a local bookshop a few months ago and now I recommend it to everyone dealing with customers, either internal or external:
Managing Expectations: Working with People Who Want More, Better, Faster, Sooner, NOW!
Foreword was written by Gerald Weinberg.
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
Although I still use Preemptive Multireading throughout my working day I decided to try another approach similar to cooperative multitasking used in old operating systems like Windows 3.x. I identified 30 technical books I want to read (mostly related to software engineering, software architecture, design and programming) and allocated one hour every day to spend about 2 minutes on each book. Most software related books have low information density per page and plenty of information is repeated from book to book which allows using some speed reading techniques. These books are unlike mathematics, physics and computer science books where I have to meditate on proofs, formulae and examples. So I switch to another book every 2 minutes and do this 30 times. 2 minutes is usually sufficient to read and turn a page and these amounts to 60 pages per day (one page per minute). An average 300-page book can be finished in 7-8 months and therefore I can read at least 30 books per year using this approach, read all of them together and don’t wait for a second book until I finish the first one! The last point is psychologically very important to me because I want everything now 
A technical note: it might look that we still use preemptive multitasking with a fixed quantum here but in reality there are no external interrupt sources. All I do is to voluntarily yield reading control from one book to another. I can always spend one or two minutes more with a book if its current chapter is very interesting.
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
Many people ask me how do I manage to read all the books that I have. The trick is to employ Preemptive Multireading similar to Preemptive Multitasking using natural interrupt mechanisms. Here is an example from one of my common daily reading schedules:
- Commuting to work from home in the morning: reading a history book.
- Working hours: round robin reading of software engineering books and encyclopedias during breaks.
- Lunch time: reading one of selected fiction / science fiction / health / food / chemistry / popular science books.
- Commuting to home from work in the evening: reading a selected math / physics / popular science book.
- Waiting for bus/train: one of selected philosophy / popular science books.
- Home: one of selected management / psychology / parenting books.
- Walking with my sleeping son on weekends: English language and writing books.
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
Yesterday in a local Dun Laoghaire bookstore I stumbled upon this book:
Who Gets Promoted, Who Doesn’t and Why: 10 Things You’d Better Do If You Want to Get Ahead
Initially I hesitated but finally bought it. I wasn’t disappointed when I started reading it that evening. This book finally puts an explanatory system around career promotions and it really fits well with my observations in 15 companies I worked for during past 15 years. This doesn’t mean that I changed the company ever year The longest relationship with a company was 7 years and my current relationship with Citrix approaches 5 years. I just worked for some companies in parallel or just for a few months. This book also teaches some important vocabulary such as:
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
I own a few books about bullshit and reading them is great fun. The first one is about bullshit in economics, politics, medicine, marketing, sales, and many other areas of human activity. I read it completely two years ago and highly recommend:
The second book is very short, easy to carry around and looks like Tractatus Bullshito-Philosophicus:
The last two books I bought recently and the first of them is the dictionary that seems to be very funny too:
The other one seems to be a compilation of various philosophical works with guaranteed results:
Bullshit and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy)
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
History and current affairs books are full with political case studies (bit). Read history books to get balanced view of politics and better understand corporations, internal and external forces that shape them and move people in, up, and out (tip).
I love history since childhood. I resumed reading history books after very long period of being a software engineer and in the future posts I’m going to point to some books that I recently read or plan to read. One of them is
Reading this book prompted me to buy another one that I’m reading now:
Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
Isn’t it that management is about creating organization from mess (chaos)? In another words, good managers thrive on mess. Isn’t it that management is about preventing mess to appear from organization? In another words, management is about complete annihilation of mess. This is what I thought until today when in a local book store I found this interesting book, was intrigued by its title and bought it:
Hardcover edition has thirty 4 and 5 star reviews on Amazon and only three reviews are 3 stars so my intuition says the book should be really good:
I haven’t yet started reading it but I believe from evolutionary perspective mess provides sources of randomization necessary for survival and fitness of organization. If we are self-organizing ourselves then how do we know that we have chosen the best structure and strategy? If we believe we are right aren’t we ultimately fooled by randomness?
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
Management as a discipline has its own language (bit). Use language learning devices like dictionaries and practice, practice, practice business speaking and writing using every opportunity (tip).
What business management dictionary can I recommend for technical managers that covers most frequently used phrases and terminology with the fewest number of pages possible so you can carry it with you? This one seems very good for beginners:
The Routledge Dictionary of Business Management
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
Past performance, success and achievement record doesn’t mean that the same would hold in the future (bit). Look for environment and hidden factors that explain the lucky side of success and evaluate it for new environment (tip).
This bit and tip was influenced by the following book I vehemently recommend:
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Although the book focuses on trading and material success the ideas can be applied to hiring decisions and team building. Especially, contrary to the popular opinion that the past poor performance stays poor in the future, I’ve seen examples when poor past performance changed to more than average if not exceptional after environmental changes. These changes doesn’t mean changing the company to work for or pursuing entrepreneurial career but could be changes inside the same company. When hiring or promoting I would also recommend to look for the number of people in the team. It is one case when there was a small team with 2 members and one star performer and a completely different case when a team had 10 members with one star (clearly Team Lead position). However, if a candidate was a star in 5 companies but teams were 2-3 people in size we clearly have the star performer against 10 - 15 people.
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
Recently started reading this interesting non-mechanical book on people management written by Michael Lopp. I borrowed from him the term “mechanical” manager to describe his book as non-mechanical. The second chapter “Managers are no Evil” is worth alone as it provides a simple answer to venerable question asked by engineers: “What does my manager do?”… The stories in this book come from software engineering companies ranging from startups to big ones. Highly recommended for software and technical support engineers and team leaders promoted to management positions to get insight into their new role, avoid mistakes and blow-ups.
Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager
- Dmitry Vostokov @ ManagementBits.com -
