Customer Reviews

Software for Your Head: Core Protocols for Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you loved Demarco and Lister's PEOPLEWARE but were left feeling powerless about what steps to take at work to make knowledge management better. If you ranged as far as Roger Schwarz's SKILLED FACILITATOR or Argyris's OVERCOMING ORGANIZATIONAL DEFENSES but were left at a loss about how you could apply it all in real time. If you resonated with Peter Drucker's POST CAPITALIST SOCIETY but could not apply his generalizations to daily production of knowledge capital. If any of the above, you will devour this book.

Somehow books on releasing the greatness, beauty, and power of teams, always seem to strike glancing blows on real knowlede worker problems. In fact, most books won't come out and say that they want to change the world. Greatness, beauty, power, and such things come wrapped in such a mess of sociological, cultural, and managerial trouble, most books won't try to prescribe greatness et. al.

Not this one. This one wants it all. World domination in catalyzing teams that concquer. The book is worth its price for its "McCarthyized" sound bites alone. But, this is in fact, genius from another dimension. You may disagree with everything it says, and still read it from cover to cover and profit greatly from constant questioning, provocation, and counter intuitive-examples provided. And there is always the chance, that the McCarthys are right.

Books like Software For Your Head are rare. These are books that are so important, timely, and lucid that they transcend the subject they speak about. In this case, McCarthy is covering team psychology practices (protocols), patterns that lead to the delivery of great intellectual creative works, and the anti-patterns that destroy such efforts.

When I first read this book, I was struck with how silly or unnatural (to me) some of the protocols sounded. Always one eager to subvert the dominant paradigm, I usually feel this a sign that the author's saying something worth listening to. Jim's writing style is so matter-of-fact and direct that it contributed to me chuckling repeatedly thinking, "is this guy nuts?", but at the same time driving me to read further -- for all of which he said resonated with me at a deep level.

As you progress through the book, the reasons behind the patterns and protocols become clearer: we live in a world where it is considered ridiculous to express or leverage emotion in the work place, yet emotion is crucial to our nature & to creating works of high value. So -- use a set of practices that legislate the option of using of emotional information in your collaboration.

Of even more value to myself is the book's description of the anti-patterns. It took me quite a while to read this work as I've had to put the book down several times after reading the anti patterns, being so overwhelmed by the accuracy of what was being said, based on all the prior situations I've been in where leaders forced the team, or sometimes the whole company, down the path of perdition.

I can't think of a more important contribution to software development today. Even the agile methodologies like XP are important developments, but they don't go to as deep a level as this book does.

For any software professional or creative team leader, this book comes with my highest recommendation.

This book starts with a basic assumption: Team = Product. The basic idea that the quality of your product will be equal to the quality of the team that builds is common sense, but like much else in the IT industry, no one seems to follow common sense.

Form the base assumption that Team = Product, Jim and Michele McCarthy show us how to construct an environment in which teams connect quickly, gain shared vision, and proceed to ship great product. Using the pattern/anti-pattern approach, they show not only the common failings with in a team, but how to take steps to fix these problems.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is feeling the pain of trying to ship a software product on time, on budget. The lessons you learn in this book will set you on the path to vastly improving the quality of your professional life, and the quality of the products you are required to ship.

Software For Your Head gives us an insightful look at ourselves. Those of us who have been working on project teams for years and years, always seeking the next process idea that will really make a difference realize that it is not the process that we use that holds us back. Extreme programming, MSF, RAD,RUP, OOAD, PMI, Ad Hoc, Agile, Adaptive, Scrum ... the list goes on and on. Having studied each of these methods and having personally used many, I've found that they each have strenghts. If we would use the process, we'd be more successful. For some reason, perhaps because software that truely adds business value is really elusive we dwell on the process and not what really holds us back. It's us. We don't believe in ourselves and certainly not in each other and certainly not in our users (those footing the bill). I found that SWFH and theCore described within the book, really uncovers what is missing from our projects. It's us. SWFH describes patterns and antipatterns of our behavior. To truely get your hands around this information it requires thoughtful reading, perhaps multiple times. It requires committment to improving the way we work together. It requires committment to improving the way I work, the level and degree of my presence on the job and in life. I love software. I love technology. I love the challenge that SWFH gives me to think about my results. This is an important work and requires accountability. Read it and then read it again.

This book is a true gift. Jim and Michele presents an excellent set of "protocols" that will help you create and be a part of a great team with shared vision.

I worked as a programmer, and then as development manager for years. I lived the times when my team was closely knit, and then times when things were not going as well. I really I wish I had the "Software for Your Head" experience much earlier in my career.

I recommend you to put your skepticism aside, keep an open mind and read it all the way. The "protocols" are very simple to execute, and surprisingly enough, you will see that it makes a huge difference in your daily life even when you are the only one in your office who knows about the protocols.

< Of course, I also highly recommend attending the Bootcamp itself. I believe it is a "must have" experience for every professional. >

Happy reading,
Tolga.

The Core Protocols defined in "Software for Your Head" are amazingly effective tools for personal and team development and value generation. If you're interested in results it's a must read. Those afraid of change, introspection or the possibility that psychology and psyches influence team behavior will probably be turned off. Those ready for fresh, honest and valuable insight will find it in abundance. Recommended.

It'is one of the most wonderful books I ever read about teams. What I mostly appreciate is that talks about teams in a language a developer or an engineer can understand (bypassing the resistances and prejudices that technicians have treating emotions, motivations, groups and so on) and usually it's a nightmare for me to explain them that poor performance are not simply related to task assignments or character or people smartness...
Definitely a great book.

I give this book eight out of ten.
What I like about it:
The ideas in this book have enormous power. They could (and can) change the way people work with each other for the better.
The book presents the function that team = product. The better the team works together the better the product. This is so obvious and yet gets constantly overlooked.
The patterns and anti patterns of behavior are very well observed and described.
After reading this book the second time I have been to a McCarthy boot camp and the book does an admirable job of describing what is achievable.
I have tried each of the protocols described in this book and I can tell you they rate amongst the best ways I have discovered of helping teams work well together.
The title describes the book well, it takes some time to work this out. It is a clever idea that we can load new software into our brains and therefore become better at doing something - such as interacting with other people (or even ourselves!)

In order to get a ten:
It would be easier to read. The book is written too much like a software manual. The McCarthy's previous book - Dynamics of Software Development - was much easier to read and proved to be very popular with the development teams I introduced it to. Software For Your Head requires commitment to read to the end.
The examples would be clearer. Throughout the book are stories which serve as examples of the ideas being presented. I often have to read these a second time to get the full meaning of them.

For more of Dr. Neil's reviews go to http://www.Roodyn.com/BookReviews.aspx

In Chapter 20 of _Peopleware_ Mr. DeMarco and Mr. Lister tried to list things that would make a team jell. They came up with the un-inspiring 0(zero) things you can do to make a team jell. From this stopping point, they came up with their famous reverse-angle chapter 'Teamicide'.

This is the book that should have been written in place of that chapter. Devotees of the people side of IT development will find this book useful in diagnosing what's wrong on their team, and they will a good idea of how to start fixing it. This book has probably advanced the sociology of IT teams past where it has been since DeMarco & Lister. Warning, this book is not for the timid, or for those that think the people side of IT is unimportant.

One thing the authors don't make clear is if one has to take their bootcamp course to implement these procedures, or if this book can be used as-is.

This book doesn't just pick up where Jim McCarthy's earlier "Dynamics of Software Development" left off, it is much much deeper. The book addresses the core problems that software developers face as individuals and teams. As you learn and practice the protocols, you may find that you are more productive at work and at home because you are better able to relate to your co-workers and family. Are you willing to accept responsibility for getting what you want?