| [Christensen 2003] Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma, HarperBusiness, 2003. [Christensen and Raynor 2003] Clayton M. Christensen and Raynor, Michael E., The Innovator's Solution, Harvard Business School Press, 2003. These two books should be considered classic business books. The innovator's dilemma is that there is a risk that if you listen exclusively to your customers, a new wave of technology will come along to put you out of business. These books point out the need for companies to find ways to disrupt themselves, no matter how painful. [Collins 2001] Collins, Jim, Good to Great, HarperBusiness, 2001. This book is a business classic that describes the difference between good companies and great companies. No software companies are featured in the book, and perhaps that says something? There is much to learn from in this book, even if you are interested in a more limited topic such as the difference between good teams and great teams. [Collins and Porras 2002] Collins, Jim, and Porras, Jerry I., Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, HarperBusiness, 2002. There are elements of this book that I like a great deal, and others that I find dated today. My feelings about this book are perhaps jaded by an experience at a former company where a great deal of effort was put into formulating the company vision and mission, but it didn't do one bit of good because of numerous bad decisions… [Economist 2004] Make it Simple: A Survey of Information Technology, The Economist, October 2004. If you can find a copy of this article, it is well worth reading. The article discusses what the author feels to be the largest problem with technology today: the need for simplicity. It will be particularly interesting to read this article in a few years, since the article mentions some up-and-coming technologies, many of which are likely to fail or be unable to live up to the hype. [Norman 1999] Norman, Donald A., The Invisible Computer, MIT Press, 1999. This is one of my favorite books on usability because it makes you think about simplicity. It describes the classic Crossing the Chasm [Moore 2002] problem in terms of usability and places usability on an equal footing in terms of importance with technology and marketing. [Repenning and Sterman 2001] Repenning, Nelson P. and Sterman, John D., Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems That Never Happened: Creating and Sustaining Process Improvement, California Management Review, Vol. 43 No. 4, Summer 2001. I was thrilled when I first found this paper because even though it is a study of chemical manufacturing plants and has nothing to do with software development, it speaks to many of the issues faced by today's software organizations. | 