Chapter 3: The Principles of Sustainable Development

[Boehm and Turner 2004] Boehm, Barry and Turner, Richard, Balancing Agility and Discipline, Addison Wesley, 2004.

In my opinion, this book should be titled Balancing Agility and Ceremony. This is because the mistaken impression that some people have drawn from the title is that agility is the opposite of discipline. And that is most emphatically incorrect. Once you get past that point, this is actually an excellent book that describes a model for understanding and contrasting various approaches to software development and the challenges faced by different software projects.

[Buckingham and Coffman 1999] Buckingham, Marcus and Coffman, Curt, First, Break all the Rules, Simon & Schuster, 1999.

This is an excellent book that focuses on the difference between talents and skills. Skills can be learned, and, while some talents can be improved, they are largely born not made. The book contains a number of interesting chapters on topics such as helping people identify their talents and how to put people in positions where they can best utilize their talents.

[Demarco and Lister 1999] Demarco, Tom and Lister, Timothy, Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd Edition, Dorset House Publishing Company, 1999.

This is a software development classic and is highly recommended.

[Lundin et al 2000] Lundin, Stephen C., Paul, Harry, and Christensen, John, Fish! A Remarkable Way to Improve Morale and Boost Results, Hyperion, 2000.

This book takes only a few minutes to read and it is time well spent. The main theme of the book is that you can't always choose what you work on, but you can choose how you do it. The difference is critical, and the more people who understand this message, the better the chance that the modern workplace could be transformed from drudgery to fun and inspiring.

[Lynn and Reilly 2002] Lynn, Gary S., Reilly, Richard P., Blockbusters: The Five Keys to Developing GREAT New Products, HarperBusiness, 2002.

Although this book is not about sustainable development or even software development, it is a good book about innovative product development. There are quite a few parallels between the methods described in this book and agile development methods: particularly about the need for iterative development (which the authors call lickety-stick innovation), collaboration, and physical spaces that enhance collaboration and communication.