Must-read books
Over the years, Thoughtworkers have published dozens of books, covering a vast range of topics. It's not always easy to know which ones to start with. We've compiled a list of six of some of our ‘must read’ books that you may have missed.
We will be regularly featuring a different book to take a dive into. Check out our latest feature.
Lean Enterprises
How high performance organizations innovate at scale
How well does your company respond to changing market conditions, customer needs, and emerging technologies when building software-based products? This practical guide provides Lean and Agile principles and patterns to help you act quickly—and demonstrates how and why you need to apply these methodologies throughout your organization, rather than to just one department or team.
Through case studies, you’ll learn how successful companies have rethought everything from process and financial management to systems architecture, budgeting and compliance, and company culture to pursue radically improved performance. Adopting Lean may take time and commitment, but it is vital for harnessing the cultural and technical forces that are accelerating the speed of innovation.
Refactoring databases
Scott Ambler & Pramod Sadalage's book on Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design is not just a collection of theoretical recommendations on how to safely refactor databases. It is also a panoply of efficient tools to wield in real-world applications.
It is a book that specifically tackles the technical aspects of integrating the database in the continuous integration cycle. TIt provides recipes of how to achieve continuous database integration and it provides detailed steps on the concepts written in the Refactoring Databases book.
Recipes for Continuous Database Integration
Continuous Database Integration a changing landscape
In the early 2000s, when agile and iterative development methods had just started to come into vogue, the notion of continuously integrating code changes was a developing practice, and continuously integrating database changes was considered difficult.
While continuous integration and delivery have revolutionized the software development process, one critical component of the tech stack — the database — has been playing catch up. At the dawn of the CI era, continuously integrating databases was considered difficult. Since then, the world has changed.
Talking with Tech Leads
Patrick Kua brings you tales from the coalface, as a group of tech leads share their experiences.
Pat started this book project because he saw how even the best developers could struggle to becoming a tech lead. Often, the experiences gained as a developer don't prepare them for the responsibilities of being a tech lead.
While there's no shortage of programming books, there are few that help developers prepare for the step up to becoming tech leads, or for those in already in the role to develop themselves further. This book addresses that need. It's based on talking to those who've made that step up and shares their learnings.
If you see the tech lead role as part of your career journey, you won't want to miss this.