The Principles of Product Development Flow (Reinertsen)

The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development, by Donald Reinertsen. Celeritas Publishing, 2009.

Lean product development can be looked at as flow-based product development. Reinertsen draws on a variety of areas (economics, queue theory, control theory, the military) to explore the consequences for product development. The book is organized as 175 principles, organized into chapters by area. Here are a couple examples: "B2: The Batch Size Queueing Principle: Reducing batch size reduces cycle time"; "F8: The Cadence Batch Size Enabling Principle: Use a regular cadence to enable small batch sizes". Each principle gets a page or two of explanations; the diagrams are plentiful and helpful. (For an introduction to the topic, I still recommend Reinertsen's book Managing the Design Factory.)

Legends of Dune (series)

The Legends of Dune series: The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, and The Battle of Corrin (or the Box Set), by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. Tor Books, 2003-2005. 

This series is called "Legends of Dune." It's set thousands of years before "Dune," when people were working out all the technologies and schools that showed up there. Find the roots of the Harkonnens, Atreides, Corrinos, and more. Being set so much earlier does free the authors up some; any discrepancies can be put down to the confusions of time. 

The first book has humans against robots and cymeks, and shows why the Butlerian Jihad got its name. The second book follows the struggles of the cymeks, early space-folding, and a human who grew up with the robots. The third book traces the ultimate battle with robots.

These books use the Dune universe, but I found the style closer to Asimov than Herbert (with lots of bouncing around following various characters and threads). It was enjoyable enough, but don't expect the equal of Dune.

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and the Amber Spyglass

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. (3-volume set) By Phillip Pullman. Laurel Leaf (pub.), 2003.

It's hard to review this series without giving away too much, but here goes:

The Golden Compass:This story is set in a world where part of your personality takes the form of an animal (called a daemon, but not like the ones in Unix:). We meet a girl named Lyra in Oxford in another world. She acquires an amazing compass that helps guide her on a dangerous journey through what we'd call a fantasy realm because it has witches and armored bears.

The Subtle Knife:
Lyra ends up in a different world, and meets Will from our world. They quest on, meeting with enemies and unexpected allies in different worlds. Will takes on new missions.

The Amber Spyglass:
The story continues and concludes with Lyra, Will, and many others. We're treated to an unlikely evolution that sounds almost plausible, another amazing tool, and a struggle affecting angels and demons, the living and the dead.

Overall, the series is compelling and interesting. It blends an interesting mix of scientific and religious ideas, with a notable anti-organized-religion bias that will put some people off.

Food Matters, by Mark Bittman

Food Matters, by Mark Bittman. Simon & Schuster, 2009. 

Mark Bittman mixes statistics on the consequences of eating meat with diet advice, a  rant on big food, and 75 recipes. His advice: eat less meat and more plants, fewer refined carbohydrates, and no junk food; nothing particularly new there. I tried a half dozen of the recipes, all were OK, but none knocked my socks off. The "Almost No-Work Whole Grain Bread" was probably the best; it made a dense loaf with no kneading required, by rising for 24 hours. 

Maus: A Survivor's Tale

  

Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman. Pantheon, 1987/1992.

Maus I - My Father Bleeds History 
Maus II - And Here My Troubles Began

This is a graphic novel - the first one I became aware of, though there were certainly predecessors. It tells two stories: The inner story is the story of the author's father living as a Jew in Czechoslovakia and Germany during the Nazi era. It tells of his life in the early Nazi years and how he survived the concentration camps. The second story wraps the first, and is the story of the father's current life and the author's relationship to his father.


The story is compelling; the art is first-rate, with little touches of humor (Jews are mice, many non-Jews are pigs, Nazis are cats).

Transformation, by Robert A. Johnson

Transformation: Understanding the Three Levels of Masculine Consciousness,
Robert A. Johnson, HarperOne, 1993.

Johnson uses three myths to talk about masculinity: Don Quixote represents simple consciousness, living in the inner mythical world; Hamlet represents "modern existential life"; and Faust represents man moving to enlightenment. There's a sub-theme of the idea of 3 moving to 4 representing a move to complete consciousness. It's a thin volume (105 pages), but interesting material as usual for Johnson.

Six Thinking Hats, by De Bono

Six Thinking Hats, by Edward De Bono.

It's easy to fall into a particular pattern of thinking. De Bono proposes a method where various thinking styles are associated with hats of different colors: white (data), red (intuition/emotion), black (pessimistic), yellow (optimistic), green (new ideas), and blue (process). By explicitly applying different perspectives, you can nurture an idea to fruition, and you can get a fuller picture of the consequences of it. While I don't think the whole thing is as amazing as the author thinks, it is a useful reminder to help broaden your thinking.

The Soul of a New Machine

The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder. Modern Library, 1997 (originally 1981).

This is the story of the Data General Eagle, a computer designed to compete with DEC's VAX. It tells of a special kind of project where people put themselves under a siege to complete a project in less time than it "should" take. This is not a story of "sustainable pace." This interesting book is mostly focused on the story, but it's not afraid to dive into some technical detail when that conveys what's going on.

(Reviewed Oct. 19, 2009)

Review - Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds

Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds. New Riders Press, 2008.

Have you ever used PowerPoint(tm) templates with bullet points? I have. Garr Reynolds shows how to use strong visuals instead. The trick is to trim down to your essential story, then create a solid design using pictures, quotations, and empty space, employing various graphics principles he describes. The book was a quick read, and it definitely has helped me improve my presentations.

"He" and "We", by Robert A. Johnson

Want a taste of Jungian psychology but don't want to spend $100+ and wait 3 months for The Red Book? Robert A. Johnson gives a quick taste of a Jungian approach.

He: Understanding Masculine Psychology, by Robert A. Johnson. Harper, 1989.
"He" tells the story of the search for the Holy Grail as a myth of the masculine side of psychology. Johnson decodes the myth as the story of how "modern" man faces alienation in going from childhood to adulthood. We suffer, we sense there's something transcendent, but we have no cure.



We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, Robert A. Johnson. HarperOne, 1985.
In "We", Robert A. Johnson develops a Jungian interpretation of the myth of Tristan and Iseult to look at the idea of romantic love. This myth is a criss-crossing story of forced love, betrayal, and recovery, exploring "being in love" vs. "loving."