Brian W. Fitzpatrick

I can highly recommend this book to individual contributors and those early in their leadership journey. It provides a good discussion of what makes a healthy team and how to work well in one. It talks about good leadership and company cultures. It even talks about why marketing (caring about first impressions), customer service (listening to your customers), and company politics (coordinating large groups of people with multiple goals) aren't always as bad as they're made out to be.

That said, if you've been a leader (whether formally or not) for more than a couple years, this book is likely going to be boring. The people for who that's not the case are the ones who probably really need to read it.… (mehr)

First things first: If you read or ever heard about the famous "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams", you can consider "Debugging Teams" a perfect companion for the issues pertaining to modern information technology teams and their dynamics.

The book's strong point stems from the fact that the authors have experience both in managing and be managed, as well as dealing with complex open source community and the dynamics of their members. They don't sugarcoat difficult messages when it comes to team organization, communication, and management, and yet they manage to provide the reader with good examples of humane and safe environments where people can thrive.

I think I'll go back again and again to sections and chapters about management antipatterns, "Dealing with Poisonous People", and "The Art of Organizational Manipulation".

It would be fair to say that any organization / manager who claims "our people are our greatest asset" should have digested and internalized (and gone beyond) the guidance provided in this book. If not, they you'd better recommend them this book as required reading!… (mehr)