rare bird

I finally finished reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman . His basic premise is that technology and free trade have allowed domestic companies and developing nations to compete on a previously unknown scale. There isn't a lot to disagree with about his opinion, and there are some interesting anecdotes about how Mexico is outsourcing to India and India is outsourcing to Sri Lanka. Overall, though, the first 400 pages of the book are a complete review of what I thought was common knowledge. You mean IT is being outsourced to India? China is churning out computer science graduates ten times faster than the U.S you say? This shouldn't be news. If this book really is "a must read for today's CEO", as a friend of mine says, then those CEOs should be slapped with a fish for being hopelessly out of the loop. Throughout the book, I felt that Friedman failed to find a single voice of dissension. Everyone he interviewed agreed with him wholeheartedly. I can't b

The follow up to Mary Poppendieck's Lean Software Development is available online as a review copy. The original book led to a lot of changes in the agile software community. I find myself giving the book to both developers and managers. In my opinion, it is still the must read book about the software development process. Plus, it is good to see ex-3M employees make a mark in the world. Each chapter is a seperate .pdf file... I like to print them out double sided and make one big binder.