Julio Santos

Well, that was interesting. 400 pages to say “be honest”. I really wanted to like this book, as it’s often associated with Agile and no-nonsense team building, I figured this was for me. It took me a long time before I could get in the flow of the book. A good 50 pages before I understood what the point of the book was. When I realized that it was about team building, I felt better, at least I knew what I was reading about, but then I also realized that I was not learning much.

Anyone who has borrowed books from me knows that they should expect lots of underlined passages (hey, they are my books). I think I underlined 2 paragraphs in the whole book. Not that there’s nothing interesting in the book, but there’s not a whole lot new *and* interesting, I don’t think.

Books like Peopleware for example, are sometimes accused of not being practical enough. That’s a fair point I suppose, and maybe more actionable books are welcome (Peopleware is one of my favorite books, and I think it’s plenty actionable…just getting that out of the way :). In Software for your head” the authors go into very specific details on how to build an efficient team. Sometimes, and maybe that’s the problem I have with the book, in way too much detail, it’s way too mechanical. Definitely a book for Shu people.

If you’re not satisfied with my summary of the book, ie, “Be honest”, and want to know more, there’s no need for going through the whole book. The last 40 pages are a summary of the “core protocols” and really, it’s all you need to know.