Welcome to my Good Reads Professional Development List!
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In any transformation, leadership or coaching work, I always get asked about book references. I recommend a library of books for all of my enterprise agility transformation work so the folks who are going through training and mentoring have resources beyond the materials provided in the training sessions, and so they can feel supported during this time of change.
Below are the category areas of books I recommend for organizational change, leadership and key roles in Agile transformation. You might see some titles repeated in the sections below as they apply in multiple areas.
Each book title is a link that will take you directly to Amazon so you can check it out!
• The Professional Product Owner
• Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
The Agile Transformation Short List:
This group of books is about the messiness of change and the type of insights and leadership that can help you along the way on this journey have the type of successful outcomes you’re seeking.
• Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, Revised 25th Anniversary Edition
• Influence Without Authority (2nd Edition)
• Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum
• Wired to Resist: The Brain Science of Why Change Fails and a New Model for Driving Success
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
• Reinventing Organizations
• The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything
• The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
Leadership Bundle:
Leadership is an essential element in any organizational transformation. The altitude of the leaders in your organization will set the tone.
This bundle is about leading through change, developing resilience, empathy and humanity as a leader. This list includes eye and heart opening reads that help set you up to lead successfully during volatile times. This list is for any leader in a changing organization.
• Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve Yours
• Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change
• Ego is the Enemy
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
• The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever
• Dare to Lead; Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts
• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
• Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
• Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
• Maestro: A Surprising Story About Leading by Listening
• Now, Discover Your Strengths Hardcover, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton
• Thanks For The Feedback, The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
• Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help
• The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
• Influence Without Authority (2nd Edition)
• Servant Leadership : A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness
• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
The role of Scrum Master is often one that is misunderstood. Getting clear about self, the role and developing leadership competency is a great place to start. The leadership bundle above has some overlap but many more great reads for anyone in the role of team coach all the way to enterprise coach.
• Ego is the Enemy
• Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve Yours
• Maestro: A Surprising Story About Leading by Listening
• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
• The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever
• Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help
• Influence Without Authority (2nd Edition)
• Advanced Facilitation Strategies: Tools and Techniques to Master Difficult Situations
• Thanks For The Feedback, The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
The Agile Coaching Competency Framework guides your development as an Agile coach. You can find a host of complimentary resources here: The Agile Coaching Institute – Agile Coaching Framework Resources.
Product Owner Reading Library:
The role of Product Owner can be a challenging and rewarding experience. This role, its duties and expectations can often be out of alignment with your teams and your organization. It takes leadership fortitude to manage the demands of this role. For solid references to up your leadership game, see the Leadership Bundle list above. Coaching is one of the best services for a Product Owner. And when that is not possible, this list of reading resources is an excellent place to start!
My Product Owner Competency Model
I’ve developed a Product Owner Competency Model and this list is divided by the competencies important to succeed in this role.
Collaboration: There is an art to bringing people together. To do that well you need to understand yourself and what’s happening in your organization.
• Influence Without Authority (2nd Edition)
• Thanks For The Feedback, The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
• Dare to Lead; Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts
• Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve Yours One of the biggest impediments to effective collaboration can be ‘Imposter Syndrome’. This is an excellent #gamechanging read to help get out from under these negative patterns of thinking.
• Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum
Facilitation: Skill development in this area is essential for daily operation in your role as Product Owner
• Advanced Facilitation Strategies: Tools and Techniques to Master Difficult Situations
• The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation (Black and White Version)
Prioritization: This is the core of the work for a Product Owner. Being able to balance and juggle priorities is essential to this role.
• Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty Paperback – November 4, 2017
• Agile Product Management with Scrum
• User Story Mapping – Jeff Patton
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (this is about developing your philosophy for prioritization)
Systems/Critical Thinking: We’re not often taught how to think. And ‘thinking’ is the very thing that can get in the way of your success in this role. Managing your thinking and establishing a practice of discernment can make a huge difference in your success.
• Ego Is the Enemy
• Everyday Emotional Intelligence
• Empathy, why it matters and how to get it
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0
• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
• The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
• Six Thinking Hats
Feel free to email me directly with questions about why I recommend any of the books listed here. Email Alicia directly
Note: Some links here are affiliate links, which means if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no cost to you. I recommend these products, books etc.. because I have personally read them or use them and have a high regard for their value, not because of the small commission I make if you decide to buy something.