Software for Your Head: Core Protocols for Creating and ... (ISBN 0201604566)

Amazon.com Review:
Aimed at forward-thinking software developers and IT managers, Software for Your Head: Core Protocols for Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision provides an innovative set of procedures and reusable "patterns" for improving the way teams work together. This book's amalgam of the lingo of software patterns and management theory (and even New Age and popular psychology) helps make the text one of the most challenging you'll ever read about team building. Based on the authors' considerable experience with Microsoft and their simulated developer boot camps run with hundreds of teams, this book eschews providing practical evidence drawn from real projects. Instead, it formulates a unique vocabulary of terms, protocols, and patterns that arguably should allow teams to carry out decisions and build better team focus. The tour of tools and techniques begins with ways of getting individuals to commit totally to their work in teams. (The authors show how individuals can "check in" to work environments or "check out" as necessary.) They offer a set of techniques that can allow teams to work together more effectively, as well as obstacles (or "antipatterns") that can get in the way. Early sections culminate with a "team equals product" philosophy, arguing that highly calibrated teams will produce insanely great software. A cluster of tips and patterns for better decision making comes next. Here, the Decider pattern offers a step-by-step protocol for voting and resolving disputed items effectively. For anyone stuck in interminable meetings where egos instead of good ideas triumph, such ideas may well help change things. Alignment patterns come next, which allow teams to overcome perceived shortages of people or time to get the job done. The most far-reaching sections here argue that teams need a long-distance vision to drive their work lives. (This is considerably more ambitious than a standard corporate mission statement and involves a guiding principle that will change the world 20 years into the future.) A final, intriguing group exercise walks teams through a protocol to do something "perfect" in a group setting, with steps to refine the "design." The text closes with appendices covering Core Protocol terminology, as well as the opening statement delivered to participants at the authors' five-day boot camp (where their techniques are played out). The Core Protocols themselves, wittily released under the General Public License as open source, close out this often fascinating book. Long on theory but consciously short on any practical examples, this title offers an uncompromising vision for getting teams to work together. Though it's doubtful that your average IT department will be able to commit to such a different set of terms for the everyday workplace, Software for Your Head provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of highly committed and collaborative teams written by two legendary ex-Microsofties. --Richard Dragan Topics covered: Introduction to the Core Protocols (protocols and patterns for team-based development), the "Check In" protocol (for centering team members on work efforts), the "Check Out" protocol (for individual time-outs), the "Passer" pattern (for not participating in group efforts), the "Connection" protocol, problem behaviors (antipatterns: "Too Emotional," "No Hurt Feelings," and "Wrong Tolerance"), additional "Check In" patterns (including "Team = Product," "Self-Care," and the "Greatness Cycle"), "Decider" protocols (for making team decisions), the "Resolution," "Work with Intention," and "Ecology of Ideas" patterns, "Decider" antipatterns (including "Resolution Avoidance," "Turf," and "Team Quackery"), guide to personal and team alignment, patterns and antipatterns for team alignment (including "Investigate," "Web of Commitment," and "Ask for Help"), building shared vision in teams, patterns and protocols for shared vision (including "Metavision" and "Far Vision"), shared vision antipatterns (including "Blinder," "Technicality," and "Recoil"), the "Perfection Game" protocol (for building team vision), appendices for the lexicon of terms used in the Core Protocols, transcript of the authors' boot camp development scenario, the Core Protocols 1.0 and General Public License.

Teams become real:
It'is one of the most wonderful books I ever read about teams. What I mostly appreciate is that talks about teams in a language a developer or an engineer can understand (bypassing the resistances and prejudices that technicians have treating emotions, motivations, groups and so on) and usually it's a nightmare for me to explain them that poor performance are not simply related to task assignments or character or people smartness... Definitely a great book.

8/10:
I give this book eight out of ten. What I like about it: The ideas in this book have enormous power. They could (and can) change the way people work with each other for the better. The book presents the function that team = product. The better the team works together the better the product. This is so obvious and yet gets constantly overlooked. The patterns and anti patterns of behavior are very well observed and described. After reading this book the second time I have been to a McCarthy boot camp and the book does an admirable job of describing what is achievable. I have tried each of the protocols described in this book and I can tell you they rate amongst the best ways I have discovered of helping teams work well together. The title describes the book well, it takes some time to work this out. It is a clever idea that we can load new software into our brains and therefore become better at doing something - such as interacting with other people (or even ourselves!) In order to get a ten: It would be easier to read. The book is written too much like a software manual. The McCarthy's previous book - Dynamics of Software Development - was much easier to read and proved to be very popular with the development teams I introduced it to. Software For Your Head requires commitment to read to the end. The examples would be clearer. Throughout the book are stories which serve as examples of the ideas being presented. I often have to read these a second time to get the full meaning of them. For more of Dr. Neil's reviews go to http://www.Roodyn.com/BookReviews.aspx

Some great ideas wrapped in too much padding:
I'm a big fan of "Dynamics of Software Development" and I expected this book to be 10 years better than that. It isn't. It's like buying a favourite band's new CD and finding that you really liked the old work in the days of vinyl. And the CD collects dust. I bought this book and tried to read it many times. I've willed it to be engaging, I wanted it to be good, I've given time over to reading it, but it's not engaging and feels bloated. Sure there are some great ideas, but they're fighting to get out of the "stuff" around it. Looking forward to the next book Jim. I hope it's the one I was looking for.

Software for Your Head:
I've read the book and sponsored several of the Boot Camps in a company. The protocols work and they are not just for any IT or high-tech team as some reviewers have noted. We took groups of Sr. and Executive management as well as mid-management and technical professionals through the boot camp and it really helped solidify these groups and raise their performance level. Several of them then took the BC to their teams. One particular exec takes his team through the BC almost every year. Yes, there's some pretty deep psychology and maybe a little new age in the text but there's nothing harmful about it at all. The Core protocols are great and I continue to use them all and teach teams these protocols. The book is a tough read, but worth it. The boot camps are really good and will blow you away.If you really want to jump start a team and get them firing on all cylinders then read the book and get a boot camp quick. It's worth the investment. But I do recommend you ensure it's a fit for your culture. The authors are very knowledgable but will pretty much tell you how it has to be to be successful with the Core and a boot camp. This can be too painful for some organizations but if you really want to change then it may well be for you.

We're humans, not machines.:
Most people don't work the way Jim wants them to, don't think that way, and they never will. There're myriads of things in the way of sanity when developing intellectual assets as a part of collective efforts. Yes, we're inherentily egotistical and inefficient. However, this "OS" will not help it. The success of collective efforts will continue to be determined through the good old positives (leadership, drive, personal charisma, excellency of communication), productive negatives (challenge, competition, need for $$$), unproductive negatives (fear, intimidation, anxiety)... and a lot of luck. Not through the protocols and behavior agreements. We're humans, not machines. Since we're humans the only real help we can offer ourselves is investing in our human growth.