Recently, Lifehacker and the publishing house Mann, Ivanov and Ferber began to explore the bookshelves of well-known companies, and this turned out to be a whole rubric. But there are so many interesting libraries! And we came up with a contest: send us a report about your company's bookshelves, and we will publish the best ones in our category. And the authors of the best reportage will receive 20 books as a gift from the publisher.
The Engineering Team uses machine learning technologies to predict consumer demand. Their ForecastNOW! software product is dedicated to this. The guys sent us a story about what the specialists of a high-tech startup read.
The bookshelf is like a well–balanced team - it has a place for technology, business and management. Only at the junction of these competencies are great solutions born. Together, they give an amazing synergistic effect and play the role of a powerful catalyst in the process of the birth of a business from an idea. So, these are the books that make up our library and help us in our work.
Good technology is based on two fundamental works: "Neural networks" Simon Haikin and "Artificial Intelligence" Peter Norvig. It is these books that allow us to receive an endless stream of ideas for improving algorithms. In order to optimize the resources obtained on the basis of such algorithms, I had to get to know low-level programming better. And then the book "Assembly Programming Manual" came to the rescue. Now the program works an order of magnitude faster.
In order for the technology to turn into a good software product with a slender code that is pleasant and easy to read, we added "Perfect code", "Clean code" and "Effective use of C++" to the shelf. It's no secret that most of the time the program code has to be read and maintained, and it's much nicer to do it with "clean" code. "Perfect code" helps us to take care not only of the speed of its writing, but also the clarity of other programmers.
What kind of software product can do without an easy interface? Any startup risks a lot if it does not care about the convenience of its users. So we have replenished the bookshelf with copies of "Interface: New directions in computer system design" by Jeff Ruskin and "Alan Cooper about the interface". The books allow you to look at various interface solutions from the outside, learn from the experience of large corporations and avoid many mistakes. The interface makes you think about your user, take the place of the client, and the examples discussed in these books allow you to do this faster and more accurately.
Creating a software product is impossible without competent project management. A good help for our development manager was the book "Mythical man-month". Twenty-five years have passed since the book was written, but it has not lost its relevance. "How many people do you need to write one program module?", "Can 10 people write it 10 times faster?", "What are the main mistakes project managers make?" — these and many other questions are discussed in the book on the example of creating the OS/360 operating system.
Project management is a special skill. Therefore, the next book on the shelf is a business novel "Deadline". The publication in a very unusual form helps to gain experience in managing teams with different organizations, motivation and structure. We don't have a dozen companies behind us, but we do have this book.
Do not forget about the human role in development. As practice shows, strong teams with average technology win, but not vice versa. The book "The Human factor: Successful projects and teams" allows us not to forget about the person, his importance in the project. Tom DeMarco opens his eyes with amazing ease and humor to moments that often escape the eye in the process of work.
Two books occupy a special place on our shelf: "Startup" Guy Kawasaki and "Rework". These are real collections of recipes for all occasions. Such books need to be opened at least once a month, because every time you open them and find something new for yourself.
In Tver, the startup phenomenon is not sufficiently developed. It was Guy Kawasaki's "Startup" that allowed us to take a comprehensive look at this process and understand how to make it effective. A rare startup can do without investment. To understand who these investors are, business angels or business devils, venture funds and seed investment funds, how they work, what they want from startups and how they can help them, we got the book "In search of a business angel".
From time to time, the team has a hard time, various doubts arise, and bad thoughts visit the head. At such moments it is very important to move on. To restore mental balance, raise morale and maintain enthusiasm, we use highly motivating literature "To hell with everything, take it and do it", "Delivering happiness" and "Business as an expedition". Reading it allows you to look at the whole situation from the outside, rethink your experience in the context of the authors' experience and see not only the black stripe, but also the whole zebra. But a startup is not an ordinary zebra, but a zebra with an increased number of stripes, where each stripe corresponds to its own color.
That's how we got a book story. We hope that it will be useful for you as well. We wish you to love your zebra the way it is, despite the frequency and color of its stripes. She will definitely appreciate it, and your business will become the most successful!
Thanks to the team for the fascinating story and inspiring photos! If you liked it, mark the post with "likes" and comments – it is by these parameters that we will choose the best report. And don't forget that our contest continues!
