Book reviews - February 2020

Welcome to the second edition of books I have read and my thoughts on them. We will cover the literature I got to read in February 2020. I managed to complete two books with a third one just above halfway through, so it did not quite make a cut for this months review.

Team topologies (Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais)

First of all I think this is the first time I have used highlighter so many times in a book (I use Kindle). This book is packed with amazing information. It really breaks down ideas on how the teams can work and interact with each other in modern software world and what types of teams are there.

Amazing idea that stuck with me was the team interaction modes: collaboration, X-as-a-service and facilitating. As well as the 4 main topologies: Stream aligned, Platform, Enabling and Complicated subsystem.

A nice point is made that one team does not remain in a single state forever but instead can move from being a service team to a facilitating team when necessary.

Worth every single second of your time.

Deep Work (by Cal Newport)

A very interesting insights into how to become more productive and focus more in order to achieve better results. Could not stop reading this book, the ideas that it presents around deep work made me reflect on my personal professional journey and really fixate how the biggest leaps I have done in my understanding of certain topics have come when I was focusing on the work for long periods of time.

In modern world of emails, Slack and meetings trying to craft some focus time is becoming more challenging and this book provides some practical advice on how to attempt to claim it back.

Feel like this book together with Make Time from last month are a good combination if you feel like you need to refocus and reclaim back your time.

Favourite quote from the book: “Busyness as a proxy for productivity”