Someone at Agile Austin QA SIG recommended reading "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. I ordered a used copy from Amazon and finished reading it yesterday.
By the way someone else told me it was not worth reading.
There were times last weekend while we got some rain here in Austin that I could not put the book down. I found it to be easy to read and throughout the story there were some reasonable context around the Theory of Constraints. There were points in the story where I got bored and lost interest. The specifics on Alex's home life seemed ancillary but that slight personal touch made me relate to the stresses work can put on your personal life. The part of the book helped remind me of the importance of having a great work-life balance.
In general I did get value out of reading the book. I had wished in the testimonial section at the end there were some applications within the Software industry. I admit I read them fairly fast, but I do not recall a life story about applying TOC to software development.
I have been trying to learn and study how testing fits into Kanban, so I think this book helped me get a broader view.
Now I am starting to read two books concurrently. That is a mistake for my two brain cells, but giving it a go. I am now reading "The Agile Samurai" by Jonathan Rasmusson and "The Inmates are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper. The Alan Cooper book was loaned to me by an energetic colleague Juliette Kimes. Thanks Juliette!
Hopefully I will have some good things to say about those books.
Read on Testers!
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