Bookworm Reads

50 Architecture Ideas You Really Need to Know

2012-01-29T20:24:00.000+05:30

Author:         Philip Wilkinson
Published:   2010
Publisher:    Quercus
Hardcover: 208 pages

This book consists of concise 4 page descriptions of 50 key ideas that have influenced Western architecture from the time of ancient Greek civilization till present times.

These ideas cover a wide range of fields - technology, decoration, planning, craftsmanship, interpreting the past, building for the future.

The first half of the book covers the rich past of architecture from its roots in the Grecian style to the revolutionary developments of the late 19th century. It shows that architect and builders of this period apart from creating plethora of historical styles were also progenitors of ideas like prefabrication and the garden city which is still of interest to modern architects. The second half of the book is about the 20th century architecture. It first deals with modernist architecture which is shorn of extraneous decoration and has exploited materials like glass and steel. It then deals with a variety of new ideas in which have cropped up in last few decades.

There are photographs and drawings to illustrate each idea, however it would have been better if the book had the photographs of all the buildings and monuments mentioned in it.

Though not an ideal introductory book on architecture it is a fairly good reference book

Architecture Ideas Described in this book:

From Greece to the Renaissance:
The Orders,Roman engineering,Gothic,Renaissance,Palladianism, Baroque.

Change and Taste:
The Grand Tour, Industrial Architecture, Taste,Rococo,Genius Loci,The Picturesque,Neo-Classicism, Reason, Orientalism,Restoration.

Revival and Renewal:
Revivalism,Prefabrication,Beaux Arts,Arts and Crafts,Conservation,The City Beautiful, Art Nouveau,Garden City.

Modernism around the World:
Skyscraper, Futurism, Expressionism,De Stijl,Constructivism,Bauhaus,The International Style, Minimalism,Art Deco,Organic architecture,Dymaxion Design, Segregated Planning, Heritage, Brutalism.

New Directions:
Neorationalism, Archigram, Metabolist Architecture, Townscape, Structuralism, Regionalism, Postmodernism, Contemporary Classicism, High-tech, Alternative Architecture, Deconstructivism, Green architecture.

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The Children of Nature - The Life and Legacy of Ramana Maharshi

2012-01-26T17:28:00.000+05:30

Author: Susan Visvanathan

Published: 2010

Publisher: Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.

Paperback: 260 Pages

Irrespective of what the subtitle suggests, this book is not a biography of Sri Ramana Maharshi. It is an anthropological research work by the author who is a Professor in JNU, New Delhi.

She attempts to understand the role of spirituality and its social relevance. For this she has chosen as the subjects of her study - Sri Ramana Maharshi ( a spiritual master); his ashram (Sri Ramanasramam, which grew around him in his lifetime and continues to attract many sincere followers and devotees) and the Tiruvanamalai town where this ashram is located.
However there is a personal angle to this book too.
When she was towards the end of nine months of her pregnancy she was having some complications and started feeling very frightened. Around this time one day an old gentleman appeared in her dream and smiled at her. That smile was the most amazing one she had ever seen and after that the feeling of fear left her. She came through the last weeks of her dangerous pregnancy with tranquility. Few years later she recognized a photograph of Sri Ramana Maharshi as being that of the gentle old man who had smiled at her. Then after few more years later (in 1996) she decided to pay visit to Sri Ramanasramam to research material for this book.

So using Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramanasramam and Tiruvannamalai town as primary example, the book tries to analyze - to what extent a person's experience of the divine can be explained by social anthropology; what are the limits of interpretation; and how far is it possible to understand the interweaving of the sacred and the profane in the lives of ordinary human beings.

This book records author's several journeys to Sri Ramanasramam, and the things she saw and the people she met. It is both a travelogue as well as a sociological exercise. Sometimes the narrative is presented as journal entries, sometimes as sociological essay replete with jargon and sometimes as reminiscences and meditation.

I have to admit that I really could not grasp what the author is trying to say. Her conclusions of her research still remains a mystery to me ! Neither the narration of her personal experiences in Sri Ramanasramam kept me interested although I myself have been greatly inspired by life and philosophy of Sri Ramana Maharshi and have been a regular visitor to Sri Ramanasramam and also seen many of the people mentioned by the author in this book.

This book is definitely not for lay persons due to its abstruse, scholarly writing style replete with jargons.
Neither this book will attract anthropology/ sociology scholars since in my view the narrative being personal in nature loses the objectivity of an unbiased research.

Probably that's the reason why hardly after a year after its publication I found this book marked down at a throwaway price of Rs.99/- in the Landmark Bookshop,

[Please feel free to leave your comments below or bookmark/share this summary]

Steering Project Success - What More is Possible ?

2012-01-20T23:29:00.000+05:30

Author: Madhavan S. Rao

Published: 2011

Publisher: Assurance Consulting, Bengaluru, India

Paperback: 292 Pages

This book is a valuable addition to the project management literature. The main beneficiaries of this book will be project managers from Indian IT service industry.

This is a book which every Project Manager (especially those in Indian IT service industry) should read and often refer to!

Read the summary of this book in my Professional Blog.

Balasaraswati - Her Art and Life

2012-01-18T22:56:00.004+05:30

Author: Douglas M. Knight Jr.

Published : 2011

Publisher: Tranquebar Press

Hardcover: 340 pages

I love Indian classical music - both Hindustani and Carnatic. But I am rather indifferent to and ignoramus about Indian classical dances. If at all I watch them on TV, it is more to listen to the music accompanying the dance.

Therefore prior to reading this book I only knew Balasaraswati , the famous Bharatanatyam dancer ,as a teacher of Carnatic vocalist Jon Higgins. Therefore this book written by her son-in-law Douglas M. Knight Jr. enlightened me a lot about her life, her values, her struggles, her personality, her dancing style and her dedication to the traditional style of Bharatanatyam .

The book has seven chapters.

Chapter 1 From the Heart of the Tradition – This chapter begins with a brief introduction to the art and the history of Bharatanatyam. It also discusses the customs of the Devdasi community which Balasaraswati belonged to. It then traces the genealogical tree of Balasaraswati - from her great-great-great-great grandmother Papamma who was a court musician and dancer in Thanjavur court towards the last quarter of 18th century, to the music legend “Vina” Dhanammal. Balasaraswati was Vinal Dhanammal’s granddaughter.

Chapter 2 – Madman at the Gate (1918-27)- The childhood of Balasaraswati is covered in this chapter. We get to know how her passion for dance was first revealed when as a child she started imitating a mad beggar who used to come regularly and dance in front of her grandmother Vina Dhanammal’s house. Short life sketches of her formal teachers Mylapore Gauri Ammal and Kandappa Pillai are also presented. This chapter describes at considerable length the life and times of Vina Dhannamal around this period. The chapter ends with the arangetram (first public performance) of Balasaraswati.

Chapter 3 - Renaissance (1927-1936) –This chapter deals with early public performances of Balasaraswati especially in Madras Music Academy. It also describes her North India tour along with Uday Shankar’s troupe.

Chapter 4 – Reconstruction (1936-1947) – During the period mid-thirties to mid-forties the art of Bharatnatyam went major changes. Rukmini Devi Arundale was quite successful in her attempt to present a “reconstructed” Bharatnatyam which was almost devoid of Sringara-rasa (the divine erotic element). This impacted the traditional Bharatnatyam dancers like Balasraswati and the invitations for her to perform started dwindling. This dark period in her life forms the major portion of the narrative in this chapter.

Chapter 5 – Dancing for Murugan (1947-1961) – Things started changing for better for Balasaraswati during this period. She began her teaching career by establishing a dance school. She started performing frequently once again all over India and won many accolades like Sangeet Natak Academy award and the Padma Bhushan. All these are described in this chapter.

Chapter 6 – On the Back of a Peacock (1961-1972) – This chapter focuses on the performances of Balasaraswati on the global stage in the sixties and early seventies and the recognition she received. Starting with East-West encounter in Tokyo, it goes on to describe her professional engagements in the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and the Edinburgh festival.

Chapter 7 – Something Great and Grand (1972-1984) – The concluding chapter is about the last decade of Balasaraswati’s life. While she continued teaching dance both in India and USA, her performances were now drastically reduced due to her ill health. She passed away in 1984.

This is a very well researched book and based on interviews with Balasaraswati’s family members, friends, fellow artists as well as published/unpublished writings about her and reviews of her performances. However couple of very obvious errors regarding dates have crept in (year of formation of Indian National Congress was 1885 not 1887as mentioned; India became a Republic in 1950 not 1947 as mentioned). These needs to be rectified in the next edition.

More than 50 illustrations adorn this well produced book . But the highlight of the book is 16 plates of high quality black and white photographs which successfully capture the beauty, grace and emotion of Balasaraswati’s dance.

A must read for all the Indian classical music and dance lovers!

Links:

An interesting and amusing photograph from the book - Balasaraswati and her close friend M.S. Subbulakshmi (the famous Carnatic vocalist) in 1937.

Other Reviews of this book

Documentary on. Balasaraswati - produced by her grandson Aniruddha Knight

Video recordings of Balasaraswati's performance

T. Balasaraswati dancing Deva Devanum Shabdham. Taken by Samuel Scripps 1976
Recording of T. Balasaraswati singing raaga alapana for Krishna ni
Balasaraswati performing Krishna Nee Begane Baaro - A clip from "Bala" -Satyajit Ray's documentary.

Personal Trivia:

Balasaraswati's year of birth (1918) and year of death (1984) is same as that of my maternal Grandma !
Balasarswati had a brother called Varadan who died when he was 55 years old. My maternal Grandfather's name was also Varadan and he also died at the age of 55 !
Balasaraswati had reservations about men dancing certain styles of Bharatanatyam that were self-consciously imitative of feminine qualities" (as mentioned in Page 249 of the book). And so do I ! However her grandson Aniruddha Knight turned out to be a dancer. See a video recording of his performance.

[This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!]

Agile Management for Software Engineering – Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results

2012-01-15T01:13:00.000+05:30

Author: David J. Anderson

Published : 2003;

Publisher: Prentice Hall

Paperback: 336 pages;

This is one of the first few books on Agile which goes beyond presenting the anecdotal benefits of Agile and discusses the business metrics which can be used to quantify the ROI.

Hence it will be of great interest to those in senior management positions.

It will also encourage them to avoid local process sub optimization and lead their organizations towards optimizing the system as a whole. Such holistic optimization will yield good business results.

A valuable book for Agile enthusiasts too, since it will equip them with material to present a business case for Agile methods to the senior management.

Read more about this book in my Professional Blog.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Original Edition)

2012-01-05T12:56:00.000+05:30

Author: Patrick Lencioni

Published: 2008

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Paperback: 240 pages

This book is a must read for those executives who wants to bring about team leadership culture in their organization and also highly recommended for Agile Coaches, ScrumMasters and Scrum Team members .

It has been published as a manga (comic book) edition too. In fact I read the manga edition first and summarized it in one of my previous blog post.

I then got hold of this original book hoping to gather more insights and details about the five dysfunctions of a team. However it proved to be an unnecessary exercise since the manga edition seems to have done a great job of bringing out all the key points of this book.

Read my blog post on the manga edition of this book.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Manga Edition)

2011-12-28T21:47:00.000+05:30

Author: Patrick Lencioni

Illustrator: Kensuke Okabayashi

Published: 2008

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte Ltd.

Paperback: 174 pages

A must read for those executives who wants to bring about team leadership culture in their organization. Also highly recommended for Agile Coaches, ScrumMasters and Scrum Team members since Agile highly values teamwork.

Read more about this book in my Professional Blog.

World History - 50 key milestones you really need to know

2011-12-23T16:12:00.000+05:30

Author:         Ian Crofton
Published:   2011
Publisher:    Quercus
Hardcover: 210 pages

The aim of this book as per the author is to focus on 50 key developments and events of the world history and lay basic foundations for the readers to build on. The economic, social, geographic and cultural factors surrounding these events are covered.
The time period covered in this book ranges from beginning of agriculture 10,000 years ago to the 9/11 attack on Twin Towers in 2001.
The author allocates four pages to describe each milestone .
A detailed timeline of dates and events accompanies the main text.
The main text is also supported by selected contemporary quotations to bring the flavor of the period being described. Personalities as diverse as Aristotle, Saladin, Christopher Columbus, Galileo, Thomas Jefferson, Mary Wollstonecraft, Lincoln, Winston Churchill etc. are quoted.
In addition there are one or two mini articles for every milestone being discussed. These articles cover a range of fascinating topics - Nazca Lines, Renaissance man, Confucianism, Alexander the Great's horse, Islamic science, Barbary corsairs, Enigma code, the atomic bomb etc.

It would have been better if in addition to the above if all the dates and events for all the milestones were captured in a single tabular column, with each column representing a milestone.Also this book lacks a bibliography.
Nevertheless an interesting, handy and well laid out reference book which may serve as an appetizer to know more about the milestones.

Milestones Described in this book:

FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE MIDDLE AGES:
The beginnings of agriculture; The first cities; Egypt of the pharaohs; Classical Greece; Alexander the Great; The spread of Roman power; The fall of Rome and its aftermath; The rise of Islam; The Vikings; The Crusades; The Black Death.

OTHER WORLDS: Precolonial India; Imperial China; The Mongols; Japan, the island empire; Incas and Aztecs; Empires and kingdoms of Africa.

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD: The Renaissance; The Ottoman empire; The voyages of discovery; The Reformation; The Counter-Reformation; The English Revolution; The Scientific Revolution; The age of empire; The Enlightenment.

GATHERING PACE: The American Revolution; The French Revolution; The Napoleonic Era; The Industrial Revolution; Nationalism in Europe; Slavery; The expansion of the USA; The American Civil War; The rise of socialism; Women's rights.

THE 20th CENTURY AND AFTER: The First World War; Lenin and Stalin; The shadow of Fascism; The Great Depression; The Second World War - Europe; The Second World War - Asia and the Pacific; The Holocaust; The Cold War; The end of empire; The Vietnam War; The Arab-Israeli conflict; The fall of communism; The resurgence of China; 9/11 and after.

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Gandhi - Naked Ambition

2011-12-16T00:18:00.000+05:30

Author:         Jad Adams
Published:   2010
Publisher:    Quercus
Hardcover: 336 pages

I doubt whether there is any Indian who has not heard about Mahatma Gandhi. We revere him as the Father of the Nation and generally have some idea (however vague it may be) about the values and ideals he stood for. His role in leading India to independence from the British Raj is well recognized all over the world.
But how many of us really know beyond what met the public eye and know him as a person? I must confess that apart from Gandhi's autobiography: My Experiments with Truth, which I read more than a decade ago (and forgotten almost all its content), I had not read much about his life. That's the reason I borrowed this book from the British Library.

This biography is mainly based on Gandhi's own writings and that of his secretaries Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal. It is a fairly well narrated account of Gandhi's life. I came to know several little known facts about Gandhi.
While the author has based this biography on authentic sources he has his own interpretation of the facts. In his introduction to the book he conveys that:

Gandhi was very image conscious and knew very well how to make best use of the media to promote his image.
Gandhi's striving for truth was not an attempt to reach unquestioned factual accuracy, but stretching out towards spiritual perfection.
The battle with the government over Indian rights was what Gandhi did, the struggle with his sex drive was what Gandhi was.
Gandhi was an intensely ambitious man. The ambitious was not for fairness of laborers or Indian independence but for spiritual perfection.

The above interpretations form the underlying theme of the entire book .
While I am not sure how far these interpretations are correct, the book is quite an interesting read. However one needs to read a few more books on Gandhi to get a complete picture and understanding of his multifaceted and often contradictory character.

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The PMP Exam - How to Pass on Your First Try

2011-12-02T00:39:00.000+05:30

Author: Andy Crowe

Published: 2009

Publisher: Shroff Publishers and Distributors

Paperback: 556 pages

Overall seems to be a pretty useful aid for PMP exam preparation.

Read more about this book.

The Immortals of Meluha

2011-11-25T11:32:00.000+05:30

Author:         Amish
Published:   2010
Publisher:    Westland Ltd.
Paperback: 466 pages

This is a story about the transformation of a Tibetan tribal leader to a savior of the country of Meluha.
This Tibetan is none another than whom many Hindus worship as Lord Shiva and Meluha is " what modern Indians mistakenly call the Indus Valley Civilization".
This is an imaginative rendering of the saga of Lord Shiva.
A modern Shiva Puranam !
This book is the first book in the Shiva Trilogy , the second being "The Secret of the Nagas" and the third "The Oath of the Vayuputras (yet to be released)".
The book begins with Shiva being convinced by Nandi (a Meluhan) to emigrate from Mansarovar , Mt. Kailash to Meluha along with Gunas , the members of his tribe. It concludes with Shiva leading Meluhans to a resounding victory over their enemies the Chandravanshis of Swadweep. However Shiva is rather pained by this victory and almost goes into depression. Why ? Read the book to find out!
The plot is quite interesting, fast-moving and has a surprising twist in the end. It has author's own logical and quite credible interpretations of - how Shiva got his blue throat (thereby the name "Neelkanth"); how his weapon the trident (Trishul) was conceived; his third-eye; the symbol "Aum"; reincarnations of Vishnu etc. Though this book is packed with events, yet author has managed to portray Shiva's character, his dilemmas and his sense of humor pretty well.
The underlying message of this book as mentioned by Amish, the author in the introduction is "... all of us can rise to be better people.....there exists a potential god in every human being. All we have to do is to listen to ourselves."
However from a literary perspective I would rate Ashok Banker's book "The Prince of Ayodhya", which belongs to the same genre, a notch higher (See my review of this book). But Banker's book is more voluminous and rather too descriptive which may be a bit too much for many readers (not for me though ! I liked it). And this is where "The Immortals of Meluha" has an edge. It is more appealing to a wider audience and has become No.1 National Bestseller.
Though it did not meet my expectations 100 % (may be I had too high an expectation based on what I heard and read about it), I still enjoyed reading it and look forward to reading its sequels.

Links:

The Shiva Trilogy website - Do watch the high quality and professionally produced video trailers of the book available in this website.
Read Chapter 1 of this book.
Listen to the audio excerpts from Chapters 1 to 5.

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Agile Estimating and Planning

2011-11-23T11:23:00.000+05:30

Authors: Mike Cohn

Published: 2005

Publisher: Prentice Hall

Paperback: 368 pages

A MUST READ for all project managers from both Agile and Traditional projects !

Read the complete Book Summary in my business website.

Agile Testing

2011-11-17T11:19:00.000+05:30

Authors: Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory

Published: 2009

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Paperback: 576 pages

A very significant contribution to agile literature which educates programmers and testers as well as their managers on how to appreciate one another's work and collaboratively work towards integrating testing activities as a part and parcel of an agile process.

7 Secrets of Vishnu

2011-11-08T14:43:00.001+05:30

Author: Devdutt Pattanaik

Published: 2011

Publisher: Westland Ltd.

Paperback: 232 pages

I received this book from Blogadda under their book review program.

I belong to the Iyengar community which worships Vishnu as their main deity. Therefore I am generally familiar with most of the legends and rituals built around Vishnu. However I was always curious to know the hidden meaning and significance behind them and hence this book sounded interesting and I offered to review it.

There are seven chapters in this book, each dealing with one secret of Vishnu. These seven chapters also correspond to seven of the several avatars (reincarnations) of Vishnu viz.; Mohini, Matsya, Kurma, Trivikrama, Ram, Krishna and Kalki. These avatars are chosen to explain various underlying and hidden metaphysical and philosophical themes :

Mohini's Secret - Spiritual growth need not exclude material growth..
Matsya's Secret - Difference between man and animal - only humans can empathize, and exploit.
Kurma's Secret - Wealth eludes the insecure.
Trivikrama's Secret - Ignorance breeds insecurity and ignorance.
Ram's Secret - Outgrow the beast to discover the divine.
Krishna's Secret - Know the thoughts behind actions.
Kalki's Secret - The wisdom of letting go of things with a faith in its renewal.

The title of the book is a misnomer for it reveals much more than seven secrets of Vishnu . It also slips in the secrets of Shiva, Brahma, Saraswati, Lakshmi and many more gods, goddesses, asuras and rakshsas as well as a bonus within confines of the above chapters !

All the legends , rituals and symbols are very well interpreted, though I am not sure whether it is author's own interpretation or whether it is based on the research he had conducted.The writing style could have been simplified a bit more. It is slightly abstruse and somewhat disjointed and lacks a spontaneous flow. This may cause some difficulty to readers not exposed to Hindu philosophical concepts, though for me it is not a major issue.

The book has an attractively designed cover and an impressive layout of pages.It is profusely illustrated. Every alternate page has an illustration of a classic painting (for e.g.Mysore painting, Kerala murals, Pahari miniature, Mughal paintings, Patta paintings etc.) or a calendar art or a temple sculpture. The illustrations are well supported by explanations in call-out bubbles which point to the exact part of the illustration being explained. See below a sample of such illustrations.

A few suggestions for the author and the publisher to be taken care of in the next edition:

A glossary for non-English terms used in this book.
An index to easily locate the interesting pieces of information.
A consolidated list of all the illustrations along with their sources.
A hardcover version of this book with glossy illustrations in color will make this an excellent coffee table book.

Overall I am really impressed with this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in religious mythology, spirituality or philosophy. At just Rs. 250/- this book is a real bargain.

I was luckier since I got to read it free. However as a part of the deal , I had to try hard and take time out to write a 500 word review within the 7 days deadline given by BlogAdda. But it was worth it.

Visit the Author's website for interesting articles on mythology.

Sample illustrations from this book:

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!
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Letters to Sam

2011-11-07T21:31:00.000+05:30

Author: Daniel Gottlieb

Published: 2008

Publisher: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Paperback: 176 pages

Buy from Penguin India a lower priced Indian edition.

There is a saying, "If life gives you a lemon make lemonade out of it".

This very well applies to Daniel Gottlieb, the author of this book who is a psychologist. At a young age of thirty three, an accident made him quadriplegic and confined to a wheel chair for life. But in spite of this debilitating disability, he tried hard and developed a tremendous mental strength which enabled him to develop his career as a successful psychologist over the last thirty years. He has counseled and helped people to deal with their mental agony through his consulting sessions, articles and books and also as a talk show host.

In this book he shares his perspectives on life as observed from his wheelchair .He says his clients, his talk show audience and the readers of his articles have taught him "a great deal about courage, longing, and what it means to be human'. And these perspectives and the lessons he learnt he wants to pass on to his grandson Sam who suffers from an autistic disorder. Each of the thirty odd chapters in this book is in form of a letter to Sam. They are lessons on - perfection, kindness, love, compassion, frustrations, desires, justice, happiness, peace, loss, gifts of life, death etc. All these letter try and answer the question "What it means to be human?".

There is another saying - "The best things in life come in small packages".

This slim pocket-sized book is definitely one of the best books I have read this year. Chapters are short, simple and touches your heart.

In a very reassuring manner it motivates the readers to accept the reality of their suffering and effectively deal with it.

A must-read for everyone especially for long suffering patients and their caregivers !

Look forward to reading its sequel "The Wisdom of Sam".

P.S. While reading this book I was reminded of Hrithik Roshan's character in the Hindi film "Guzaarish". It has Hrithik Roshan playing a quadriplegic who as a Radio Jockey spreads hope and laughter among his listeners. May be this character was partly based on Daniel Gottlieb who hosts a very popular talk show "Voices in the Family".

Links:

Daniel Gottlieb's Website
Excerpts from the book : Two chapters - Lap Time & Give Kindness a Chance

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The Templar Legacy

2011-11-03T19:38:00.000+05:30

Author: Steve Berry

Published: 2006

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

Paperback: 560 pages

A Da Vinci Code- like adventure about Knight Templars and the hunt for the Great Devise which holds the key to the secret behind Jesus Christ's resurrection.

Partially based on facts.

Fast moving and interesting though somewhat confusing with too many characters and clue.

A good time-pass reading .

However if you have read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code you can give this book a miss unless you have nothing else to read.

An Excerpt from Chapter 1.

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The Art of Living - Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka

2011-11-02T17:06:00.000+05:30

Author: William Hart

Published: 1988

Publisher: Embassy Book Distributors

Paperback: 180 pages

Vipassana is an ancient meditation technique originally taught by Gautam Buddha 2500 years ago. It is aimed at effectively dealing with the misery in life - tensions, agitation, unhappiness, suffering etc. - we experience in this world and achieve peace and equanimity of mind thereby leading a happy life.

Vipassana technique is based on self-observation and introspection. It is a non-sectarian approach, so one need not be a Buddhist to follow it.

S.N. Goenka a retired industrialist is one of the most recognized teacher of Vipassana in the present age. This book is based mainly on the discourses given by him during a ten-day Vipassana meditation course and to some extent the articles written by him.

There are ten chapters in this book corresponding to each day of the course. At the end of chapters there are excerpts from the Q&A session and a typical story choosen among the several stories narrated by S.N. Goenka.

A well written book which provides a a spiritually inclined person very good introduction to the technique of Vipassana. It got me interested enough to ponder over the possibility of attending a Vipassana course at some point of time. But the prospect of getting cut-off from the 24X7 connected world for 10 full days is rather daunting. Wish I had the capacity to let go of temptations of the modern world at least temporarily.

Links:

The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation a text based upon a talk given by S.N. Goenka in Berne, Switzerland.
Introduction to Vipassana Meditation by S.N. Goenka : A 17 minute video discourse.
Vipassana Research Institute : Established by S.N. Goenka in 1985 for the purpose of conducting research into the sources and applications of the Vipassana Meditation Technique.

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Agile Coaching

2011-10-27T16:57:00.001+05:30

Authors: Rachel Davies, Liz Sedley

Published: 2009

Publisher: The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Paperback: 240 pages

This book is a must-have tool of an Agile Coach ! Highly recommended reading for every one in the agile team as well!

Delivering E-Learning

2011-10-20T16:15:00.000+05:30

Author: Kenneth Fee

Published: 2009

Publisher: Kogan Page

Hardcover: 200 pages

In this information age one cannot afford to keep away from the potential benefits which e-learning can deliver. However the subject of e-learning is still misunderstood and still accounts for only 10 % of all the training though its popularity seems to be on rise.

The author Kenneth Fee through this book presents a complete strategy of design, application and assessment of e-learning initiatives.

The focus of this book is on the process of learning rather than on the digital technologies that enable e-learning.

There are seven main chapters in this book.

Chapter 1- Understanding e-learning: Corrects some of the common misconceptions about e-learning and defines e-learning, the three components of e-learning and five different models of e-learning.

Chapter 2- Advocacy of e-learning: Provides guidelines on recognizing and overcoming objections to e-learning and influencing effective e-learning implementations.

Chapter 3- E-learning strategy: development: Discusses the know how of devising and implementing an effective e-learning strategy which is aligned with the organization's learning strategy as well as its overall business strategy.

Chapter 4- E-learning strategy: suppliers and resources: Demystifies the digital technology associated with e-learning and examines ways of classifying the technology vendors and integrating them in the strategy in a most effective manner.

Chapter 5- E-learning strategy: learning design issues: Explains how e-learning design is different from the design for other media and shows how to make e-learning program work well by pointing out the pitfalls to be avoided in this process.

Chapter 6- E-learning strategy: measurement and results: Discusses the various approaches that can be taken to evaluate an e-learning program and how they can be linked to strategy development.

Chapter 7- Learning more about e-learning: Gives pointers to further information in terms of web references and annotated bibliography.

Epilogue - Offers some thoughts on the future trends on e-learning.

Most of the chapters have a section called "Virtual Round Table" where the author consolidates the responses of six international experts on e-learning to the following questions he asked them in separate interviews:

What are the big issues in e-learning at the moment?
What works well and what doesn’t work so well in e-learning?
What the main trends in e-learning are at the moment?
How e-learning will change in the future? What it could look like in 10 years’ time.

There is also an illustrative case study which runs throughout the book. It is about how a learning and development manager with a leading UK retailer successfully implements e-learning in her organization.

Quite a concise, well-written, introductory book on the e-learning strategy which also provides insights on how to manage e-learning effectively.

A MUST READ for every learning and development professional taking first steps towards e-learning.

Useful Links:

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Exploring Indian Railways

2011-10-17T12:36:00.000+05:30

Author: Bill Aitken

Published: 1994

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Hardcover: 292 pages

As a kid I used to look forward to train journeys a lot. And I still do. This interest in trains led to my picking up this book from the library. Though this book was somewhat outdated (last published in 1994) I was expecting interesting accounts of some fascinating train journeys undertaken by the author , interspersed with interesting anecdotes and facts about Indian Railways. But I was rather disappointed. This book devotes much space to the bureaucracy and politics prevailing in Indian Railways around the time the book was written. Though in bits and pieces some interesting information is available, by and large I found this book rather boring and outdated.

I rather keep this review short and not waste too much time writing about the book which I wish I had not read at all.

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Prince of Ayodhya - Book One of the Ramayana

2011-10-12T12:47:00.000+05:30

Author: Ashok K. Banker
Published: 2005
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Paperback: 534 pages

The story of Ramayana takes me back to my childhood days when I used to repeatedly hear it from my grandfather who was a great storyteller. His vivid narration had a deep impact on me and I myself at the age of 5 or 6 started telling the story of Rama to whoever cared to listen and appreciate!
Nowadays I prefer Mahabharata to Ramayana since I think the characters in the former are more realistically portrayed. However this book - Prince of Ayodhya : Book One of the Ramayana - written by Ashok Banker has rekindled my interest in Ramayana enough to look forward to reading its sequels too.
I had always thought of Ashok Banker as a pulp fiction author and had not cared to read any of his books. I could not have got to reading even this, had I found the book - The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi - I was looking for in the library. Tripathi's book has received good reviews for its contemporary treatment of Lord Shiva's story. But it so happened that "The Immortals of Meluha "was not available so I picked up this book instead since it seemed to be of the same genre i.e. modern interpretation of a mythological figure.
The book begins with the Author's note where he tells us how Ramayana came to be written by Valmiki and subsequently by many others who followed him, each adding their own interpretations and embellishments so that " there are as many Ramayanas as there are people who know the tale, or claim to know it. And no two versions are exactly alike". Then Banker proceeds to say what was his motivation to add yet another version of this great epic to the literature.
This volume deals with princes Rama and Lakshmana being sent with Sage Vishwamitra to protect the yagna (sacrificial rites) he is performing from getting disturbed by the Asuras. The princes successfully accomplish this mission by killing the demons Taraka and Subhahu.
Now this is a bare outline of this volume. Banker through his creative imagination and interpretations has added sub-plots and incidents not found in any of the previous versions of Ramayana and has described them very vividly. This has bloated the size of the book to 500 odd pages based on this outline. Yet not in any point of time while reading it I was bored. This itself speaks of the author's story telling prowess.
Visit the Wikipedia entry about this book where plot summary and a section on how it differs from the original Valmiki Ramayana is provided.

Recommend this book for a light and entertaining reading. But definitely won't recommend it to highly religious and pious people who look upon Rama as a God.

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High Performance Operations

2011-10-08T01:02:00.002+05:30

Author:        Hillel Glazer
Published:    2011
Publisher:     FT Press
Hardcover: 272 pages

Acknowledgement :

I thank the author and the publisher for sending me a free pre-publication copy of this book and seeking an honest opinion of mine through this blog post. It has been a privilege to have read this book before it was released.

Book Review:

Many organizations treat compliance requirements like SOX, CMMI , FDA, ISO 9001, which are imposed on them either by clients or regulatory authorities as a necessary evil or a dead weight which needs to be endured as a hygiene factor to sustain their business.

But at the same time there are also some organizations (though in minority numbers) who have successfully leveraged the same compliance requirements to enhance their business performance and gained competitive advantage. The author Hillel Glazer has helped several such organizations to achieve this feat by creating process solutions that build compliance into the value stream using a system engineering approach.

This book provides the essence of this approach called Process Solutioneering (R) [ patent applied for by the author].

The key points regarding effective handling of the compliance requirements as described in this book are:

To effectively integrate compliance requirements into the operation one must tie in their expectations to performance requirements.
Instead of focusing on the compliance practices specified in the standards, one should focus on the values from which these practices are derived. This will enable the operations to address these practices without unnecessary additional work.
Any activity undertaken to meet the compliance requirements should contribute to TQ$ (Time, Quality and Money)
Compliance requirements must be examined from the two perspectives - risk it is intended to avoid or/and the opportunity it intends to exploit. If an existing operation is already avoiding the expected the risk or exploiting the same opportunity, the effort required to achieve compliance is minimized.

The author has primarily aimed this book at managers and executives. And it has found its mark right on ! The book can be a real eye-opener for them when they realize how compliance issues can be effectively leveraged to transform their operations to a high performing one provided they are willing to invest in terms of establishing appropriate leadership, culture, trust, autonomy, learning and communication system.

As far as the experienced and well read business process management professionals are concerned they may be already aware of many of the concepts discussed in this book.

A few suggestions to enhance the utility and popularity of this book - lesser repetitions of the same concept, more diagrams to support the explanations (for e.g. the analogy of Lift, Drag ,Thrust in an aircraft), inclusion of real life case studies from the organizations where the author had been a consultants.

Look forward to a second edition or a sequel which addresses these suggestions.

Useful Links:

Author's blog about the book -www.hillelglazer.com
Author's Twitter ID - @hi11e1
Table of Contents

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Understand Statistics

2011-09-29T12:15:00.000+05:30

Author: Alan Graham

Published: 2010

Publisher: Hodder Education

Paperback: 378 pages

I am always on the lookout for good ideas to enhance my training and consulting approaches. Therefore I read from time to time, from a purely pedagogical perspective, introductory level books on the subjects which I am quite well versed with. The intention is to study the manner in which authors introduce the nuances of a subject to the novices. Statistics is one such subject.

While facilitating the implementation of high CMMI maturity level practices in companies I previously worked for, I felt that the project managers and senior level management need to have at least a basic knowledge of statistics to properly understand and use the metrics which such organizations churn out. I wish I had read this book then and recommended it to them. I must admit that even I learnt a few new things in this book.

The book starts with a very warm and personal introduction by the author, where he sets the expectations from this book very clearly. He says " ...the focus is on understanding the key concepts and principles of the subject" and it "...does not provide a comprehensive guide to statistical techniques".

Chapter 1 introduces the subject of statistics. It describes the reasons why learning statistics is a worthwhile exercise; provides examples of everyday situations where knowledge of statistics will be helpful; what kind of statistical questions can be asked and how they are investigated.

Chapter 2 serves as an introduction or a refresher to some basic mathematical concepts which are necessary for understanding statistics.

Chapter 3 & 4, describes different types of graphs - bar chart, pie chart, histograms, scattergraphs etc. - and provides guidelines for choosing the most appropriate type of graph to represent the data.

Chapter 5 deals with the concept of central value ( i.e. mean, median, mode) and the spread (i.e. variance and standard deviation) around the central value.

Chapter 6 entitled Lies and Statistics is perhaps the most useful chapter in this book from a layperson's perspective. In real life we often come across deceptive representation of facts by means of misleading graphs, confusing percentages and inappropriate averages. This chapter tells us how to see through these deceptions and avoid making regrettable decisions based on them.

Chapter 7 introduces us to the sampling techniques viz; random and systematic and also deals with variations in samples and errors associated with sampling.

Chapter 8 tells us how to collect data samples and to check and ensure data accuracy.

Chapter 9 teaches the basics of using a spreadsheet to do data analysis.

Chapter 10 is about interpreting the data in the tables and reorganize the data to make convey the key information more clearly.

Chapter 11 and 12 deal with concepts of Regression and Correlation respectively.

Chapter 13 and 14 is about Probability. After introducing the concept of probability, probability models like uniform, normal and binomial distributions are discussed.

Chapter 15, the last chapter tells us how to conduct test of significance in terms of z test and binomial test.

This book is one of the best introduction to the principles of statistics I have ever read. Simple and easy to understand language; packed with practical examples and exercises and interesting stories revolving around statistics.

So if you want to learn statistics, start with this book !

Link to the Book Website - It has the table of contents and some interesting extracts from the book.

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User Stories Applied

2011-09-25T22:07:00.000+05:30

Author: Mike Cohn

Published: 2004

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Paperback: 304 pages

The entire business of software development (for that matter any product development) starts with a user need (whether inherent or created by innovative marketing !) which gets expressed in form of documented requirements. This holds true for both the traditional and the agile methods. But the difference lies in the manner in which these requirements get documented. The traditional methods like waterfall method recommend a Big Requirements Up-Front (BRUF) approach where the entire set of requirements are documented by the analysts and passed on like a relay race baton to the development team. The agile methods zealously espouse the cause of short and "just enough" documentation of requirements which encourages conversation between the developers and the product stakeholders. User Stories , the subject matter of this book, are one such way of documenting requirements, highly recommended by most of the agilists.

Mike Cohn, the author of this book, is an oft cited authority whenever the topic of user stories arises in Agile related discussions. Here he provides a very practical approach towards effectively using User Stories in the software development projects.

The book is in three parts consisting of twenty odd chapters.

Part I: Getting Started - Introduces the concept of User Stories , describes how they can be used and provides guidelines for writing good user stories.

Part II: . Estimating and Planning - Deals with estimation of User Stories in terms of Story Points; creation and subsequent refinement of release plans for high priority stories at the start of each iteration; tracking the progress of project and replanning based on the learnings from each iteration.

Part III: Frequently Discussed Topics— How User Stories differ from other requirements specification methods and the advantage User Stories have over such methods; How to identify the bad implementation of User Stories; How to address non-functional requirements through User stories.

Part IV: An Example— An extended case study running through five chapters provides an excellent example of how user stories are created, estimated, allocated to release plan and acceptance tested.

All the chapters in the first three parts of the book have a set of exercise questions to test the understanding of User Stories. The answers for these questions are also provided in the appendix.

Most of the chapters also have a section on what are the Customer Responsibilities and Developer Responsibilities towards successful implementation of User Stories.

This book was published in 2004 and does not seem to have an updated edition yet. Therefore a couple of User Story techniques developed by Mike Cohn which became popular later do not find a mention in this book.

For e.g.,

The Planning Poker - though a short description of this method is provided, it has not been named as such.

The popular template of writing a User Story - As a , I would like to so that .

But these are very minor limitations. Overall if you want to know anything about the User Stories, this is the GO-TO book !

Links to Extracts from this book

Foreword for this book by Kent Beck, the inventor of Extreme Programming (XP) methodology. It was in XP where User Stories were first used.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 3 - User Role Modeling

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Agile Retrospectives - Making Good Teams Great

2011-09-17T23:49:00.000+05:30

Author: Esther Derby & Diane Larsen
Published: 2006
Publisher: The Pragmatic Bookshelf
Paperback: 182 pages

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Agile Principle # 12 - At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
The "reflection" part typically happens in a retrospective meeting after every iteration . Unless retrospective meetings are well planned, well facilitated and result in clear cut action items for the team to "tune and adjust", they will not be of much value. But a successful retrospective will enable a team to improve their capability and productivity and increase their capacity to deliver a high quality product. Moreover it will result in better teamwork and job satisfaction.
And how to get these benefits out of retrospectives is what exactly the authors of this book have attempted to teach us through this book.

A 5-step framework based on authors wide experience is proposed for conducting a retrospective viz;

Set the Stage
Gather Data
Generate Insights
Decide What To Do
Close the Retrospective

Retrospectives if always conducted in a same manner can turn out to be pretty mundane exercise. However the variety of tools and activities (more than 30) suggested for each of the above steps will ensure that retrospectives are a fun as well as productive. Every activity is described in detail almost in a cookbook fashion. in five chapters dedicated to the five steps in the retrospective.

There is also a chapter on leading a retrospective which discusses issues like managing the activities, the time, the group dynamics and even self-management.

While the book is focused on iteration retrospectives there is a chapter devoted to end of release and end of project retrospective also.

Stories from real life retrospectives are also shared in this book.

A useful and handy book which each team should have !

Links

Generic Retrospective Outline - A sample of the design for a two-day retrospective.
A Flexible Framework for Retrospectives of Any Length - As described in the book.
Using the Retrospective for Positive Change - by Diana Larsen, published in Cutter Consortium Agile Project Management Advisory Service, Executive Update Series. Vol. 5, No. 1. January 2005.
Extracts from the Book

Table of Contents and Introduction
Chapter 3: Leading a Retrospective
Selected Activities - Timeline, Triple Nickels, Team Radar, Force Field Analysis, Fish Bone

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Does He Know a Mother's Heart ?

2011-09-14T22:08:00.000+05:30

Author: Arun Shourie

Published: 2011

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers India

Hardcover: 440 pages

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The author Arun Shourie is a very well known figure in Indian journalism and politics. Yet very few would have known before the publication of this book about the anguish in his personal life. His son suffers from cerebral palsy and his wife from Parkinson's disease.It would have been a real heart wrenching experience for Shourie which lead to the writing of this book where he raises a very disturbing yet thought provoking question -Why there is extreme suffering in the world if according to the religious scriptures there is an omnipotent, omniscient , omnipresent , compassionate, all-forgiving and merciful God ?

This book is in some parts autobiographical especially in the beginning, mainly dealing with the illness of his son and wife , but mostly a dissection of several religious scriptures to reveal what they have to say about suffering.

Extensively interpreting several passages from these scriptures, Shourie argues that they actually give an impression that the God is , vindictive, demands unquestioning obedience, inflicts extreme suffering on innocent victims and also severely tests those who have faith in Him. He does not buy-in to a variety of arguments and explanations of suffering - for e.g. there is an unknown yet valid purpose behind suffering; it is a test of your faith in God; suffering is due to your Karma; suffering is an illusion etc. etc; - advanced by the strong and faithful adherents of these scriptures. He puts forward counter- arguments to their claims.

However Shourie , while not fully agreeing with the views of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi, is touched and impressed by their attitude towards their own sufferings when they were afflicted with fatal cancer.He says "The equanimity with which the painful and fatal illnesses were borne by these sages is, of course, a lesson and an example to us".

Shourie eventually finds some solace in the teachings of the Buddha and makes the following observations in the last but one chapter of the book :

Suffering is real. To dismiss it as 'unreal' is to mock the pain of another.
For dealing with life and what it sends us, in particular for persons like us who are unlikely to pursue the higher truths of the mystics, the Buddha's teachings are the most helpful.
While it is true that some people will find solace in notions like God and practices like prayers, pilgrimages and rituals, they won't mitigate the crisis. One must work out one's own salvation with diligence as per Buddha's last words.
All the sufferings are only because of Time and Chance.
No cosmic purpose is served by our suffering because there is no "cosmic purpose"
In many instances suffering is so intense and so final that one can do little about it. Yet it can be put to work. Sometimes by the person who is suffering by bearing the pain with dignity or by the people who serve the person who is suffering, thus setting an example of how to deal with such a situation.
Putting suffering to work requires - Deeply reflecting not about "Why has this happened to me?" but about, "How I may put even this to work - for others as well as for myself?"; Starting immediately; And persevering with the effort of transforming the suffering into a teacher.
We should neither pity nor sympathize with the person suffering. What is required is our Empathy. i.e. "getting into the skin of, and feeling like the person must feel".
Even if we cannot serve those who are in pain, we can be of service to those who are serving them.
Hence, each of us can serve. But we must do whatever is required by the person we serve, whenever it is required. And we must go on doing so for as long as we and those we serve live.And we must expect no sympathy, no recognition, no special priveleges.
We must not let our unhappiness dampen the spirit of the one who is battling the affliction. We must do the chores we have to in good cheer.
Unless we are watchful, suffering of those near us and our own suffering can make us less mindful of the pain of others.
Also we have to be watchful of acquiring a martyr complex and of despair while serving.
Nothing can be done that will undo the primary cause of suffering. But most of us build superstructures of rage, resentment and bitterness on that primary occrrence. The teachers like the Buddha guide us in dismantling these structures.
The near and dear ones who are caught in the vice of prolonged suffering serve us by teaching us acceptance to their condition and to let go our reactions to it. They transform us.

Shourie concludes this chapter by stating "Everyone struck a blow will find his own ways to cope - if it works for the person concerned, each one of them is valid". He further makes it clear with all humility that the lessons in this chapter ring true to him based on his own limited experience, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he has learnt these lessons fully.

A few years ago I had started reading Shourie's book "Worshipping False Gods" but gave up midway, since I found his writing style rather boring and never attempted to read any other book of his after that. However a couple of months back I happened to watch some parts of a TV interview where he talked about his latest book "Does He know a mother's heart?", which prompted me to borrow it from Just Books library at the earliest opportunity.

While the first chapter is quite a moving account of his experience in dealing with the illnesses of his wife and son, the next four chapters are quite dry and repetitive. In these chapters the quotes from the scriptures are rather too long and too many. This I felt was rather unnecessary. A couple of quotes could have made the point. The next chapter dealing with incidents from the lives of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi makes a better reading. As the next few chapters go by, the book becomes progressively interesting. The last two chapters are the best ones.

I am an agnostic and so agree with most of the points which Shourie makes in this book. However I also think that faith in God, religion, prayers and rituals - as long as they don't gravitate towards bigotry and fanaticism or causes inconvenience to others - is of great help to a large number of people in coping with the crisis they face. I don't want the faith of these devoted adherents to be shaken by Shourie's writings. So for such people I recommend them to read only the first chapter and the last two chapters. These three chapters captures the essence of this book.

Nevertheless this book is very inspirational and highly recommended read especially for the caregivers who are in similar situation as that of Shourie. It will serve as a guidebook for dealing with suffering.

Links:

Media Reviews - Review of this book in newspapers and magazines.

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Individuals and Interactions: An Agile Guide

2011-09-10T00:48:00.000+05:30

Authors: Ken Howard and Barry Rogers

Published: 2011

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Paperback: 240 pages

"Individual and Interactions over Processes and Tools", thus begins the Agile Manifesto. It is obvious that the authors of the Agile Manifesto considered "Individual and Interactions" of foremost importance for any Agile implementation. Ironically even after ten years, the Agile literature is flooded with books on "Processes and Tools" but hardly any on individual behaviors and team interactions in context of Agile projects. Therefore this book is a very welcome addition to the Agile literature.

This book is in two parts.

Part I - This part introduces and discuss the concepts of - Individual Behavior, Team Dynamics, Communication, Collaboration, Team Behavior, Change and Motivators. These concepts are well illustrated through numerous examples from Agile context.

The authors recommend assessment of the behavioral profile of each individual through the DISC (Dominator, Influencer, Supporter, Critical Thinker) framework and sharing the findings with everyone in the team. This they say will lead to better understanding and appreciation of an individual's behavior and thereby promote teamwork and collaboration. A typical DISC test is provided in this book. I took this assessment and found the results pretty much in synch with my behavioral pattern !

The chapter on Communication addresses the Agile Principle - The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation. All the key aspects to keep in mind during face-to-face conversation - Empathy, Cultural Awareness, Language (both verbal and body language) - are dealt with. Guidelines to communicate with different behavioral profiles are also provided in this book.

Yet another Agile Principle - Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done - is also addressed. The chapter on Motivators identifies and discusses six key workplace motivators - Theoretical, Utilitarian/ Economic, Aesthetic, Social, Individualistic/Political, Traditional/ Regulatory.

Motivation strategies appropriate to each of these motivators are also suggested.

Part II - This part gives detailed guidelines and instructions on on how to conduct Team Dynamics workshop. It suggests various exercises for the participants which will enable them to become aware and internalize all the concepts introduced in Part I . Some examples of exercises - Communication Origami ( for Communication), Bridge Building ( for Team Dynamics), Moon Survival ( for Collaboration).

People issues are the most challenging ones in any agile project. This book is an excellent guide for Team members, ScrumMasters, Product Owners, Management, Consultants, Trainers to understand these issues and successfully address them. A Must-Read !

Links:

Table of Contents
Sample Chapters - Chapter 2 Behavior and Individuals , Chapter 4 Communication
Interview with the Authors
Free and Quick Online DISC Test - This is different from the one in the book. Much shorter and may not be as accurate.

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Agile Product Management with Scrum

2011-09-04T00:45:00.000+05:30

Author: Roman Pichler

Published: 2010

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Paperback: 160 pages

A Product Owner (PO) is one of the key roles in Scrum framework. POs are responsible for maximizing the value of the product being developed and the work of the development team. Clearly the role of a PO is a very challenging one. This book is a much needed guide for the POs to excel in their roles and to ensure the launch of products that the customers will be delighted to have.

This book consists of six chapters.

Chapter 1 Understanding the Product Owner Role - explains the roles, responsibilities and the authority of a PO.

Chapter 2 Envisioning the Product - discusses how a PO can create a shared vision of the product being developed.

Chapter 3 Working with the Product Backlog - discusses the techniques for effectively maintaining a Product Backlog. It also provides suggestions for handling nonfunctional requirements and scaling the Product Backlog for large projects.

Chapter 4 Planning the Release - discusses the essential concepts and techniques of release planning.

Chapter 5 Collaborating in the Sprint Meetings - provides tips for effectively collaborating with the rest of the Scrum team during Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meetings.

Chapter 6 Transitioning into a Product Owner Role - provides guidance for people moving into Product Owner roles from more conventional roles like that of a project manager or a product manager.

The book is very concise, highly readable and contains lots of real life examples to illustrate the points made by the author.

Each chapter has a section called "Common Mistakes" which highlights the pitfalls that Product Owners need to avoid.

Another important section in every chapter is "Reflection". This section poses a set of "moment of truth" questions to the Product Owners and other managers in an organization. These questions will enable them to objectively asses their current practices and situation and serve as prompts to improve them.

There is no denying the fact this is an extremely useful book for Product Owners. However the title of the book "Agile Product Management with Scrum" sets a much higher expectation among the prospective readers. The book is written only from a Product Owner's perspective. Other aspects of product management are not dealt with. A more apt title of this book could have been something like "How to be an Effective Product Owner in a Scrum Project" or "A Guidebook for Product Owners".

There may not be much new in this book for a highly experienced and effective Product Owner who may be already aware of and even following many of the useful techniques discussed in this book.

But for a novice Product Owner, other members of the Scrum Team, and the management of an organization taking baby steps towards implementation of Scrum, this book should be a mandatory read.

Links:

Inbound Marketing

2011-09-02T01:16:00.000+05:30

Authors: Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah

Published: 2010

Publisher: John Wiley and Sons

Hardcover: 250 Pages

The traditional way of marketing is Outbound Marketing where the businesses bombard the prospects with promotional brochures, TV advertisements, spam mails, telemarketing calls and so on. The authors are of the opinion that the prospects have become smart enough to avoid such interruptions and get the information they need through online searches. In this book they propose Inbound Marketing as a solution to this problem. Inbound Marketing is all about the businesses creating an effective online presence which results in their "getting found" by the prospects (vs searching for prospects) through online searches and social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn etc.

The book consists of four parts.

Part I - Inbound Marketing

This part stresses the need for matching the way one markets the product with the way the prospects learn about and shop for that product. This can be done through inbound marketing. First and foremost the website of the business must change its marketing mode from a one-way sales message to a collaborative hub for its marketplace.

They should focus on creating communities outside of their web site for people to connect with them and others within the community.

This “outside” focus will drive people back to the website of the business.

This involves adding some collaborative tools like a blog and creating lots of compelling content (not overt sales pitches) which people want to consume.

This should be followed by creating a presence in Google,industry blogs, and social media sites.

Through internet one can reach many more prospects and much more quickly as compared to traditional mode of communication.

To take advantage of such a reach and speed, one should think beyond the competitors and create alternatives to conventional marketing.

Also one should strive to offer the best product/service within the market.

Part II - Get Found by the Prospects

This part offers umpteen number of useful ideas, tips, tools and techniques for creating a remarkable content and getting discovered in blogosphere, in Google through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and in social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon and YouTube.

Part III - Converting Customers

Visitors drawn to the business website need to be converted into leads by encouraging them through some compelling call-to-action to further engage with the business.

Good calls-to-action involves giving them helpful and useful information to enable them to do their job better or improve their job prospects.

This can be asking them to register or subscribe for free Webinars, White papers or reports, short consultation sessions, demos, or trial offer etc.

This part also talks about various ways of nurturing the leads to convert them into customers.

Part IV - Make Better Decisions

Better marketing investment decisions can be made using the Marketing Funnel technique introduced in this part to define various levels - prospect, lead, opportunity, and customers - and measuring the conversion rates to calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) of various marketing channels.

This part also advises the reader on how to hire marketing staff and PR agencies for inbound marketing.

Tools to keep tabs on the competition are also dealt in this part.

Finally the book concludes by reinforcing that age of inbound marketing has dawned and the days of outbound marketing are over.

However inbound marketing requires commitment, patience and continuous learning. The benefits will be slow in coming initially but the floodgates will be opened once the tipping point is reached.

The book consists of 16 short chapters written in a very simple and easy to understand language, illustrated with several real life examples. In every chapter there are recommended measurements to track the progress in inbound marketing journey.

The chapters also have short case studies in inbound marketing.

These case studies covered include - the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the music group The Grateful Dead, Wikipedia, and Google.

As a bonus there is a fairly comprehensive list of 26 Inbound Marketing tips for the Startups.

Overall a very good introduction to Inbound Marketing..

Useful Links:

Inbound Marketing - Wikipedia Entry
Inbound Marketing University - 18 Free online lessons on Inbound Marketing
Hubspot - Website of the company founded by the authors. Has lots of useful resources and online tools.

The Myths of Security

2011-08-21T22:19:00.000+05:30

Author: John Viega

Published: 2009

Publisher: O'Reilly Media Inc.

Paperback: 252 pages

The author John Viega, an IT security expert is of the view "... and the (IT security) industry as a whole is broken ". This viewpoint coming from a person who is the CTO of SaaS business Unit at McAfee, a leading security product vendor, is bound to grab attention of the readers who are worried about the security and privacy of their digital information stored in the confines of their computers.

According to the author, the internet users are at heavy risk, which can be mitigated to a great extent if the security industry examines itself and changes for better. It is not only the hackers or lay users who are to be blamed for security disasters. Security industry needs to come out with products which provide the promised security but without impacting the performance of the user's system (most of the security products tend to slow down the system !).

Through 48 short yet interesting articles (4-5 pages average, 10 pages maximum.) , the author provides his perspectives on the security industry, identifies glaring problems, shows what the industry can do differently to give the end users more value for their money. He promises no "silver bullet", but hopes that the security industry takes note of his criticism and correct the things which are fundamentally wrong.

The articles in this book gives the author's opinion on a wide range of security subjects and issues like :

Anti-Virus (AV) products - why they are slow; why they do not work well; what AV companies should be doing; is it true that AV companies create viruses they detect.
Is vulnerability research community helping to improve security ?
Are Macs more secure than Windows PCs ?
Open Security Standards
Phishing, Identity Thefts
Personal Firewall problems
Why most people shouldn't run intrusion prevention system ?
Google is Evil - it takes only half-way measures to check click fraud in its online advertisements. Stringent measures are actually in conflict with its business interest.
VPNs usually decreases security
HTTPS sucks: lets's kill it
CAPTCHA and the Usability/Security Tradeoff

Each article can be independently read, however I felt that the order of the articles could have been better organized - for e.g. AV related articles are scattered throughout the book (widely separated chapters -6,8,12,22,23,39). Instead all the articles related to a subject could have been ordered closely.

I am not a security expert so I am not in a position to either support or oppose the author's views expressed in this book. But I found the articles written with a sense of humor a very good read and understood around 75 % of what he has to say.

Links:

Table of Contents

I Have a Dream

2011-08-14T19:09:00.002+05:30

Author: Rashmi Bansal

Published: 2011

Publisher: Westland Ltd.

Paperback: 350 Pages

Buy from Amazon

Having posted 100 odd book reviews/summaries in this blog, I get to write my first commissioned book review ! Blogadda sent this book to me under their Books Review Program. It offered a carrot (I get to keep this book for free!) and also wielded a stick (a 500+ words review should be posted within 7 days of receipt of the book in order to continue being considered for the future reviews program!).

So I put aside the other two books which I was in midst of reading and confined my reading to this book alone. Anything to get a good book free! I was sure that it will be a good book to possess since I had bought and read Rashmi Bansal's earlier book "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish" where she has narrated the stories of 25 IIM Graduates who took the hard road of entrepreneurship rather than take up high-paying jobs which they could have easily got..

In this book she introduces us to 20 social entrepreneurs.
According to Wikipedia "A social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to achieve social change (a social venture)."The stories of the social entrepreneurs featured in this book are classified under 3 sections - Rainmakers, Change Makers, Spiritual Capitalist

Rainmakers set up social enterprises which generate revenues. However profit generation is not their primary motive.
Featured in this section are:

Bindeshwar Phatak , the founder of Sulabh International which brought a revolution in toilets and a rightful place in society for those who once cleaned them.
Anita Ahuja whose program Conserve India employs ragpickers to collect plastic waste, which is then recycled to create export quality handbags.
Vineet Rai who has set up a micro-venture fund called Aavishkaar for rural entrepreneurs.
Sumita Ghose who runs Rangasutra, a for-profit venture which sources crafts and textiles from villages and retails through Fabindia.
Saloni Malhotra who brought technology and business to rural India in form of DesiCrew our country's first rural BPO.
Ishita Khanna who through Spiti Ecosphere promotes eco-tourism and berry processing in Spiti.
Harish Hande whose company Selco makes appropriate and affordable solar lighting system for villages.
Santosh Parulekar who runs a unique social enterprise Pipal Tree, which transforms poorly educated rural youth to highly skilled construction workers.
Dinabandhu Sahoo who through Project Chilika has trained villagers in Orissa in a profitable sea weed farming technique.
Anand Kumar of Super 30 who tutors poor but meritorious students for IIT JEEE.
Dhruv Lakra who invested in a courier service Mirakle Couriers which employs deaf people.

Changemakers are. the ones who instead of complaining about a bad social situation take a small step towards making it good.
Featured in this section are:

Madhav Chavan who has made 'education' his life's mission by setting up Pratham, which works for better education of millions of children across India.
Anshu Gupta whose organization Goonj ensures that donated old clothes are systematically collected, sorted and mended to ensure that the clothes distributed are the most approriate ones for the persons in need.
Trilochan Shastry of Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) whose courageous act of filing a PIL led to a landmark judgement from Supreme Court which requires from the politicians standing in elections to declare their assets and criminal records.
Shaheen Mistri whose project Akansha is doing a yeoman service in educating 3500 slum children through 58 centers and 6 schools.
Arvind Kejriwal whose campaign Parivartan pioneered the use of RTI (Right to Information Act) to empower citizens of our country. Now very much known as the right-hand man of social crusader Anna Hazare.
Bhusan Punani who has tirelessly worked for Blind Person's Association (BPA) to transform it from a single, small school and vocational center for the blind to a multi-campus, multi-purpose movement to bring dignity to the life of the disabled.

Spiritual Capitalists are the individuals who choose to live by the ideal of service because they believe purity of purpose and selflessness of spirit can transcend every limitation
This section features:

Madhu Pandit Dasa who as head of ISKCON Bangalore initiated the Akshaya Patra movement which combines missionary zeal and modern management to feed 1 million hungry children every day.
Vinayak Lohani who has established and runs Parivaar Ashram a residential facility for orphans, tribals and daughters of prostitutes.
Shreesh Jadhav who chose the path of renunciation to become a monk at Belur Math where he works as a registrar of Vivekananda University and also teaches .

Each and every story is an inspiration written in a very simple language which all of us can connect to. It is very touching to note that these entrepreneurs are highly educated and could have earned lots of money in the corporate world either as an employee or as business entrepreneurs. Yet they choose social entrepreneurship because they strongly believed in serving others. After each story there is a section called "Advice to the Young Entrepreneurs" which summarizes the philosophy and message of the featured entrepreneur.

Another useful section is "Start up Resources" at the end of the book. This provides us the email ids of each entrepreneur and the links to the website of their respective organization (except those of Dhruv Lakra & Madhav Chavan). This will enable the readers who are inspired by their stories to contact them easily for any advice or to contribute to their cause.

This book does have certain limitations though...

Story of Shreesh Jadhav somehow does not fit in this book. While it is a very remarkable and courageous decision of an IIT graduate to lead a life of a monk, and work as a registrar and faculty member in an institution run by Belur Math, the entrepreneurial aspect of this venture is not evident.
While it is the author's prerogative to decide whom to feature in this book, I can't help observing that only two entrepreneurs featured in this book are from South India. This lead me to question - Does South India lacks such social entrepreneurs worth featuring in this book or whether the author is not aware of their initiatives. A balanced selection of social entrepreneurs drawn from all over India would have avoided such question.
Liberal doses of Hindi sentences are sprinkled in this book without translations. As far as I am concerned, since I know Hindi well, I could enjoy the punch ,humor and authenticity generated by these sentences. However such a writing style alienates readers who don't understand Hindi. Author should not presume that the readers know Hindi well and provide translated text wherever long sentences in Hindi are employed.
The URL of the book's website is wrongly mentioned on the back cover as http://www.ihaveadream.in. The correct URL is http://www.ihaveadreambook.in/

Apart from the above mentioned limitations which will be hopefully get corrected in forthcoming editions, the stories of the people featured in this book are a very inspiring read for anyone (and not just for the aspiring entrepreneurs.!) who at times gets overwhelmed by difficult circumstances.

Useful Links:

The Book's Website
Excerpts - from the stories of Bindeshwar Pathak (Sulabh International) and Anita Ahuja (Conserve India)
Full Text and Video of Martin Luther's Speech "I Have a Dream" - which inspired the title of this book.

[This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!]

The Doctor, The Detective & Arthur Conan Doyle

2011-08-07T21:27:00.000+05:30

Author: Martin Booth
Published: 1997
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Hardcover: 384 pages

Buy From Amazon

A fascinating biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who got overshadowed by his fictional yet very realistic creation the ace detective Sherlock Holmes.
The author Martin Booth brings out the multifaceted personality and talent of Conan Doyle in a very convincing manner.
He enlightens us on several little-known facts about Conan Doyle - how apart from being the author of Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle was an author of several books of different genres - historical novels, war stories, sports, science fiction (The Lost World), a military doctor, a war correspondent, a spiritualist, boxer, a first-class cricket player (see his first-class record at Cricinfo ) who played against the legendary W.G. Grace, and a worker for social justice.
Of course the background behind the plots and characters of several Sherlock Holmes stories is also dealt with at length.
All these make this book a very interesting read.
The book also has a fairly good selection of photographs of Conan Doyle, his family and friends, the places associated with him. We also have a photograph of Dr. Joseph Bell who was the main inspiration behind the creation of Sherlock Holmes.
However the book lacks a complete consolidated list of all the works of Conan Doyle. That would have been very useful.
However on the whole I enjoyed reading this book that awakened in me a desire to re-read Sherlock Holmes stories and other books by Conan Doyle.

Link:
An audio recording of Conan Doyle's voice - Here he describes about the origins of Sherlock Holmes and his interest in Spiritualism.

Madhouse: True Stories of the Inmates of Hostel 4 IITB

2011-08-05T02:08:00.003+05:30

Editors: Urmilla Deshpande, Bakul Desai
Published: 2010
Publisher: Westland Ltd.
Paperback: 358 pages

Almost everybody who has lived in a college hostel will say that those were the best years in his/her life. We nostalgically remember those days and talk about it when we happen to meet our hostel mates after a long time. But the inmates of Hostel 4 IITB (Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai) have gone beyond just remembering and talking about their tenure in the hostel. They have collaborated to collect their reminiscences and create a book out of it. And they managed to convince a professional author Urmilla Deshpande who happens to be one of the inmate's wife, to edit the book.

The result is a book that is authentic, hilarious and takes you back to the good old days in a student's hostel. The anecdotes in this book are roughly from the period 1975-85, when the life was not gadget driven like the present times. They strike a chord with any hosteler since they touch upon areas like - Ragging, Inter-hostel competitions, Smoking & Boozing sessions, friendly pranks and fights, Hostel Mess, Movies (Clean & Pornos), Music, Girls & Games - which one can easily relate too. I can vouch for it because I myself had been a hostelite (though not in IIT-B) during that era.

There are some unusual and unique stories also - for e.g. a Arun Kaul riding a horse to go to attend lectures; another one is about Bakul Desai meeting the don Vardarajan Mudaliar to organize an elephant for an inter-hostel competition.

Manohar Parriker (ex- CM of Goa), Madhu Pandit Dasa (President, ISKCON-Bangalore) and Subrah Iyar (Founder & CEO - Webex) are some of the distinguished inmates of the Hostel 4 IITB. Reading about their exploits during their hostel life makes an interesting reading, especially the one about Madhu Pandit Dasa's travel in a suburban train.

It would have been better if this book had a short title for every anecdote (some anecdotes do have them) and an index of names of the persons mentioned in the anecdotes. This would have made locating the portions you want to read much easier. And believe me many of the stories are worth a re-read !

Maybe some enterprising guy can make a movie out of this book too. It might give the blockbuster 3 Idiots a tough competition.

Overall a MUST READ book for anyone who had lived in a student's hostel ! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

P.S. I only wish I and my batchmates from KREC 1984 batch also get together to write such a book. Surely we will also have lots of similar interesting tales to tell !

Links:

Madhouse Musings - This blog has some stories which did not make it to the book, but nevertheless gives a you a feel of what to expect in the book

Succeeding with Agile

2011-08-02T19:38:00.000+05:30

Author: Mike Cohn
Published: 2010
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley India Pvt. Ltd.
Paperback: 504 pages

Scrum is a deceptively simple agile framework for developing software products in a complex and dynamically changing environment. Theoretically understanding the framework is easy but successfully implementing and reaping the benefits is not.
This book by Mike Cohn aims to provide you the know-how to "Succeed with Agile" (or to be more precise "with Scrum") based on his 15-years experience in implementing Scrum.
This is not an introductory book on Agile or Scrum. It assumes that the reader already knows the fundamentals of Scrum and tried his hands in implementing the same.

The book is organized in Five Parts as follows:

Part I : Getting Started - advice on whether to start small or take a big bang approach; how to create awareness and sense of need for implementing Scrum and subsequently developing the ability to do it; and how to select initial projects and teams, establishing improvement communities and improvement backlogs.

Part II: Individuals - the changes that each individual needs to make as part of the process of adopting Scrum; the type of resistance some individuals may exhibit; thinking about why someone is resistant; guidance on how to help the person get past the resistance; the new roles that exist on a Scrum project and the changes necessary in the traditional roles; some of the technical practices (continuous integration, pair programming, test-driven development, and so on) that should be piloted and introduced to change for better the day-to-day work approach of the individuals.

Part III: Teams - how to structure teams to best achieve the benefits of Scrum; nature of teamwork on a Scrum project; what it means to lead a self- organizing Scrum team; specific advice for what ScrumMasters, functional managers, and other leaders can do to help a team self-organize for success; changes teams should make to work effectively with a product backlog; need for the whole team to work together to ensure that a sprint's goals are met; planning challenges faced by the teams; advice on separating estimates created by a team from the commitments the team makes.

Part IV: The Organization - what is necessary to scale Scrum up to work on large, multi-team projects; dealing with complexities of distributed teams; how to make Scrum work when part of the project uses a sequential process or when there are compliance or governance requirements; special considerations of the impact of Scrum on an organization’s human resources, facilities, and project management office groups.

Part V: Next Steps - various approaches to measure how far an organization has progressed in becoming agile; need for continuous improvement to maintain agility.

In most of the twenty-two chapters of this book Cohn organizes his advice on overcoming some universally common problems faced during Agile/Scrum journey as "Things to Try Now" and "Objection".

Things to Try Now - Recreates the pieces of advice which the author found himself giving most often to his clients or that was most helpful in particular situations. Over 100 Things to Try Out !

Objection - Reproduces typical objections (around 60 ! ) raised on Scrum/Agile during author's training/consulting sessions and author's counter arguments.

Each chapter has a section on Additional Reading which goes beyond just citing the references. Against most of the cited reference Cohn provides a succinct 2-3 summary of the reference. This helps the reader in choosing the appropriate reference for further reading.

On the whole a very useful and handy guide book for Agile/Scrum implementers at all levels in an organization. I was lucky enough to get it as a complimentary copy during the Certified ScrumMaster training I attended last month ! Have started reading it all over again !

Useful Links:

The book's website www.succeedingwithagile.com has following useful resources

Table of Contents - Has links to more information on contents of each chapter.
Sample Chapters - Introduction, Chapter 4 - Iterating towards Agility and Chapter 10 -Team Structure
An Excel worksheet from Chapter 15- Planning, to predict velocity when the team size changes
A Powerpoint presentation on benefits of Agile as discussed in Chapter 1.

The Code Book

2011-07-22T14:36:00.000+05:30

Author:      Simon Singh
Published: 1999
Publisher:   Fourth Estate Limited
Hardcover: 416 pages

The need for information security which is widely recognized in this Internet Age is not a new need at all. It,though not as pervasive as today,  has existed for thousands of years and has a fascinating history of its own.

The high risk of secret and confidential messages sent by kings, queens and army generals falling into the hand's of the enemies led to the development of codes and ciphers. This heralded the birth of Cryptography which is a method of disguising a message in a manner that only the intended recipient can read it. To counter Cryptography the unauthorized message interceptors worked on breaking the code. Thus evolved the science and art of codebreaking i.e. Cryptanalysis.

So the entire history of cryptography is the story of ongoing battle between Cryptographers (code makers) and Cryptanalysts (code breakers). And this story - right from the origin of ciphers in ancient Greece till the recent advances (till 1999) in Quantum Cryptography- is brilliantly narrated by Simon Singh in this book.

Singh mentions in the introduction to the book the two main objectives of his writing this book.
The first one is to chart the evolution of codes. He describes how the battle between codemakers and code breakers involved diverse range of disciplines like mathematics, linguistics, information theory, quantum theory etc. and their associated technologies and inspired a series of remarkable scientific breakthroughs. He also enthralls us with " stories of political intrigue and tales of life and death to illustrate the key turning points in the evolution of codes", just to mention a few - the Babington Plot, the unbroken Beale Cipher, cracking of the Enigma code by Alan Turing (of the well known Turing Test fame), decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics through Rosetta Stone.
The second objective of the author is to demonstrate how the subject of cryptography is as relevant today as it was before. Apart from providing one of the best explanation I have ever come across of the prevalent encryption algorithms , standards and techniques like DES, RSA, PGP, he explores the promising Quantum cryptography which can lead to unbreakable ciphers. He also discusses the debate between two schools of thought - one which lobbies for restricting the use of cryptography to ensure law enforcement and national security and the one which presses for its widespread use to protect the privacy of the individual.

This book also introduces us to the tireless cryptographers and cryptanalysts who had to remain anonymous and never gained public recognition during their lifetimes. This was due to the politically or militarily sensitive nature of their contributions and inventions which could not be disclosed to public.
For example, by 1975, James Ellis, Clifford Cocks and Malcolm Williamson working for Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had discovered all the fundamental aspects of public-key cryptography. Yet they all had to remain silent since their work was a classified information. They had to sit back and watch as Rivest, Shamir and Adleman the researchers in MIT rediscovered their discoveries over the next three years and became famous in cryptographic circles for their RSA algorithm.
Similarily during Second World War, the work of Max Newman and Tommy Flowers resulted in development of Colossus machine in Britain. Colossus was a precursor to the modern digital computer. Yet it was destroyed after the war and those who worked on it were forbidden to talk about it. This secrecy on the part of British Government meant that Eckert and Mauchly of the University of Pennsylvania got the credit for the invention of the first digital computer- ENIAC.

The technical concepts in this book are very lucidly explained and should no pose problems for a lay reader. Also an extensive list of further readings has been provided for the readers who seek more details.

One of the most interesting books I have read this year. It has sparked an interest for Cryptography in me. Hence strongly recommend it as an introductory book on history and concepts of Cryptography and Cryptanalysis !

Useful Links:
Cryptography section of the author's website which has :

information about the TV series based on this book (The Science of Secrecy)
the Black Chamber, which an interactive encryption and codebreaking section.
some cryptograms(coded messages) for you to try and crack
a free downloadable CD-ROM version of The Code Book.

An Interesting Trivia from the Book:
Alan Turing (of the well known Turing Test fame) was conceived in the autumn of 1911 in India, where his father was a member of Indian civil service. His parents were determined that their child should be born in Britain, and returned to London, where Alan Turing was born on 23 June 1912 !

India A History : From the Earliest Civilisation to the Boom of the Twenty-first Century

2011-06-30T17:17:00.000+05:30

Author: John Keay

Published: 2010

Publisher: Harper Collins

Paperback: 688 Pages

Documenting the history of our country India - the ancient, diverse, multi-cultural, complex, motherland of ours - even in a voluminous book of almost 700 pages is next to impossible. The author has admirably overcome this challenge and done precisely that. He presents to us a very impartial and unbiased history of India right from Harappan civilization till the present day IT boom.

It is almost like reading a fascinating story or watching a well-made documentary. However the narration of post-independence history is somewhat dry as compared to the pre-independence history. But it is quite informative especially about the post-partition internal politics of Pakistan and Bangladesh which I was not much aware of.

The text is well supported by over 60 photographs of historical monuments and events and about100 tables, charts and maps to enable better understanding and appreciation.

I feel with some editing to simplify the text , this book can be used as a textbook in high schools too.

I would recommend this highly readable book for everyone who during their school days branded Indian history as a dull subject .

The author through this book clearly demonstrates that it need not be so.

Browse inside this book.

Twenty-six Ways of Looking At a Blackberry

2011-06-21T16:29:00.000+05:30

Author: John Simmons

Published: 2009

Publisher: A&C Black Publishers Ltd.

Paperback: 240 Pages

If you think this book is about Blackberry (TM) the smartphone or the blackberry the fruit, read no further. It is about neither.

But hold on ! If you are interested in creative writing then this book (and hopefully my summary of it in this blog post !) is definitely worth a read. It is certainly one of the stand-apart books which I have come across.

The author John Simmons is of the view that even a dull, matter of fact business writing can be transformed into a more expressive and adventurous form of writing. The transformed piece may not convey precisely all the information and the same meaning. But it may establish better emotional connectivity with the reader and achieve the same goal as that of the original piece.

To demonstrate this the author first creates a base text - the opening pages of an annual report of a fictitious technology company. The base text uses the standard business jargon- sales, profits, future plans etc.

He rewrites this piece in 26 different styles that include Pronoun Shift, Fairy Tale, Questions, Style of Dickens, Six-word Stories, Alliteration, Song Lyrics, Eight-word Sentences, Greek Myth, Graphic Novel, Shakespearean Sonnet, Newspaper Article, Letter to a Friend, Blues, Detective Fiction, Democratic Campaign Speech, Lists, Haiku etc.

The nuances of creative writing are brought out in a very lucid manner using these rewritten pieces and many other examples drawn from author's career as a brand management consultant.

A must read book for all business communicators like brand managers, marketers, advertisers, copywriters, PR people and also for anyone interested in creative writing !

25 Big Ideas - the Science that's Changing our World

2011-06-15T00:21:00.000+05:30

Author: Robert Matthews

Published: 2007

Publisher: Oneworld Publications

Paperback: 200 Pages

The 25 Big Ideas described in this book are based on the discoveries which make a point that the universe in which we live in is magical, bizarre, strange and defies common sense. These ideas have challenged many eminent scientists and mathematicians. These ideas prove that in reality science is not as objective as it is made out to be but it has its own uncertainties and subjectivity since it is a human endeavor. There is still a long way to go before we understand completely our universe.

The book consists of 25 chapters (one for each idea) categorized under the following heads as follows:

Ourselves - and Others: Consciousness, Small World Theory, Game Theory
Doing the Impossible: Artificial Intelligence, Information Theory, GM Crops
Life: Out of Africa, Nature versus Nurture, The Selfish Gene
The Earth: Catastrophism, Plate Tectonics
Mathematics that Counts: Bayes's Theorem, Chaos, Cellular Automata, Extreme Value Theory
In Sickness and in Health: Evidence-based Medicine, Epidemiology
The Physics of Reality: Special Relativity, Quantum Entanglement, The Standard Model, The Theory of Everything
The Universe- and Our Place In It: The Big Bang, Dark Energy, Parallel Universe, The Anthropic Principle

Each chapter is brief (6-8 pages) and self-contained. It begins with a very succinct summary which introduces the idea in a nutshell and explains it relevance in our day to day life. This serves as an appetizer for the the reader to proceed with the chapter. The chapter then takes us through the story of how the idea evolved, its current state of understanding. It also explains the associated technical terms and provides suggestions for further reading.

A very well-written book which attempts to explain the abstruse ideas in a very interesting manner . But it requires the reader to have at least a high-school level knowledge of science and mathematics to fully appreciate and enjoy it.

Useful Links:

Agile Project Management with Scrum

2011-06-06T20:43:00.000+05:30

Author: Ken Schwaber

Published: 2004

Publisher: Microsoft Press

Paperback: 192 pages

Scrum is a widely used agile project management framework created by the author of this book Ken Schwaber in collaboration with Jeff Sutherland. It is used to manage complex development projects where the requirements are frequently changing and there is a dire need to deliver good quality product within a short period of time. Scrum framework is simple but appearances can be deceptive ! Implementing Scrum in an organization is not a trivial exercise. The mindset of managing and executing projects in a traditional manner poses major challenges in effective implementation of Scrum.

This book contains over 20 real-world case studies drawn from author's wide experience in implementing Scrum in the organizations he consulted. The problems described in these case studies are the ones which are typically encountered by the organizations who are in initial stages of Scrum adoption.

Hence I highly recommend this book for such the organizations since it can provide very useful insights and guidance to avoid the common pitfalls in their Scrum journey.

Key Insights and Lessons from the Case Studies:

Scrum Master has to balance the needs of both marketing and development departments.
Product Owner by prioritizing the Product Backlog based on requirements with the highest business value will be in a position to call for releases of functionality when the business benefit more than offsets the costs of implementation.
A team can successfully self re-organize itself to deliver value if clearly told that it is responsible for managing itself and has full authority to do whatever it takes to meet the Sprint goal within the guidelines, standards, and conventions of the organization.
People tend to interpret Scrum within the context of their current project management methodologies without fully understanding - the underlying principles of self-organization, emergence, and visibility and the inspection/adaptation cycle; the paradigm shift from control to empowerment, from contracts to collaboration, and from documentation to code; the subtle but critical shift from controlling to facilitating, from bossing to coaching.
Hence It is important to have a well-qualified ScrumMaster to coach the team.
While the ScrumMaster’s job is to protect the team from impediments during the Sprint, it is necessary for him to operate within the culture of the organization. The ScrumMaster has to walk a fine line between the organization’s need to make changes as quickly as possible and its limited tolerance for change. When some changes are culturally impossible the ScrumMaster must accept the situation and focus on the things that can be changed rather than getting frustrated about things that cannot be changed.
Out-of-the-box Scrum doesn’t have practices that address the complexities of every project. Therefore ScrumMasters should have an in-depth understanding of the Scrum theory in order to develop new /modified practices appropriate for the prevailing situation and also consistent with the theory.
ScrumMaster has to teach the Team to talk in terms of business needs and objectives, a language which a Product Owner can understand.
While Scrum provides many opportunities to inspect a project and make the necessary adaptations to optimize the benefits, those responsible for making the adaptation must have adequate information on cost/benefit and assumptions data to make the best decisions.
Scrum works only if everything is kept visible for frequent inspection and adaptation through Sprint review meeting, the Daily Scrum, the Sprint Backlog, and the Product Backlog.
Find a way to make Scrum understandable to everyone in his or her vocabulary. Some people want to understand Scrum and will track a projects’ progress in Scrum terms. Other people want to understand the project only in the traditional context. Adapting Scrum to their vocabulary eases the change from traditional processes to the Scrum process.
The increase in productivity continues until a Team reaches seven people, give or take two. At that point, the shared work, vision, and concepts start to require additional support, such as documentation. Regardless of the scaling mechanism, above a modest number like seven, the productivity of a Team starts to decline, the miscommunications increase, the mistakes proliferate, and frustration grows.
Scrum relies on self-organization as well as simple, guiding rules. Depending on the situation either can be used as scaling up mechanism. When the complexity is so great that self-organization doesn’t occur quickly enough, simple rules help the organization reach a timely resolution. If self-organization occurs in a timely manner, it is preferable to rely on it rather than forming rules. Sometimes the ScrumMaster can aid self-organization by devising a few simple rules, but it is easier for the ScrumMaster to overdo it than not do enough.

Janner's Complete Speechmaker

2011-05-30T18:17:00.000+05:30

Author: Greville Janner

Published: 2003

Publisher: Thorogood

Hardcover: 410 Pages

This book is based on a lifetime's experience of the author in public speaking and in training the communicators at every level.

It is divided into four sections :

Book One - Speechmaking : Provides the complete range of essential knowledge and guidance needed for a skilled speaker. It covers preparation, delivery, language, practicalities, handling audiences and occasions, chairing a meeting etc.

Book Two - Model Speeches: Consists of draft speeches for varying occasions like Openings, Business Speeches, Introductions and Vote of Thanks.

Book Three - Classic Speeches: Contains seven speeches (mainly political themes) of great oratorical merit. The selection includes speeches by Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru and Martin Luther King.

Book Four - Compendium of Retellable Tales: The author offers an array of over 500 gems of quotes, jokes, stories which he has successfully used among varied audiences to create laughter or emotional impact. He also offers several tips on how to adapt and retell them.

The book consists of almost 80 short chapters, which makes it very easy for the reader to choose and understand the topic they are interested in.

A very useful guide for beginners in the public speaking path, though for veteran and confident public speakers it may be too fundamental and repetitive.

One Great Takeaway:

Extract from Chapter 43 - Handling Large Audiences

"India’s leaders must be prepared to speak to audiences of any size, up to tens of thousands. I asked Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, famous for his oratorical skill, for his secret. How does he keep such huge crowds gripped by his words and style. He replied:
‘Speak from your heart to their hearts. It is not enough to stimulate their intellects.’
So identify your listeners. Discover where their hearts lie and talk to them from your heart to theirs. Combine heart and mind."

How true ! If we have to learn just one thing about the art of public speaking, this should be the one !

Useful Links:

Table of Contents

Three Sample Chapters:

Chapter 43 - Handling Large Audiences;
Chapter 44 - Questions and Hostility
Chapter 45 - Interruptions

The Secrets of Success in Coaching: 12 Ways to Excel as a Coach

2011-05-02T21:41:00.000+05:30

Author: Mick Cope
Published: 2010
Publisher: Pearson Education Limited
Paperback: 152 Pages

According to the author the coaching can be really successful only when the coach is truly competent, follows a client-centric coaching approach, has a deep sense of ethical responsibility and seeks to help the client deliver change that is of value and sustainable.

Through this book the author shares with the reader his years of coaching experience and intends to help them become a highly successful and competent coach.

The book offers a tool kit of 12 techniques to excel as a coach. Each technique is supplemented by a list of questions to ask the client. Answering these questions will develop a sense of self-awareness in the client which will be of great help in their professional or personal journey towards self-improvement.

The techniques described are simple and practical. However couple of them are somewhat idealistic in my view - for e.g. not to coach the clients who do not take ownership of their goals, objective of the coaching being to make the client self-reliant and not dependent on the coaches anymore.
Really noble intent ! But how many coaches follow this principle !

The book is elegantly written using a very simple language and in short self-contained chapters, so that one can read a chapter and apply the idea immediately with their clients. A real handy and concise guide which every consultant or coach will find useful.

Key Takeaways:
(Extracts from the last chapter of the book)

Look for real clients with a real passion to change – and if they are not ready to change don’t feed their delusion by playing at a coaching relationship.
There is only one coaching question – ‘So what is stopping you?’ Your role is not to fix the client – rather it is to help the client understand this question, its relevance to them and how to frame and answer the question.
Great goals are robust, clear and the client understands what they will feel like once delivered. Great outcomes create great journeys.
There is no single style – there are just variations. The more that a coach can understand the variations, learn to flex and adapt their style and use these styles in an effortless way with the client, the greater chance they will have of delivering a coaching outcome that is successful and sustainable.
The trick with solution generation is to get a fix that will give a successful and sustainable outcome. Success can be easy – it is the sustainable bit that can be hard. This is where you have to work hard to really push the client to be innovative about solutions they might never have considered attempting.
The ability to look beyond what the client is saying and listen to what isn’t being said is critical. The more that a coach can tune and hone their ability to listen to the unsaid, the deeper appreciation they will have of the real issue and the better chance there will be of creating a real and sustainable outcome.
In most cases big successes come from small changes. Your job is to help the client understand this and then learn how to push the pause button and change the important choices.
Most people have made a change that they have failed to sustain. The coach’s job is to turn the ‘I’ve failed’ statement into ‘That’s interesting’. From this point the client can learn about what happened and why it happens, and then learn to recognize the triggers that cause regression and anticipate and avoid them next time round.
The first gift that you offer is to help client fix the problem and the second gift is to help ensure it sticks. The last and greatest gift the client can offer is to understand how to coach themselves in the future and so ease the dependency on others. To do this you can help them to understand reflective learning and from this learning develop a self-coaching style that frees them of any further need for a coach.

Useful Links:

Table of Contents
10-Page Book Summary (Thank me !)
Author's Website - Lots of free goodies available (Thank the Author !)

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

2011-05-01T00:09:00.000+05:30

Author: Stieg Larsson

Translator: Reg Keeland
Published: 2009
Publisher: Maclehose Press

Paperback: 612 pages
Buy from Amazon.com

Readers in India

This is the final book in the Millennium Trilogy . The other two books are "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"and "The Girl who Played with Fire". All the three books are translations from Swedish and have been in Amazons' Top 100 Bestseller lists for several months.
The saga of the protagonist Lisbeth Salander continues and after many twists and turns concludes, with her gaining the freedom to take her own decisions. There are too many characters in the story which makes the job of keeping track of them somewhat difficult. Nevertheless a fairly good and interesting plot.
A good book for light reading and passing time, but hardly any re-read value. Same goes with the two prequels to this book.

Bat, Ball and Boundary - A Cricketer's Companion

2011-04-30T01:04:00.000+05:30

Compiler: Shelley Klein
Published: 2001
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books Limited
Hardcover: 180 Pages

Cricket over the years has become a very fast-paced, hectic and commercialized game. This anthology of cricket writings takes you back to an era when it was a more leisurely sport. It has over 30 odd pieces spanning nearly 175 years (1807-1982) making a very delightful and interesting read for all the cricket lovers especially those in their 40s and above.

The authors featured in this anthology include - Lord Byron, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, E.W. Hornung, P.G. Wodehouse, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Neville Cardus, Don Bradman.

The three of my favorite selections from this book are:

1. A Bowler's Innings - E.W. Hornung (circa 1900) : A moving story about a dying bowler who was the most popular player doing his prime.
2. The Story of Spedegue's Dropper - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1929) : An amusing tale about a Tom Spedegue and his spectacular and unconventional bowling feats.
3. The Cricket Match (An extract from the book England, their England) - A.G. Macdonell (1933) - A hilarious account of a village cricket match.

Extracts from some other pieces:

1. 'Life is simply a cricket match - with temptation as bowler. He's the fellow who takes nearly every boy's wicket some time or other. You see every boy has three wickets to defend. The first is Truth, the second Honor, the third Purity.' - (From Baxter's Second Innings- Anonymous, 1892)

2. 'But one beauty of cricket is that, if you cannot play it, you can at least look on and talk very learnedly, and find faults with the captain, showing how you would order matters if you were consulted.' - (From Introduction to Richard Daft's Kings of Cricket, Andrew Lang, 1893).

3. ' Cricket is a very humanizing game. It appeals to the emotions of local patriotism and pride. It is eminently unselfish; the love of it never leaves us, and binds all the brethren together, whatever their politics and rank maybe. There is nothing like it in the sports of mankind.' - - (From Introduction to Richard Daft's Kings of Cricket, Andrew Lang, 1893).

4. 'Sometimes a conflict may arise between the desire to please the public and the need to adopt an unattractive or unpopular policy. It can be most disconcerting if the public is clamoring for action and the captain feels it necessary to instruct his men to 'dig in'. It isn't always pleasant trying to please 50,000 spectators, fifty journalists and ten other players. Sometimes I think the public would do well to ponder that captains are normal,sensitive human beings, striving so hard to do the right thing. They are not a race apart. Public support is a great tonic when the going is hard.' - (From Farewell to Cricket, Don Bradman, 1950)

Multiple City - Writings on Bangalore

2011-04-03T12:49:00.000+05:30

Editor: Aditi De
Published: 2008
Publisher: Penguin Books India Ltd.
Paperback: 350 Pages
Buy from Amazon.com
Readers in India

51 short pieces of writings with a common theme - Bangalore, cover the entire life span of the city right from the days of its foundation being laid by Kempe Gowda to its current transformation into IT Capital of India.
Selections (both originals and translations) from a wide variety of literary genre - stories, poems, plays, articles, book extracts, blogs etc. are employed to convey the multi-faceted, multi-cultural nature of Bangalore.

Some of the notables ones:

The legend about the origin of the name "Bangalore";
An historical account of Battle of Bangalore fought between British army and Tippu Sultan's forces near what is now Ulsoor Gate;
Translation of the Kannada song " Beledide Noda Bengaluru Nagara" from the1966 film 'Manekatti Nodu'.
Century-old photographs of South Parade Road (Now M.G. Road), Commercial Street; Bull Temple;
Several nostalgic memoirs about life in Cantonment, Gandhi Bazaar, Majestic;
An account of Mahatma Gandhi's stay in Bangalore;
An article about Sir C.V. Raman on the role he played in Bangalore's emergence as a Center of Science;
An essay on budget restaurants serving high quality food - Kadambam, MTR, Adigas, Vidhyarthi Bhavan etc.;
A biographical piece on Veena Doreswamy Iyengar who lived in Malleswaram;
Articles about the IT and Call Center business in Bangalore.

The authors featured in this anthology include - R.K. Narayan, U.R. Ananthamurthy, P. Lankesh, Shashi Deshpande, Geeta Doctor, Winston S. Churchill, Anita Nair, Ramachandra Guha, Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahesh Dattani, William Darlymple and Thomas Friedman.

In short this anthology is a sumptuous buffet spread of delicious dishes prepared by Master-Chefs to suit every palate. A must read for every present, past and aspiring citizens of Bangalore !

Where in the World is my Team

2011-03-27T18:06:00.000+05:30

Author: Terence Brake
Published: 2008
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Hardcover: 238 Pages
Readers in India

This is a business fiction about successfully working in a globally distributed team.
Will Williams works as a Personal Assistant to the Managing Director of The Fun House a company that makes electronic games. The employees of this company are scattered across the world - Paris, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Bangalore, New York, Berlin.
Will's boss will be interviewed on TV in six weeks time where she will be asked about the successful virtual global workspace which The Fun House has established . She wants Will to put together a briefing report about it to get herself prepared for this interview.

How Will goes about working on this assignment taking inputs from his colleagues spread across the globe forms the main plot of this book.

Towards the end Will puts together a briefing report entitled : Global Virtual Team Essentials. This 25 page report is an appendix to the main storyline . It summarizes the key idea of the book which is 6 C Framework of Global Collaboration - Cooperation, Convergence, Coordination, Capability, Communication and Cultural Intelligence. The report explains the need and importance of each of these Cs and gives pointers to implement them.

I too used to work in a global team with my colleagues in USA, France, Romania and India. We gelled fairly well as a team but could have done much better if we had understood and appreciated the nuances of global collaboration so effectively brought out in this book .

The whole story is narrated in a very entertaining manner with ample doses of humor.
A must read for every member in a Global Team. !

Key Takeaways:

The New Work Place is Virtual and Global. It reduces the influence of commercial and labor borders and is effectively enabled through new communications and computing technologies. This has resulted in increased levels of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity, which can only be managed by intensive and extensive collaboration across internal and external borders. Only then competitive advantage can be gained through virtual and global teams.
The three major challenges of virtual collaboration are - Team member Isolation, Fragmentation of Team Efforts and Team member Confusion
To counteract these challenges, a virtual team needs to generate high levels of - Engagement, Cohesion and Clarity.
This can be achieved through implementation of 6C Framework of Global Collaboration which consists of

Cooperation - Building trust in colleagues whom you may never meet face to face.
Convergence - Focusing the efforts of scattered individuals on team success.
Coordination - Making sure distance doesn't get in the way of smooth flow of work
Capability - Making very best use of talent in the team irrespective of its location.
Communication - Sharing the same understanding across borders
Cultural Intelligence - Going beyond individual cultures to the team culture

Useful Links:

Website of the Book
The Author's Blog - The Future of Virtual Teamwork and Collaboration

Captain Cool: The M.S. Dhoni Story

2011-03-21T23:32:00.000+05:30

Author: Gulu Ezekiel
Published: 2008
Publisher: Westland Limited
Paperback: 128 Pages
Readers in India:

While I write this, the performance of the Indian cricket team captained by M.S. Dhoni (the subject of this book) is not too impressive in this World Cup (though they have reached the quarter-finals).
And same applies to this book. The author is supposed to be one of the best-known sports journalist. Maybe he should have stuck to it instead of trying his hand in writing books especially a biography.
A good biography should paint a very interesting and realistic picture of its subject. You must really get to know the person whose life is being described.
However this book has a feel of some newspaper reports of the matches involving Dhoni loosely stitched together. We really don't get to know Dhoni as a person.
This is one book which I will not recommend to anybody except may be to die-hard Dhoni fans, who may lap it up.
Ignore the Buy Buttons in this post ! I just retained them to maintain the consistency of my blog posts !
Actually I ordered this book from India Plaza recently when they offered it for just Rs. 1 as a special World Cup offer. Maybe they wanted to get rid of the huge inventory of this book which hardly anyone would have bought otherwise.

Introducing Statistics - A Graphic Guide

2011-03-16T21:43:00.000+05:30

Authors: Eileen Magnello &
   Borin Van Loon
Published: 2009
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd.
Paperback: 176 pages
Readers in India

The history of statistics and its basic concepts have been explained completely through comic-book like illustrations and blurbs.
The concepts explained are - distributions, sampling, summarizing data, variation, correlation, regression, chi-squared, hypothesis testing, the analysis of variance etc.

I bought this book after a quick browse through its pages, since I felt that it would be an useful aid for my training and consulting assignments . I could surely use some of the material for my training classes on  Statistical Analysis of Software Metrics(With due attribution of course ! Don't want to be branded as a plagiarist (-: ! ).

But on the whole I felt that the explanations of concepts could have been better. So it may not hold the interest of an absolute layperson. However it is a fairly good supplement to an introductory text book on statistics as the well drawn illustrations and cartoons, several of them quite humorous, will reinforce the concepts learnt in the classroom.

You may have sneak peek of the first 30 odd pages of this book at http://www.introducingbooks.com/book/sneak_peek/statistics

An Interesting Fact mentioned in this book:
Florence Nightingale, known to everyone as the "Lady with the Lamp" who made nursing a respectable profession, was a passionate statistician. During Crimean War in 1850s she discovered that due to unhygienic sanitary conditions in  military hospitals an annual mortality rate of 60 % from diseases like typhus, typhoid and cholera was greater than the Great Plague in London. She used the technique of Polar Area Graph to illustrate such data which dramatized the extent of needless deaths during the war and was successful in persuading the medical profession that deaths were preventable if sanitation reforms were implemented in hospitals.
Have a look at the Polar Area Graph used by her at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nightingale-mortality.jpg

Blog Performance Scorecard (2010-2011)

2011-03-05T00:10:00.000+05:30

41 Book Reviews/Summaries has been posted by me in "Bookworm Reads" blog, over the last one year !

How were they received by the netizens around the world ?

Here is the Blog Performance: Score Card for the last year (Mar 1 2010 - Feb 28 2011)

Unique Visitors : 1311 ; 3-4 visitors per day. [Last Year : 925; 2-3 visitors per day].

Visitors from 66 countries [Last Year: 61]

2583 Page Views [Last Year : 2024]

Top 6 page views :

Home page (387 page views)

Go Kiss the World - Subroto Bagchi (302 page views)

The Jahangirnama - Jahangir (Translated by William M. Thackston) (132 page views)

Software Engineering Best Practices - Caper Jones (131 page views)

The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown (89 page views)

The High-Performance Entrepreneur - Subroto Bagchi and

Like the Flowing River - Paulo Coelho (88 page views each)

The books by Subroto Bagchi and Paulo Coelho figured in the last year's Top 6 also. Other books are new entrants to the Top 6 list.

Human Resource Management

2011-02-26T12:05:00.000+05:30

Authors: Rob Dransfield
Published: 2000
Publisher: Heinemann
Paperback: 124 pages
Buy from Amazon.co.uk
Readers in India:
Contact raintreepublishing@vsnl.net

This book is a part of the series Studies in Economics and Business meant for college undergraduate studies. It examines the nature of Human Resource Management and approaches used to manage the people in UK organizations.

Chapter 1 explains the concept of Human Resource Management and traces its development from 19th century till the dawn of the current millennium.

Chapter 2 shows how approaches to managing people in the work-place have moved on from the top-down techniques to modern day trend of empowering the front-line employees. It also discusses several theoretical ideas about motivating employees.

Chapter 3 focuses on the way in which organizations are increasingly becoming more dependent on human resources as compared to machinery. It also examines the relationship between the new economy (driven by IT and network of links) and the flexible business.

Chapter 4 discusses the macro-planning process followed by medium and large organizations for matching supply and demand of labor.

Chapter 5 examines a range of human resource development issues related to the employment life-cycle in an organization - right from recruitment to separation of employees.

Chapter 6 looks at the linkages between the overall organizational performance , unit level performance and the individual performance. The important role played by performance appraisal in aligning individual and organizational needs are also discussed.

Chapter 7 is concerned with employee relations and shows how these have altered and how Human Resource Management is based on a unitary or managerial approach to relationships within the organization.

Chapter 8 examines important aspects of employment law and other legislations that impacts on the Human Resource Management issue.

The book concludes with asking some questions about the future prospects for Human Resource Management in the 21st century.

I have read and summarized two other books in this series Studies in Economics and Business viz; Markets and Corporate Strategy. While I found them quite informative and interesting, same cannot be said of this book. I found it somewhat outdated and too UK specific especially the chapters on Employee Relations and Employment Law.

I am sure there are better introductory text books on Human Resource Management out there in the market.

The Life Tree - Poems

2011-02-23T23:06:00.000+05:30

Author: A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Published: 2005

Publisher: Penguin Books India

Hardcover: 100 pages

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Readers in India

I was browsing in a second-hand book shop when I came across this book. The author, Bharat Ratna A.P.J. Kalam is perhaps one of the best President our country India had ever had and is one person whom I would love to meet and talk to. So far I had never read a complete poetry book, but after I leafed its pages I could not resist buying it.

This excellently produced book,embellished with beautiful contemporary paintings by Manav Gupta, is a collection of 26 short poems reflecting the musings of the poet Kalam on various subjects like - Youth, Life, Harmony, Happiness, Nature, God, Mother, Dreams , Patriotism etc. For each poem , Kalam also gives a brief background on how the poem was conceived and written.

The poems are in free verse and read more like a prose. While I don't see a great literary merit in the poems, what makes them endearing to me is the simplicity of the language and the sincerity and the good intentions with which they are written. This touches you and strikes a chord.

A good read for all Kalam admirers !

Previews and Links to Some Poems

Song of Youth - "As a young citizen of India, armed with technology, knowledge and love for my nation, I realize, small aim is a crime......" . Read the Complete Poem.

The Life Tree - "O my human race, How were we born, In the universe of near infinity, Are we alone?......" Read the Complete Poem.

Rock Walls - " Some build rock walls all their lives, When they die miles of walls divide them.Others build rock walls, one rock on another, And: then build a terrace, where they pray for love......." Read the Complete Poem.

Soaring Dream - " Fabulous air show of Paris in motion, My thought too in flight and yearns for my Nation......." Read the Complete Poem.

My National Prayer - " The grand Scene of birth of Independent India, In that mid-night, the flag of the ruler of two centuries lowered; The tri-color Indian flag flaps in the Red Fort in the midst of National Anthem, The first vision of Independent India was dawned........" Read the Complete Poem.