Strategic Thinking Book Reviews

Buggy thinking leads to buggy software. Brilliant programming can't turn a flawed idea into a success. Learning to think strategically is more important than learning new coding tricks. The books on this page explore ways of seeing the world more accurately and insightfully.

The Art of the Long View by Peter Schwartz

I first read this book when it was published in 1996 and return to it regularly. This is a well-written, persuasive, and inspiring explanation of how simple scenario planning techniques can prepare you to expect the unexpected. Review added January 2001.

The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz

This book packs in more good advice about how to make things than any other book I know. I make sure to read this book cover-to-cover every five years. If the style strikes you as too mystical, read his Creating or The Path of Least Resistance for Managers books instead. Review added January 2001.

How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand

Maintenance is usually the least considered, longest, and most expensive part of a software project. Stewart Brand's beautifully argued and illustrated book discusses sustainable and adaptable architecture. The lessons are directly applicable to software developers. The bulk of the book is inspired by Alexander's A Pattern Language, arguably the most influential architecture book of the 20th Century. A Pattern Language is also the inspiration for the patterns movement in OO programming and design. (Read more Object Oriented book reviews...) Review added January 2001.

Special bonus: If you have architect friends, you can drive them wild with outrage by talking about this book ;-)

New Rules for the New Economy by Kevin Kelly

Not recommended

This is a stunningly bad book. Kelly combines economic history with his notion that technology has become sufficiently complex to be considered organic. A few of the problems with this approach:

Kelly demonstrates no knowledge of economic history prior to his childhood.
Kelly's notion of biology is based on the utopian idealism of Erasmus Darwin. He demonstrates no knowledge of actual animals or ecological relationships.
Technology is not an organic system.
Kelly considers all technology, however invasive and dangerous, as inherently good and getting better.

The charts included in each chapter are another problem. Charts lend a discussion a certain scientific weight. The charts in this book, however, are confections. The axes are not labeled and there is no scale! These charts are literally free of data. This book isn't worth checking out of the library. It will be rapidly forgotten. Review added January 2001.

Note: Reviewers at Amazon love this book. My guess is that they don't realize that Kelly's biological/evolutionary metaphor is based on theories that went out of fashion at the end of the 1800's. Utopian evolutionary thought is still a powerful force in popular thinking about evolution, particularly when applied to the economy. See the Cooperation Book Reviews page for books that deal with the biology of cooperation scientifically.

If you're interested in the mechanics and dynamics of cooperation and competition, visit the Cooperation Book Reviews page.

Read a great book lately? Send an email to dpadams@island-data.com.

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Strategic Thinking Book Reviews

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