Evil Tester

This can hardly form a particularly useful book review since “TQM – The Quality Makers” now resides in the ‘out of print’ category, but dedicated hunters of quality books can find 2nd hand copies. So the question becomes – should you bother? [amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]

Joe has a problem: everyone wants more, and no-one wants to do more than the bare minimum. Joe can’t figure out what to do. He says "do a better job!" and they don’t, he says "if you don’t do a better job you’ll get sacked", they don’t do a better job, they get demoralised, and [...]

I got quite a lot out of reviewing the Responsibility Virus, but most of it not from the book. I recommend 2 papers from Roger Martin’s web page : Breaking the code of change Strategic Choice Structuring Taken together, these two papers provide a complementary view of the information in The Responsibility Virus.

Roger Martin describes the Responsibility Virus manifesting as all-or-nothing thinking when it comes to leadership and responsibility. So when a problem manifests, if the leader succumbs to the effects of the Virus then they dive in and become the "Hero" taking all the responsibility for the problem. At which point, everyone else involved in the [...]

On Lambda the Ultimate I found a link to the ACM Classic Books Series. There are some great books here that I haven’t read since University. So a few of my choice favourites follow…