Some friends, distributed across a few states and continents, are developers. They have one or two products being used by clients and a couple more in the pipeline.
It is becoming obvious that they are following into the same trap as many techies before them. The products are not fully defined and new features keep getting added. When an obstacle comes up or if a client has an idea, work shifts to a different product, the first one being left unfinished. Sometimes the vision of the product is not clear to the team. The look & feel and usability is left to the personal likes of the developer implementing them. The people involved know computers, programming, databases, system administration, etc. They are all intelligent, curious, etc. They have the kind of skill set any employer would kill for, but they are their own employers now! They are not the kind of folks who read blogs or new.ycombinator posts so, on their own, they don't know if zynga is a good model to follow or twitter.
What are some good, to the point, books which will help coders become the kind of people who are good at "building stuff?" Manage team, develop vision, manage process, avoid typical pitfalls (like constant requests for proofs of concepts which earn no revenue), etc., etc.
It is becoming obvious that they are following into the same trap as many techies before them. The products are not fully defined and new features keep getting added. When an obstacle comes up or if a client has an idea, work shifts to a different product, the first one being left unfinished. Sometimes the vision of the product is not clear to the team. The look & feel and usability is left to the personal likes of the developer implementing them. The people involved know computers, programming, databases, system administration, etc. They are all intelligent, curious, etc. They have the kind of skill set any employer would kill for, but they are their own employers now! They are not the kind of folks who read blogs or new.ycombinator posts so, on their own, they don't know if zynga is a good model to follow or twitter.
What are some good, to the point, books which will help coders become the kind of people who are good at "building stuff?" Manage team, develop vision, manage process, avoid typical pitfalls (like constant requests for proofs of concepts which earn no revenue), etc., etc.
Look forward to suggestions!