Harvard Business Review

This book is NOT about how to learn Agile. It IS about how Agile can be scaled up to help large companies. In order to read this brief book, you MUST already have a basic understanding of Agile.

I picked up this book thinking it would help me learn more about Agile. The introduction specifically states that this book will "give you the baseline understanding you need to join the the conversation. It will demystify the concept and build a strong foundation for future learning." So I was show more expecting a least a brief overview section on what Agile is and how it works. Instead, the book hit the ground running with the expectation that the reader already has a grasp of Agile. The intended audience is very clearly business leaders, but I can see how middle managers or lower-level staff can use this book to help make a case for adopting Agile into their work environment.

The book is arranged in sections that read like micro-studies of Agile adoption among numerous companies. The examples are almost staggering, but thoroughly explained and easily grasped as long as you have a basic understanding of Agile.

Aside from not making it abundantly clear in the introduction that the book is designed for higher level management who are looking for examples of how to effectively implement Agile, my biggest criticism with this book is how lists were arranged. For example, there would be a section outlining an issue a company might have in the process of Agile adoption. Then the book would say there were X number of ways to address the issue. Rather than listing out the solutions and then explaining each one, the book would go directly into explaining each solution in-depth. I found myself repeatedly flipping through the book at each subsequent solution to try to remember the issue it was addressing. It sounds like a finicky sticking point, but it was extremely disruptive to my preferred learning process. show less

The content is a series of essays in recent leadership perspectives. It is not bad information but it is also vague and generic. I found it is possible to often imagine the exact opposite of the stated “key factor for leadership” when referring to actual historical leaders. Worth reading but with grains of salt...

As an IT professional, I do not reside in the intended audience of this book. It is geared towards business leaders, not software developers. It provides a high-level and non-technical overview of the field of cybersecurity. Through several authors, it makes the case that cybersecurity cannot be overlooked by all C-suite executives, even in non-technology-based companies. That case is underscored by the direct impact cybersecurity has on a business’ bottom line.

Having in-depth technical show more experience in the field, I can see this book covers the right issues when it comes to cybersecurity. It does so mindfully, without becoming too technical. As expected from the brand of Harvard Business Review, it addresses the appropriate audience, the business community. Even for a developer like myself, it is helpful to think through how other people at the meeting table view these issues.

The book crescendos with the most interesting topics at the end – artificial intelligence (AI) and data privacy. While this book only devoted one chapter to AI, this chapter underscored the point that investment in AI by all sorts of businesses is becoming necessary to position for the quickly approaching future. In forthcoming editions of this book, I would like to hear more on this topic – or perhaps a separate HBR book.

Several chapters address data privacy concerns among businesses. These are real and present challenges that companies face. Many prominent companies have had to cough out huge payouts from privacy lapses, and prudent leadership would seek to mitigate these risks well. The so-called “right to be left alone” and other ethical issues also are summarized in this book. This field is actively discussed, and HBR hits most of the highlights.

This book is well-tailored to those in business leadership – especially those in non-IT companies. Like it or not, IT continues to become part and parcel of almost every company, and as is made clear in this text, these issues cannot be relegated simply to IT leadership. Cybersecurity is a company-wide issue and requires a company-wide response. IT folks will benefit from understanding how the business views relevant issues and gain financially informed perspective on what issues matter to the business. Nonetheless, business leaders – who can no longer dismiss cybersecurity’s relevance – will benefit the most from this concise yet power-packed summary. show less

The Coronavirus pandemic provided a great challenge for modern business and introduced new challenges for us all to address. Post-pandemic, business is working through which novelties are good to keep and which to discard. Among these are remote work, artificial intelligence, ESG (environment, social, and governance), and social justice movements (like DEI). This book, compiled by Harvard Business Review (HBR), seeks to help business leaders make smarter decisions by understanding ways to show more make the most out of work’s changing landscape.

Like other HBR books from this series, this book is exceedingly short. It collects individual essays produced by thought leaders. So it’s a short conglomeration of short articles. That’s both a strength and a weakness. It offers busy business leaders an intellectual lens to understand the latest trends through expert analysis, but it does not provide an in-depth treatment on any.

The overall viewpoint is one of thoughtful progress. It does not fight historical trends, but instead critically analyzes them in order to push organizations ahead. While popular journalism and political leaders often engage in culture wars, this book avoids those passions in favor of an integrative, philosophical approach. Discussions engage in high-level overviews that hit on all the right key concepts. Each chapter ends in suggested takeaways to summarize its findings. However, it lacks in-depth investigation of one-or-more fundamental issues – a constraint of the entire series.

Organizational leaders provide the intended audience of HBR’s series. An audiobook format, which I used, is adequate to understand. This kind of writing that can be listened to and thought through to-and-from work, while doing dishes, or in the car bussing one’s children around. It’s very accessible and does not require advanced education to get the main point in a thorough but quick manner. HBR provides another focused work to provide leading thoughts to the managerial front lines. show less