Over the past five years, I must have tried dozens of different digital todo lists, and every single one of them had something wrong with it. Here are the most common flaws I encountered in many applications:

• Too many fields – I don’t want to specify (or see, either) a due date, a start date, a completion date, priority, effort, risk, tags, categories, sections, flags, stars, projects, reminder, pre-reminder, recurrency, location, contexts, and finally the actual task. I just want to write down what I have to do. Maybe I want to flag it as important. Sometimes I may need to set a deadline with a reminder, but that starts getting complex already.
• Too few fields – On the other hand, just a title and a checkbox won’t do. I want some form of categorization and (optional) deadlines.
• Not cross-platform – I use Windows at work, Linux at home, my wife has a Mac. We both have iPhones, but someday I may get an Android device, too. There aren’t many todo lists out there that support more than two operating systems, nevermind mobile devices or web access!
• Too fiddly – See the first complaint, above. With too many fields almost always comes a complex interface. I don’t want to wait 17 clicks to save my task. I want to type in what I want to do, and press Enter. Is it too much to ask for?
• Made for a particular methodology – GTD is great and David Allen is the God of Productivity, but I don’t want to use @contexts or specify next actions because don’t believe in them, therefore I shouldn’t be forced to do so.

90% of the digital todo list suck. Believe me. 10% – perhaps – don’t. Luckily, I just need one, and guess what: I found it!

Wunderlist, the List of Wonders, you can use it anywhere and at any time. It’s so awesome that… I should stop the ass-kissing right now, and get to the facts.

I discovered Wunderlist when my endless quest led me to the App Store. I think I must have installed nearly all the damn todo list apps, even the crappy ones. I didn’t fall in love with Wunderlist at first tap: it took a few install-uninstall cycles, but in the end I settled for it. Here’s why:

• Free – Not that it matters that much, I would happily pay a few bucks for a good app. And yes, I did pay for a few todo lists that I dumped afterwards. Bummer.
• Cross-platform – iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, OS X. And Linux? Not really, but who cares: the web app is fine and it probably plays well Haiku as well.
• Simple and Efficient – Two clicks to add a task to any list. No compulsory extra-fields, optional deadlines, unlimited lists. Got something important to do? Tap the star on the left of the task to move it to the top of your list and bookmark it.
• Amazing email integration – Create tasks via email, share tasks with others via email, get reminders via push… or email. They even email you if you have overdue tasks. Like… everyday! I was so happy when they implemented this feature that I nearly cried when I got the first few emails.
• Everything is sync’ed – On your iPhone, iPad, Android device, Windows PC, Mac, web, etc. It’s all there, always, everywhere.

When I finally realized how awesome this app was, I started using it for chores, and as a shopping list. Then I figured it was good enough as a backlog for my open source projects and my web site, and then… Then my wife discovered it.

One of the relatively unusual features of Wunderlist is the possibiliy of sharing lists with others. All you have to do is click a button, specify one or more email address, and send invitations out. People will then signup for a free Wunderlist account and they’ll be able to access (as in read/write access) your list.

Because Roxanne, my wife, has an iPhone, she was the most obvious candidate to try out this collaborative feature. First I shared my Shopping list with her: we needed to make a list of things to get for a party, and that was fun. Wunderlist worked perfectly: we went around the supermarket and ticked things off the shared list, which updated in real-time!

All went great until I decided to share the infamous Chores list. You know the one: bills, fees, errands… I used to say things like “it’s on my list, honey, I’ll do it”, or even “Yes… I’ll add it to the Chores, just gimme a minute”. Little did I know that my beloved liked Wunderlist so much that she started using it frequenly, constantly updating the damn chores list with things like “Take the rubbish out” or “Collect the package from the post office”.

I realized she became a true Wunderlist ninja when I found a task called “Flowers for Roxanne!” – starred and with a deadline set to two months ago!

After months of trial, I decided to use Wunderlist at work as well. With caution, of course: I made sure not to write down any sensitive information in my tasks, because you never know. I started off with just one list, but it got crowded very quickly. I now use five lists for work only:

• Work [!] – This is the most active one, I use it for things to do ASAP. Starred tasks are urgent and important, and should be dealt with within the day. At work, that’s my default list.
• Work [~] – This is for things that in progress, for tasks I delegated to other people, for keeping track of emails waiting for a reply, etc. I tend to check it at least a couple of times per day (if something is really urgent gets moved to the first list).
• Work […] – This is for someday/maybes. Something that is most definitely not urgent, and not too important either. I normally review it once a week, except in the middle of August when I won’t be able to do anything because everyone will be on holiday… It will become my default list for a week or two, then.
• Work [CoP] – I also work as the coordinator of a Community of Practice, and I want to keep CoP-related stuff separate, so that I know where to look when I can allocate some CoP time during my day.
• Work [@boss] – This is a special list for my boss only. We email each other frequently, but rather then sending her long emails she can’t afford to read, I write down discussion topics in this list, which I’ll then load up at the following status meeting.

The next step? Maybe sharing lists with my boss and collegues, who knows…

Saying that Wunderlist is the perfect todo list for everyone would be pointless: there would always be people who wouldn’t agree with that. Wunderlist is not perfect, but close enough for me: it has most of the feature I need, and – most importantly – very little features I don’t need. In the end, this is what makes an app truly awesome.

I give it four stars out of five. Why not five? Because in this way 6Wunderkinder can make Wunderlist even a better product by surprising its users with something they didn’t know they wanted. That’s what Steve Jobs does at every Keynote, isn’t it?

Generally, I don’t bother writing anything about the authors in my reviews: you can easily find this kind of information online if you want to. I’ll make an exception in this case, you’ll understand why as you read along.

Watts S. Humphrey was a true legend in Software Engineering, he’s often referred to as The Father of Software Quality. He worked at IBM for 27 years and eventually became Vice President of Technical Development. In the 80s, he arrived at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) where he developed some key development processes of our time: the Software Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the Personal Software Process (PSP), and the Team Software Process (TSP). He received many awards, culminating with the National Medal of Technology in 2005.

He wrote several books focusing mainly on software development and managing software projects through his PSP and TSP methodologies. Reflections on Management — How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself was the last book published while he was alive. Leadership, Teamwork, and Trust: Building a Competitive Software Capability, co-authored with James W. Over, was published posthumously.

Watts S. Humphrey died on October 28, 2010.

In many ways, Reflections on Management can be seen as the summa of Humphrey’s work on PSP, TSP and management of software projects, condensed in a very readable 288-page-book, co-written with William R. Thomas, Senior Technical Writer and manager of SEI’s Technical Publications Team.

I noticed the tech writer’s touch simply by flicking through the pages of the book when I first got it: its structure is impeccable.

Organized into four parts, totalling 8 chapters, an Epilogue and an Appendix, this book is a prime example of order and readability: pick any section title (just the title) of any section in any chapter, and you get a clear idea of their content and purpose, and a key principle of management. Examples? Sure:

• Chapter 8: Learning to Lead
  • 8.1 How You Behave Affects Your Team
  • 8.2 Leaders Set an Example for Their Teams
  • 8.3 Learn to Avoid the Symptoms of Poor Leadership
  • […]

If you print the Table of Contents alone you get a priceless cheat sheet on management and leadership. If you want slightly more detail, each chapter contains a summary table of all its sections, with a two-line summary of its contents. There are no subsections, only first-level sections, which make the book much easier to understand and “digest”.

You can read it all at once, then you should keep it readily available for consultation. It will take you only a few seconds to look through the contents and pick the most relevant section in a time of need.

The book is very clear and simple to read, always. Each section is self-contained, and always aims to make a point, usually expressed right in its title. If I were to find a common pattern in most of the chapters of this book, it would be the following:

1. Identification of the problem – a particular situation or aspect is described in a way that problems are self-esplanatory.
2. Labeling and classification – the situation is analized and often a set of causes are presented to the reader, often labeled or classified.
3. List of possible solutions – a list possible solutions is presented to the reader, often as a definition list.
4. Solution details – more details are provided to prove the effectiveness of the solution, often including personal anecdotes.

By doing so, the author makes sure that everything he writes about can be easily understood and accepted, because proven by personal experience.

Reading certain sections of this book felt a little bit weird at first. TSP, PSP, heavy planning and documents… are they still relevant in a “real world” now dominated by agile practices, Scrum, Kanban and similar? Do you really have to provide detailed plans and documentation to convince management?

• You may not have detailed design documents, but you still have user stories.
• You may not be required to plan ahead of 6 months, but you still have to plan frequently and provide accurate estimates.
• You may not be required to trace and track everything you do, but at the very least you have to monitor your velocity and produce burndown charts.

Yes, you read “PSP” and “TSP” everywhere in the book, but they are just labels. The methodologies and processes may change, but the principles will always remain true. This book is about understanding the very essence of management and leadership, and it will remain an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to build a career in the Software Industry.

This book is extremely well-structured. Its Table of Contents follows some very rigid rules which make this book one of the most organized texts I’ve ever come across. It is divided into six chapters, each organized as follows:

• A snapshot or an introductory story for the chapter’s main topic
• Four frames, each describing a lean practice or personal quality
• A portrait of a leader
• Your Shot, i.e. some questions and exercises for the readers

In total, the book contains 24 frames constituting the “Big Picture”, which is actually a very powerful framework for lean software leadership. You can read the book’s TOC online on the Poppendieck website and read the book’s Introduction (PDF link) on the whole concept of framing (yes, both the authors do love photography!).

When I started my career as a technical writer I used to love carefully-structured, simmetrical manuals. After a while, however, I understood that such rigorous structuring can even be dangerous if it becomes an obsession: you end up adding extra “padding writing” to make sections roughly match in length, or you start cutting down some other parts, for the same reason. Writing well-balanced books is hard, but I must say that the authors do a very good job with this book: it flows very naturally while keeping to its rigorous structure.

The first chapter is about customers, what they want and the goals of your system. It describes some interesting high level concepts like failure demand and policy-driven waste, and how to spot opportunities to improve the process.

What I found particularly interesting was the usage of process maps to analyze an existing process and find bottlenecks or leaks (in terms of time). I was instantly sold on this practice after reading the success story of how a company manage to reduce the overall time to process and solve customer issues simply by connecting customers directly to developers instead of tech support engineers. This is something you can’t apply everywhere, but after creating a process map for that specific case, the solution was evident.

More generally speaking, this chapter provides a recipe/checklist outlining the sequence of the phases of process improvement and problem solving:

1. Understand
2. Observe
3. Visualize
4. Evaluate
5. Implement

This is the only chapter focusing primarily on technical topics and knowledge. It starts with a very lengthy digression on the history of programming methodologies, aimed at understanding what works and what doesn’t. Some examples of IT stuff that worked include the Internet, PCs and …Open Source Software.

This chapter provides a general overview on Software Development as a whole. It contains some interesting information on software complexity and dealing with architectural dependencies, comprehensive sections on testing and continuous integration, and just a half page on refactoring (understandable, seeing that there are already plenty of excellent books on the subject).

The Race to the Sky section at the beginning of Chapter 3 is by far the most fascinating of the non-IT stories included in this book. It describes the construction of the Empire State Building in 1930, how it was planned out, what strategies were followed, and why it succeeded (why the construction succeeded: the building itself remained totally unprofitable for quite some time).

There are plenty of books on the subject, but Tom and Mary Poppendieck well summarize the key points of this modern-day epic achievement: how to build the tallest skyscraper in the world in a single year. This story teaches us how to work under very tight deadlines, by designing a system to fit constraints, rather than estimating up-front.

This story was perfect to introduce, in the same chapter, concepts like Kanban, pull scheduling and adaptive control, which only recently have been seriously considered in the world of Software Development but they are becoming more and more relevant.

Chapter 4 starts with a brief history of the checklist, which was invented in 1935, to be used by airplane pilots. It then moves on to its usage in hospitals, describing how checklists helped dropping infections caused by inserting central venous catheters incorrectly. Why all this? To focus on the concept of process standards, or better, how we can improve processes to accomplish our goals.

Basically, this us what Toyota does: regulations should not be written on stone, but they should reviewed and updated frequently for continuous improvement or Kaizen.

Finally, this chapter also briefly introduces a few different ways to perform root-cause analysis, such as using fishbone diagrams.

This chapter and the last one are actually focused on people and management. In this chapter, an unusual (for this kind of books, that is) but intriguing analysis on different countries using the following dimensions:

• power distance
• individualism
• masculinity
• uncertainty avoidance
• long-term orientation

Turns out that individualism is abundant in the Western world but not so much in the Far East (who would have thought!), but the opposite applies to power distance. A bit stereotypical, if I may, but not too much: the results are not surprising, especially when it comes to considering different cultures as a whole. Once more, the focus is again on Toyota’s Kaizen and their culture of respect for the people.

On page 198, the meaning of the subtitle of the book (Results Are not the Point) is revealed: developing the people and the system so that together they are capable to achieve successful results is the point. Agile is precisely about this: focusing on the people.

But what about leaders? This is an aspect of the whole Agile philosophy that I keep stumbling upon: if you want The Team to be in charge, what happens to leadership? As I found out myself working in and with Agile Teams, often there’s a serious lack of strong leaders. Leadership needs to be gently refactored into Agile, that’s what Mary and Tom recommend. How? It depends on each specific case, but it must always be done gently.

The final chapter begins with the history of Agile@IBM, or how to turn the biggest software company in the world into a massive agile machine. It wasn’t a top-down decision, the CEO didn’t just wake up one morning and decided that everyone should go Agile. Quite the opposite: it was something that was pulled by developers rather than pushed at them.

In cases like this, companies should be focusing on developing people, including good leaders, instead of particular initiatives and processes. Leaders in turn should shift their focus from details to more high-level decisions. When it comes to facing changes, leaders should look at the 12 principles of the BBRT leadership model.

The final portrait, Leaders at all Levels, well summarizes the key to successful leadership: leadership is about example, coaching and helping others to achieve their goals.

If you’re looking for a manual on implementing Lean Software Development in detail, this is probably not the best book on the subject. If you’re a developer at the start of your career, with no management responsibilities, you’d want more technical juice, so probably you should read the other two books by the Poppendiecks on the subject first.

On the other hand, if you have been working in IT for a few years, and maybe you already started to climb up the corporate ladder, reading this book could make the difference between being successful leader or not. This book does not go very in-depth with any particular methodology or process, but it does provide an excellent overview of a lot of them.

To get the best out of Leading Lean Software Development, you should read it a least once sequentially, skipping the parts that are not relevant to you (right now), taking notes on the more interesting frames, and then go back over them to digest them properly. Do not skip the introduction of each chapter though, for one because they are always pleasant to read between frames, and also because they do teach some very important values or strategies that you must assimilate.

The general message that stands out when reading this book is focus on people. Customers, of course, but also employees: every single successful company mentioned in this book, from Toyota to Southwest Airlines, became successful because they always focused on developing people first, and then products.

After two introductory chapters, aimed at answering questions like “Why bother?” or “What do big shots in software do?”, the book starts analyzing what graduates get when they get out of school. I was really taken by the following paragraph, outlining the main difference between school and work:

[…] although schools encourage students to do their own work, on penalty of expulsion or severe reprimand, professional work is saturated with the ubiquitous mantra of “teamwork.” In school, your success depends on individual effort, whereas professional life depends frequently on your ability to work in teams.

So true. I never thought about it until I read it in this book. And this is a common causes of failure in the workplace: not being able to work in a team. It’s understandable: after years of striving to be the best, to do things for yourself, you’re suddenly asked to work for and with others.

The author gives junior graduates some useful tips to get a job in software development (or the software industry in general), with some useful tips on how to create a proper résumé, how to survive interviews, the usual. Hell I wish I had this book when I started!

Readers like me who already have a job should not dismiss this part. Maybe skim through the first few chapters, but towards the end there are some useful suggestions on how to build essential interpersonal skills and a nicely-written chapter about career killers.

The second part of the book opens with Chapter 9, Working the Org, which I found most amusing for the funny, but insightful, Negotiating 101 section. Again, particular emphasis is put on non-technical skills, which are however essential for success. I particularly enjoyed reading this part of the book, because I could relate to it, being a Technical Leader myself.

Chapter 12 is a must-read, as the author himself says:

If you read only one chapter in this book, this should probably be the one.

If you never read anything about time management, you rhave to read this, as it helps you realize how much time you waste, why, and what you can do to improve the situation. I attended a course on the subject at work, a while ago, and I was shocked to read most of the stuff I learned at that course so tidily organized in no-nonsense prose in this chapter. Granted, it doesn’t substitute a time management course or practical experience with managing your priorities, but it is a good starting point.

Chapter 14 deals with Zen and the critical art of balance [between work and personal life]. The diagram on page 249 scared the hell out of me. Here it is, transposed in tabular form:

Thirtheen hours? Really? If you work 13-hour days then you have to read this chapter and put it into practice instantly or you’ll regret it. Luckily I manage to work most of the time for 8 hours a day (as everyone should, by law).

Another chapter I particularly enjoyed (and will re-read periodically) is Chapter16, which contains the best definition of leadership I ever came across:

“Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.”

– Stephen Covey

Again, this chapter teaches you the basics on leadership and management. If you didn’t take a course on the subject yet, it’s definitely worth a read.

I particularly enjoyed the first two chapters of this last part: Chapter 17 and Chapter 18 are about innovation, which I found to be the fastest and best way to get noticed in a company.

These two chapters won’t teach you to become a genius or an inventor, but they do provide help on the subject: why innovating is important, how to innovate and what to do once your idea gets a shape. The Patenting, Publishing and Public Speaking sections in chapter 8 are useful and practical, and deserve a good read. Again, the book does not go too in-depth, but the author provides just enough information to make you aware of the main issues.

The final chapters of the book felt a bit distant from my current work reality. Business talk, stock options, startups, acquisitions… They may interest some readers with an enterpreneurial mindset, but not me, at least not now. Nonetheless, business and politics pay a very important role in any IT job, so it’s wise to be aware of them.

The 17 interviews with software gurus, miracle workers and other extremely successful chaps make up for about the 20% of the book. They are carefully placed by the author in specific places of the book where they make the most sense (well, most of the time). Every person had to answer a similar set of questions, like “How did you get started in software”, “How do you stay on top of technology trends and innovation?” or “Technical leaders and executives are famous for being time-strapped. What strategies do you use to stay sane and use your time effectively?”.

Every interviews has at least one personal anecdotes. Some feel almost legendary, like the following:

In 1967, at the age of 12, I dreamed of making a difference in the field of computer science. I went off to the local IBM office, literally knocked on their door, and said, “I will do anything for the summer-empty trash cans, you name it.” They said, “Go away kid.” But there was a sales guy who took pity upon me and threw me a nice Fortran IV [IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System] manual, with the expectation that I’d probably read it and get bored and never come back. But much to his surprise, I came back the following Monday and said, “Hey, this is cool! I just wrote a program and I want to run it.” The sales guy was so impressed that he found me an open computer to work on where I could teach myself how to keypunch, program, and debug for what I still recall as a delightful summer.

– Grady Booch, IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist for Software Engineering, IBM Research

Every interview provides at least a good piece of advice for newcomers to the field. The last chapter of the book summarizes the interviews attempting to draw the profile of the successful IT professional: some founded their own companies, other climbed up the corporate ladder, a few contributed with key inventions (email, the Internet, …) that changed society as we know it. Different levels of greatness, and different ways to reach it: this is what this book is really about.

Making it Big in Software is very well organized, in its three main parts. Unless you’re already the CEO of a multi-million-dollar company, you can learn something from this book, and even if you are, learning how other people made it is always beneficial.

It is not a specialized book, and as such it does not go in depth on anything specific. This is a good thing though, because after you read some of the chapters you feel motivated to learn more about this or that particular topic, skill or problem. In a way, it can be a good surrogate for more specialized books about résumé creation, job interviews, time management, leadership etc.

Overall, I recommend this book to everyone who wants to become successful in the software industry. Success can come to different degrees of course (or not come at all), but if you’re motivated enough and interested in your work, it is definitely within your grasp. Be goal oriented. It’s not enough, but it’s a good start.