A good CTO (chief technology officer) must always stay sharp. In an industry that is always changing quickly, what you learned at the start of your career might not be useful anymore. So, stay updated with the changes—and the competition—by acquiring new skills.
But with your busy schedule, it might be near impossible for you to take a time-consuming course or attend a workshop. Instead, you can learn in your limited free time by reading; you can absorb a wealth of knowledge in just a few minutes during your lunch break, on your commute, or before you lay your head down at night.
If you want to brush up on both your tech skills and your business skills, check out this list of ten must-read books for CTO’s.
1. Hooked
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal is a book you’ll want to devour immediately if you want to create products that consumers will be obsessed with. In this book, Eyal shares his knowledge on why some products capture widespread attention while others flop, what makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit and how technologies hook consumers.
He also explains the hook model, which is a four-step process embedded in the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Hooked is the top how-to guide to building better products.
2. Rework
Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of Basecamp is a unique offering in the world of business books. Many books shell out predictable advice about writing a business plan, getting investors and researching your competition, but this book wants you to forget all that and just go out and do it.
This book shows you how to stop talking and start working and shares a ton of counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you. Rework is the perfect playbook for any aspiring entrepreneurs or small business owners who’ve dreamed of doing it on their own.
3. Debugging Teams
In Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration by Brian W. Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman, the authors, who’ve been in the engineering industry for over 20 years, share their wisdom on how successful teams work together.
You’ll get insights on how to lead a team effectively, navigate an organization, and build a healthy relationship with the users of your software. The moral of the story, so to speak, is that if you invest in “soft skills”, you can have a bigger impact for the same amount of effort.
4. The Hard Thing About Hard Things
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers written by Ben Horowitz, who is one of Silicon Valley’s most respected entrepreneurs, shares his valuable advice on building and running a startup.
This book is filled with Horowitz’s straight talk and humor on how difficult it is to run a business and the problems that confront leaders every day. If you’ve dreamed of starting your own company, the author shares his personal and humbling experiences that will inspire you in your own ventures.
5. Continuous Delivery
Getting software released to users is often painful, risky and time-consuming, but in Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation by Jez Humble and David Farley, the authors offer their principles and technical practices that enable rapid, incremental delivery of valuable new functionality to users.
Continuous Delivery covers topics like automating acceptance test, implementing continuous deployment and zero-downtime releases, navigating risk management, and much more. This guide will help developers move from idea to release faster and more efficiently than ever.
6. Don’t Make Me Think!
Nobody will use your website if they can’t find their way around it. In Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, he offers his expert advice on how to make your website something that people will actually want to use.
As a usability expert, Krug offers clear and practical advice that’s priceless for designers, programmers, writers, editors, and webmasters as well as project managers and marketers.
7. The Phoenix Project
The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford is a fast-paced and entertaining story that anyone in IT will relate to.
The Phoenix Project follows a fictitious company and an IT manager who has ninety days to rescue an over-budget and late IT initiative. The scenarios presented in this book will allow readers to learn how to improve their own IT organizations and forever change the way they view IT.
8. Zero to One
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future is written by Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder, and early Facebook investor, and offers new and fresh ideas on how you can build a better business – and a better future.
This is not your average business book, which makes it a must-read for entrepreneurs, startups, and innovators who want to build a business that stands out in the crowd.
9. Scaling Up Excellence
In Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao, the authors tackle a challenge that determines the success of every organization: how to scale up farther, faster, and more effectively as an organization grows.
Scaling Up Excellence includes inside accounts, case studies, and academic research from a number of different industries such as startups, airlines, retail, high-tech, healthcare and more. If your company has a bit of excellence but you want more, this guide will show you how to get it.
10. The Pragmatic Programmer
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas illustrates the best practices and major pitfalls of many different aspects of software development.
Whether you’re a new coder or an experienced programmer, you can benefit immensely from this advice on topics such as how to fight program rot, delighting your users, testing ruthlessly and effectively, and so much more.
In conclusion.
A well-read CTO is a successful CTO. Now that you’ve got some awesome, hand-picked book recommendations, read each one, and watch yourself become transformed into a new and improved leader.