Category: Book Notes
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The Inner Work of Change: Book Notes on Transitions
Sitting down at my desk in early 2024, I opened my laptop. As I began typing out my reflections of the past few years, I felt amazed at how much had changed for me and my wife. Our lives are barely recognizable compared with what they were four years ago!…
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On Operational Efficiency: The Phoenix Project Notes
After working in the software industry for 15 years, I realized that I knew surprisingly little about how companies deliver cloud software. To better understand what it takes to develop and deploy software in the cloud, I recently read The Phoenix Project, which a colleague recommended. I was surprised at…
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On Crispness: Distilling the Message
In my quest to become a better communicator, I’ve been practicing being more crisp. I was inspired by an excellent talk on crispness by Kellogg prof Craig Wortmann. As someone who’s never been accused of being overly concise, I found Wortmann’s ideas to be useful in changing my mindset. I’ll…
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On Waste and Its Elimination: Notes on Toyota Production System
I’ve only just read Toyota Production System, written by its inventor Taiichi Ohno, despite admiring Toyota’s world-class operational rigor for many years. The Toyota Production System (TPS) is the company’s comprehensive manufacturing philosophy and methodology, which aims at improving efficiency, eliminating waste, and producing high quality output. While I found…
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“The Righteous Mind” Book Notes
In 2018, I read “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion”, by Dr. Jonathan Haidt, an academic psychologist. This book greatly influenced my thinking, so I’d like to share my book notes and responses. Initially, I stumbled across this book in my attempt to understand…
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Notes on “Give and Take”
After recently read “Give and Take” by Adam Grant, an organizational behavior professor at the Wharton School, I found his ideas to be very compelling and applicable in my life. While I’ve outlined his points that I found most compelling, I encourage you to read his book if you find this…
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Notes on “The Effective Executive”
In his book, “The Effective Executive“, Peter Drucker discusses his views on what “effectiveness” is for knowledge workers, and how they can maximize their effectiveness. I read this book in 2015 and found it enlightening. Since then, I’ve been meaning to summarize my notes in order to re-read it. I’ll…