Recommended reading for the CTO/CIO
Ask your next CTO/CIO candidate how many of the “Must Read” books he or she has read. A seasoned IT executive should be familiar with most of them.
Must reads:
- Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
- Rapid Development
, by Steve McConnell
- The Psychology of Computer Programming: Silver Anniversary Edition
, by Gerald Weinberg
- The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 20th Anniversary Edition
, by Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.
- Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (Best Practices (Microsoft))
, by Steve McConnell
- Testing Computer Software, 2nd Edition
, by Cem Kaner et al.
Recommended:
- Creating a Software Engineering Culture, by Karl Wiegers
- Quality Software Management: Anticipating Change (Quality Software Management)
, by Gerald Weinberg
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
, by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
, by Chris Anderson
- The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, by Nicholas Carr
- IT’s hidden face: Everything you always wanted to know about Information Technology. A look behind the scenes
, by Claude Roeltgen
Currently in the reading pile:
- Adventures of an IT Leader, by Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O’Donnell
- fruITion: Creating the Ultimate Corporate Strategy for Information Technology, by Chris D. Potts
- Growing Software: Proven Strategies for Managing Software Engineers
, by Louis Testa
- IT Savvy, by Peter Weill and Jeanne W. Ross
Architecture and Technical:
- Scalable Internet Architectures, by Theo Schlossnagle
- Scalable Web Sites, by Cal Henderson
- Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software (Pragmatic Programmers)
, by Michael Nygard
Note: I’ve also started a series of posts on the most important “human factors in IT” books, picking what I consider the most important three such books from each decade, starting with the 1970s.

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Peter, I saw in your reading Pile the book FruITion from C. Potts. You can put it at the top; Chris’s insight on strategy and the future of the CIO position is certainly one of the best that I read so far. I have had the chance to discuss with him and we kindly cover some areas that were still not clear for me. A great Guy and a great book.
Fibol