What's it like to work on a great software development team facing an impossible problem? How do you build an effective team? Can a group of people who don't get along still build good software? How does a team leader keep everyone on track when the stakes are high and the schedule is tight? Beautiful Teams takes you behind the scenes with some of the most interesting teams in software engineering history. You'll learn from veteran team leaders' successes and failures, told through a series of engaging personal stories -- and interviews -- by leading programmers, architects, project managers, and thought leaders. This book includes contributions from:

• Tim O'Reilly

• Scott Berkun

• Mark Healey

• Bill DiPierre

• Andy Lester

• Keoki Andrus

• Tom Tarka

• Auke Jilderda

• Grady Booch

• Jennifer Greene

• Mike Cohn

• Cory Doctorow

• Neil Siegel

• Trevor Field

• James Grenning

• Steve McConnell

• Barry Boehm and Maria H. Penedo

• Peter Gluck

• Karl E. Wiegers

• Alex Martelli

• Karl Fogel

• Michael Collins

• Karl Rehmer

• Andrew Stellman

• Ned Robinson

• Scott Ambler

• Johanna Rothman

• Mark Denovich and Eric Renkey

• Patricia Ensworth

• Andy Oram

• Tony Visconti

Beautiful Teams is edited by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene, veteran software engineers and project managers who have been writing bestselling books for O'Reilly since 2005, including Applied Software Project Management, Head First PMP, and Head First C#.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 10 Ratings

Brilliant Collection! - 2009-07-13
Reviewer Rating:
This book is great! It's a very quick read, and it was actually fun! I've been looking for insight into teamwork and software teams, and I was definitely not disappointed. To be honest, going into it I wasn't really sure what to expect. It dives straight into an interview with Tim O'Reilly about leadership, and he immediately starts talking about teams, creativity, design, open source, but in a way that all tied together and made sense. Then came an essay called "Why Ugly Teams Win," by Scott Berkun, who wrote about his experience on a team at Microsoft. I thought the combination of "higher" ideas and practical, real-world experience, right next to each other, worked extremely well.

The book is divided into sections called People, Goals, Practices, Obstacles and Music. When I first saw that, I was surprised by the last section. But it turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the book. It's got an interview with Tony Visconti, and what he says about working with musicians actually made a lot of sense, and I could see exactly why it made sense as the last chapter in the book. All of the chapters stand on their own, and they all make different points about teams. It's easy to just go right through them, from front to end. It's a unique collection, and in my opinion it's definitely worth your time.

A wonderful collection of stories about beautiful teams - 2009-07-08
Reviewer Rating:
Beautiful Teams is a wonderful collection of stories by great names in software about their experiences with teams. From Mike Cohn, Scott Ambler, Grady Booch, Steve McConnell, Scott Berkun, Johanna Rothman, James Grenning... And even a few non-software folks who make the stories that much more compelling because they transcend discipline.

The book is broken into 4 main sections - one each for the primary themes that come up when talking about beautiful teams: People, Goals, Practices, and Obstacles. One of my favorites is Scott Berkun's Why Ugly Teams Win, which proclaims "real heroes are ugly. They are misfits." Citing as examples The Ramones, The Dirty Dozen, and The Bad News Bears. "Once the members of an ugly team have earned each others' trust, they will outperform the rest of any organization."

It's a book that can't help but make you smile as you think of your own experiences with great teams and what makes them so awesome to be part of. I don't know that there's the answer to how to build a beautiful team in here, it is more a book of tales. But it is definitely a topic we will do well to be thinking more about in software development and a fun book to read.

And, again, I love Scott Berkun's advice, "Stop complaining about your coworkers. Instead, get your team and your boss to read Beautiful Teams." Indeed!

Great Variety of Topics and Great Stories all with a lesson - 2009-10-21
Reviewer Rating:
I am almost 3/4 through this book and love the interviews. The great thing about the book is that I can pick it up on any chapter and not only learn something but also be entertained. Several stories are so unbelievable that I found my self mouth agape...however, I then realized I have been a few small steps from being in the same place.

A 'must' with contributions from a range of successful team leaders - 2009-07-11
Reviewer Rating:
Libraries strong in software engineering guides will welcome BEAUTIFUL TEAMS: INSPIRING AND CAUTIONARY TALES FROM VETERAN TEAM LEADERS. It tells how to build and work with an effective team, showing how good software can be built even by people who don't get along, and it shows team leaders how to keep everyone on track. This key acquisition is a 'must' with contributions from a range of successful team leaders.

A book about successful team leaders - 2009-09-07
Reviewer Rating:
It's a collection of real stories and situations retold by about thirty experienced veterans in the area of software engineering. This book speaks about the teams that according to all the measures are identifies as wonderful. You can't find in the book any arranged rules and steps for creation of wonderful teams. Instead of that we're closely introduced to the teams from different areas of the software engineering, from video games development through the pharmaceutical industry to the software for air crafts and space missions. All of them have something in common - they are wonderful teams. It's obvious that the wonderful teams aren't also immune to the usual obstacles that possibly would appear on the way. For the reader is especially interesting to find out how the big leaders manage the problems and obstacles, how they inspire the members and how the ugly teams at the end has finished as wonderful ones.
In one chapter there is a successful transfer of the phenomenon for teams' self-organization at the Open Source projects. Today one of the most successful projects is Open Source based.
Huge part of the book is organized as an interview. The authors Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Green with certain and direct questions have successfully challenged the leaders to bring the reader in their teams
Part from the funds collected from the sale of this book is a donation for the funds of PlayPums International projects that have an aim to obtain pure drinking water in Africa.
Pros: The problems that the members of the successful teams deal with are very well described. The reader has a feeling that he's part of the team. The book gives examples of good and bad solutions. It also directly introduces us with the best teams in the history of the software engineering.
Cons: Maybe, in some of the stories there are more details than it is necessary. The reader is overloaded with less essential moments instead of brief emphasizing of the couples of the problem-solutions.
Beautiful teams is an excellent book that you should read if you have an ambitious to become a successful team leader. The book gives us an exclusive possibility to learn about the most successful teams in the history of the software industry. In the last chapter the authors have presented one interesting analogy among the musician teams, programmer teams and how alike is the leading of these two so different teams. Today, there are many elaborated rules for team leading, but every team is a story for itself. The work of the team leader is to enhance and make it wonderful as it was done by the successful leaders in the book.

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