Lending libraries (LL) have been around for years, and I have not been a fan. LL are hard to maintain and the books in the LL are usually the ones nobody wants to read.
I changed my mind when I read a post by David Koontz. I have been a voracious reader for years. My kindle app on my iPad has grown to 58 books in a little over three years. What changed my mind was the concept of “don’t worry about returns – consider it a bonus plan for employees that can read.” Now, most of my teammates can read, so no worries there. In other words, the books have found a good home if they are not returned to you.
Add in the people over process technique of not utilizing a check-in/check-out process, and you have what could be a good idea. At FNF, we are implementing just such a library concept. With five or six different development sites, it can be a bit expensive getting started. As crazy as it sounds, our teammates can be trusted to figure out if a book provides value. They keep a book if they find it provides business value. If they return the book, it didn’t provide enough business value to add it to the clutter of their desk.
I chose to start with four books. Over time, we will add additional titles to our LL. The current list includes:
User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development – Mike Cohn;
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams – Lisa Crispin;
Now, if we can just figure out how to make this concept work on an iPad…….
Thanks for coming in today.
Chris
