Book recommendations

IT service management

• ITIL 2011 Lifecycle Suite (the five core ITIL books)

Project management

• PRINCE2: Historically, the complement to ITIL for project management. More popular in the UK.
• PMBOK (/pem’-bok/): The project management body of knowledge. The PMBOK is much less prescriptive than PRINCE2.
• Rita’s PMP exam prep guide: although intended as a study guide, I found this book supplements the PMBOK well. Its style is very confrontational (“if you don’t know this then don’t take the test”) but I found the book helpful.

Lean

• Toyota Kata
• Lean IT
• Managing to Learn
• The Gold Mine: a Lean novel about a manufacturing plant in trouble.

General management

• Getting to Yes
• Crucial Conversations
• Getting Things Done
• The 80/20 Principle
• The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
• Leading Change
• Death by Meeting

See also the Personal MBA’s list of books.