Book review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

A couple of weeks ago, I recorded a podcast with Eric Mignot and Raphaël Pierquin from Pyxis around the concepts found in a book called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.  Haven’t read the book prior to the recording, I ordered it the day after because I loved what I heard from Eric and Raphaël.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is not a technology book and strangely, the subtitle says A Leadership Tale.  In fact, Lencioni wrote a short novel to get his message trough and it works.  The story is about a newly appointed CEO who finds that the company management team is dysfunctional and her effort to change that.

So why read that book if we’re into technology?  Well, although the story is about a team managing a company, the dysfunctions are likely to be the same and the principles to solve them can also be applied to development teams.

Here’s a graph listing the five dysfunctions.  Rings a bell?

Highly recommended to anyone leading or working in a team.