Books
Three books you can use on Monday.
Andrew writes practical books for people who have to make technology and teams work: shipping a software idea without a technical background, getting real value from AI at work, and owning what matters.
Which book first?
The Control Standard
How to Own Outcomes, Reduce Surprises, and Become the Person Leaders Trust
A short operating standard for turning drift into control: every important piece of work gets a named owner, a dated next step and a fallback. Read it on a Saturday, run it on a Tuesday.
Most teams have plenty of activity. The harder question is whether the work is under control: whether someone owns it, whether the next step has a date, and whether anyone has decided what happens if the plan slips.
The Control Standard is a short, practical operating standard for anyone who wants to be easier to trust with important work, without more meetings, more templates or more rescue missions.
Its test for “under control” is five control points: a named owner, a dated next step, a decision date, an escalation path and a fallback. It’s written first for ambitious contributors and new managers (project managers, delivery leads, developers, account managers, anyone running a small team for the first time), and it’s designed to be handed from a manager to a direct report.
- Read why Andrew wrote it, and watch Graham Mack interview him about the book.
- The audiobook is narrated by Graham Mack.
- The companion site, controlstandard.tools, has free tools to use alongside the book, including the Drift Report diagnostic and the Pocket Standard.
Execute Your Tech Idea
A Step-by-Step Guide for Non-Techies, Professionals, Managers and Startups
Find, qualify, build and launch an app, portal or SaaS product without a technical background.
Not technical? That’s fine. Execute Your Tech Idea gives you what you need to find, qualify, build and launch your tech idea, in a plain-speaking guide written for non-technical readers.
Andrew says the advice in the book has helped hundreds of professionals, managers and start-up founders execute their tech ideas.
It applies to every kind of technology project: apps, portals, software as a service, software tools, smart devices, the Internet of Things and more. Each concept gets enough detail to act on and no more, and each chapter builds on the last.
- More about the book at executeyourtechidea.com.
- Andrew talked about the book on the Brio360 podcast, and wrote about why he wrote it.
The ChatGPT Guide for Business
A Quick-Start Guide to Effective AI Use and Prompt Engineering in Work and Business
Use AI at work effectively, without leaking customer data or trusting invented answers.
A practical guide to using ChatGPT effectively and ethically at work, for you or your whole team.
It covers practical prompts and techniques for getting more done and doing better work. Andrew’s view is simple: people who use AI well will outperform those who don’t.
The risks are real, though. Paste customer information into ChatGPT and you might break data protection law, putting your job and your business at risk. And sometimes it simply makes up answers.
The book shows how to use ChatGPT for what it does well while keeping those risks small, so you get the benefit without a data breach or a confidently wrong answer.
- Read why Andrew wrote it.
Bulk copies for a team
Buying several copies for a team, a course or an event? Message Andrew on LinkedIn or use the Scorchsoft contact form, mentioning the book and roughly how many copies you need.
Want the ideas in a talk?
Each book has a talk behind it. See the talks