Scrum, «Deadline», and Kaizen Hub. What are the best books, podcasts, and YouTube channels about management

Nowadays, you can use open information on the Internet to learn a profession and develop your skills. You can find everything from podcasts to checklists. However, finding really useful resources takes a lot of time. We decided to simplify this task and put together a selection of books, YouTube channels, and podcasts that project managers love and recommend.

Specialists from Ukrainian companies shared what resources they use to improve planning and deepen their management knowledge. And yes, the selection is not only about projects, but also about communication with colleagues.

Serhiy Prodanov, Lead Delivery Manager at Ciklum

Serhii said that when he was studying to become a project manager, podcasts and educational YouTube shows were not yet so popular. So he mostly gained knowledge from various courses, attended trainings, and read books. Here are some of them:

• «The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People», Stephen Covey. It will be useful for all professionals.
• «Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity» by David Allen. Serhiy noted that this is a rather complicated book, but it helps to catch up with a systematic approach to work and to deal with prioritization issues.
• «The Effective Manager», Peter Drucker. A classic for successful managers.
• «The Art of War», Sun Tzu. A work that will help you broaden your horizons and learn to make decisions rationally, not emotionally.
• «Emotional Intelligence», Daniel Goleman. A fundamental work based mainly on research. It is not easy to read, but worthwhile.
• «Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion», Robert Cialdini. Useful for managers who want to work effectively with other people.

Denis Shmatkov, PMO Competency manager at Eleks, founder of the Kaizen Hub leader development platform

Denys shared that he has been reading a lot about the crisis, leadership, and resilience lately. That’s why he recommends the following resources.

• Various studies from McKinsey & Company or Harvard Business Review.
• Courses or materials from UCU (for example, a course on leadership by Andriy Rozhdestvensky).
• Book «Resilience», by Eric Greitens.
• Book «Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell», Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle.

The expert also recommends a podcast where he is a co-host — «Almost on time» from the Kaizen hub leader development platform.

Read also: How to plan work: project managers advise on the best apps and AI tools

Yulia Mazur, Project Manager at GlobalLogic

Yulia recommends the book «Cultural Map. Barriers to Intercultural Communication in Business» by Erin Meyer.

The project manager also recommends paying attention to the following resources:

• Harvard Business Review;
• LinkedIn page Simon Sinek;
• YouTube channel PMI Ukraine Chapter (Institute for Project Management in Ukraine);
• PM Podcast on Spotify;
• Project Management Happy Hour Podcast on Spotify.

Karina Alekseenko, Ex-PM lead at S-PRO, Instagram/YouTube blogger

Karina recommends reading the following books:

• «Project Management: Absolute Beginner’s Guide PMBOK guide», PMI Project Management Institute;
• «Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time», Jeff Sutherland;
• «Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business», David Anderson;
• «User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product», by Jeff Patton, Martin Fowler, Peter Economou, Alan Cooper and Marty Kagan;
• «The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering», Fred Brooks;
• «Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great», by Esther Derby, Diane Larsen, and Ken Schwaber.

She also recommends listening to the podcast «Buttonholes».

«This podcast is co-hosted by me and Andriy Osipchuk. The podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple podcast,» she added.

Orest Dmytrasevych, management consultant, founder of the Kaizen Hub leadership development platform

«Without undue modesty, I recommend my YouTube channel and podcast «Almost on time» — here we discuss various situations from the experience of managers and share our advice without water,» Orest said.

Among the books he recommends are Tom DeMarco’s «Deadline», all of Patrick Lencioni’s books, and «Absolute Responsibility» by Jocko Willink and Leif Bebin. «There are very cool stories about military operations and what lessons from them can be transferred to the business world».

Read also: What annoys a project manager – answers from SoftServe, GlobalLogic, and more

Artur Dmytryshyn, Project Manager at SoftServe, founder of the keepgoing blog

Arthur shared that he conceptually liked the book «Leaders Always Eat Last» by Simon Sinek. «Very simple, no advice, but with good examples and stories of other leaders, I really liked it,» explained the manager.

At the same time, he emphasized that this book is about leadership and its concept, while there is almost nothing about management.

Arthur also recommended «Scrum» by Jeff Sutherland.

«I first read this book when I was 17. After that, I made a board on my wall and tried to run some of my own scrum projects. Since then, I sometimes return to it just to remind myself of the key value of “Scrum”,» said PM.

Arthur also gave his recommendations on what to watch about management on YouTube:

• KaizenHubUA. «A very cool channel about project management from Orest Dmytrasevych».
• No Rules live. The channel used to host streams on project management, but they are no longer available. But you can still watch previous recordings, Arthur added.
• A playlist about project management on the channel Rist. «Overall, it’s a good channel, they have a cool playlist of videos about project management,» said the IT professional and added that he had once watched almost the entire selection.

Anastasia Stelmakh, Project Manager at Promova

Anastasia advises project managers to read Jeff Sutherland’s «Scrum», David Anderson’s «Kanban» guide, and Tom DeMarco’s «Deadline». The expert explains that these books will provide a foundation.

«It’s also great to take specialized courses on Coursera, read articles by colleagues on DOU and listen to podcasts Kaizen Hub,» she added.

• Earlier, we published a selection of resources that will be useful for designers and recruiters.