Dev Book Club

There are a couple of strategies to make a dev book club successful. The idea is to expand the learning capabilities of the team. Make learning the priority when establishing a book club.

Having a dev book club can come with problems. People get busy, get lazy, or forget to read the book, and scheduling meetings feel like a drag. Keep engagement by allowing every member to suggest changes to the process.

Rotate Leadership per Meeting

There was always a leader in most democratic clubs, where members voted on books. That’s not to say the book club leader should be a dictator.

That’s why I found that it is a good practice to rotate the role and have everyone in the club help with logistics.

The leader should be in charge of organizing meetings and working as a moderator for discussions.

The actual decision — what book to read — is something that all members should be able to weigh in on in some capacity.

Establish Ground Rules

It’s a prominent literary world, and setting some parameters can make choosing a little less daunting.

For example, the members try to stick to books under 350 pages in a book club for short texts.

Every so often, take votes on favorite books from past meetings as a sort of pulse check to guide future picks.

Decide and set meeting dates once

Not everybody will make every meeting, but trying to align schedules for each one can feel like a monthly exercise in herding cats.

Instead of bringing consensus, the organizer of the book can decide on a day and iterate.

Having a gathering to unwind with friends over a beer, wine, or your beverage of preference is a beautiful, necessary thing. If doing it under the guise of a dev book club is the only way to ensure it gets scheduled, by all means, carry on.