I’ve just sent the final chapters of my debut novel Human Software over to my editor. I’m aiming for publication in September ’25.
I like to describe “Human Software” as “The Phoenix Project but A Bit More Evil”.
I love the Phoenix Project; it’s one of my favourite books, and it inspired me to write this one, but I felt we needed to hear more about real humans supporting real software systems in real situations against the socio-political backdrop that we actually live in. Against a backdrop of more limited investment, the changing relationships between employer and employee and the impact of AI.
That’s because while The Phoenix Project is a brilliant book, it’s very much a “how to” manual of what should happen in an ideal world. I wanted to write something a bit more realistic. Most of us have worked with consultants, some of us strive to push our engineering organisations to be better, but often the journey is more complicated than we hope it will be.
Software systems and the companies that create them often aren’t glamorous places to work. They are supported by normal people who have busy lives and families just like you and me. People that don’t know from month to month if they will have a job or a new manager or a new team. People who are asked to go above and beyond for their employers sometimes without seeing any reward for it.
If you’re a software engineer, an admin, a manager, a product owner, a scrum master, an executive or have ever worked in supporting enterprise software then I’m sure you will recognise a few of the characters.
I’ll be (self) publishing in September, but I’m going to need some keen beta readers before then.
Sign up to the newsletter below for updates.