Secrets of Consulting - A guide to giving & getting advice successfully

I realised fairly quickly after I started reading this that Jerry Weinberg had written a patterns book. Of course, this was long before the patterns movement had taken a strong hold on the software development community, so it wasn't called a patterns book. I'm a big fan of patterns, and these were no exception.

Jerry provides a lot of practical advice in this book that will stand the reader in good stead when on client site trying to get the most out of their projects. The only shortcoming I find in it is that the names of Jerry's patterns only have meaning to him. Things like "Rudy's Rutabaga Rule", "Boulding's Backward Basis" and "The Potato Chip Principle" may serve as meaningful reminders to Jerry, but I don't find them useful in jogging my memory about the underyling advice.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent book, and great reading for anyone who spends much time as a consultant or contractor working with clients.