You picked two GREAT books. One thought, why not leave the last one up to the individual coder to pick? Instead of dictating, give them some freedom to pick something of their own interest, let it be TDD, Agile, UML, ASP.NET, what ever, but let them get jazzed up about something and give them an opportunity to show you their excitement.

If I were to run my own R&D shop, I would start with your idea (and first two books), but then I would leave the third one up to them.

enjoy!

/\ndy

First off I would like to give you kudos for actually taking this approach.
I have heard of several companies that say they are training minded, only to have it as an afterthought due to lack of direction, schedule conflicts, time crunches, or just continuously putting it off.

As for the books I would recommend, Code Complete 2 is a great all-encompassing book but may take some time to get through.

I also agree with Bradley’s suggestion on Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# by Martin C Rober, as the agile development methodology and extreme programming combination helps to overcome many of the current software development obstacles we are experiencing today.

Last but not least, Head First Software Development by Dan Pilone has my vote. This book addresses several of the issues I am sure we have all witnessed and experienced first hand from requirements gathering to improving scheduling and time estimation (which I believe is a valuable skill for everyone to know, not just the project leads).

One other suggestion would be to allow each individual to select a book on a new technology topic that interests them and write up how that technology could positively impact the organization.

I also have a question for you and the other readers… I agree it’s important that we keep up with new technologies, but what do we do when we’re not learning it at our companies? I asked a recruiter the other day how many companies are looking for WPF. “A LOT!!” he said, clearly excited that I might have experience with it, “have you worked with it?” he asked. I explained I was teaching myself in my spare time, going through some online training and developing my own app in it.

“Oh” was his – clearly disappointed – response. The companies wanted people who had done it at professionally – at their jobs – not in their spare time. Now, I’m not convinced that this guy is a very good recruiter. But, the bias is real and, perhaps, understandable to some extent. How do we deal with this contradiction that companies want new skills that few other companies are working with – and, yet, they don’t give much credence to experience we’ve gained in our spare time. Perhaps THIS is why some of those positions with new technologies remain open for so long…

As the person largely responsible for trying to catalyze my team’s personal development, The Pragmatic Programmer has been a great way to get discussions started on some foundational topics. I have a team with a very wide range of skill levels, and that book provides something that everyone can sort of hook into. Also, the sections and topics are divided into very small pieces that could easily be structured into a curriculum, or even just a daily lunchtime discussion.

If you’d be willing to share it, I’d love to see what you come up with for your Code Complete curriculum, as I’d like to do something like that over here.

Beyond this mandatory book list (no more than three) I will encourage the other developers to take their personal development seriously and continue to strive to make themselves better. Then help point them in the right direction in regard to bolstering their natural abilities and desires . For example, I have one person on our team that is really good with UI’s (any presentation medium) I would like that person to dive deep into WPF and Silverlight (become the XAML expert). We have another person who is really good with databases. I would like that person to dive deeper into all the new ADO.Net and access protocols i.e. LINQ/Lambda, Entity, ADO.Net Data Services, etc.

In the perfect world there will be general requirements that all the developers on the team will be expected to know and then we will help various team members dive deeper into areas which we need expertise on and hopefully match up with their natural desires and strengths.

Also, the free eBook, Foundations of Programming, is a great little read too.