As a business owner, one of the hardest things to do is take the time away from work to refine your internal processes. Over the last two years I've been in transition and have been moving to the "HICK Tech" brand. It's always easier to help someone else with their Web site than it is to work on your own, so the migration has been very slow going. One of the tools that I've been using is Victor Kane's book Leveraging Drupal (affiliate link for the Drupal Association to Amazon.com).

Disclaimer: I'm very impatient. While I have no problems scanning a chapter, I'm moderately lousy at reading things from beginning to end. I do well with audio books and the radio but rarely manage to get through a few works of fiction a year while I'm at home. I tend to buy my fiction at the airport (as recommended by Oprah) and will plow through what I've bought when my laptop has run out of battery or my knitting has gotten boring. When I'm reading non-fiction/technical books I like things to be well chunked so that I can dip in and out as needed.

I got a copy of Leveraging Drupal this spring and have been picking my way through it ever since. I started at page one, and although I was entertained by the narrative, I found it to be a tough read. But I keep going back to the book because there are excellent ideas in it. Victor does a great job of touching on the things that I know I ought to be doing, but don't always have the discpline to do. I'm now reading the book as if each chapter was an extended HOWTO. Here are the topics that have been of interest to me:

• Using Trac for client projects (Chapter 3).
• How to create an install profile (Chapter 14).
• Storing user stories in Drupal (Chapter 11). 
• Upgrading to D6 (Chapters 8 and 9).
• Drush (Chapter 5).

By mixing work philosophy and hands-on "code" Leveraging Drupal can be a tough read as you switch between the two cognitive domains--and especially difficult if you're trying to learn Drupal at the same time. It is, however, a wonderful overview of the topics you need to know to be an efficient Drupal shop. Whether you are a "waterfall" company, or more interested in iterative development, this book acts as a good reference for those who are starting to feel their current toolkit isn't quite enough.