Scrappy Project Management: The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls That Every Project Faces


Kimberly Wiefling - 2007
    Unfortunately most of these are PREDICTABLE and AVOIDABLE. Tact and diplomacy can only get you so far in the wild and wacky world of project work. A combination of outrageous creativity, sheer bravado and nerves of steel will serve you far better than any fancy-schmancy Microsoft Project Gantt chart!'Scrappy Project Management' is about what REALLY happens in the project environment, how to survive it, and how to make sure that your team avoids the predictable and avoidable pitfalls that every project faces.

Writing That Works


Kenneth Roman - 1981
    Now in its third edition, this completely updated classic has been expanded to included all new advice on e-mail and the e-writing world, plus a fresh point of view on political correctness. With dozens of examples, many of them new, and useful tips for writing as well as faster on a computer, Writing That Works will show you how to improve anything you write:Presentations that move ideas and actionMemos and letters that get things donePlans and reports that make things happenFund-raising and sales letters that produce resultsResumes and letters that lead to interviewsSpeeches that make a point

Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility


Patty McCord - 2018
    McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley.McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR―annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs―often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability.Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

ToGAF 9 Foundation Study Guide: Preparation for the TOGAF 9 Part 1 Examination


Rachel Harrison - 2009
    It gives an overview of every learning objective for the TOGAF 9 Foundation Syllabus and in-depth coverage on preparing and taking the TOGAF 9 Part 1 Examination. It is specifically designed to help individuals prepare for certification.This Study Guide is excellent material for:a) Individuals who require a basic understanding of TOGAF 9b) Professionals who are working in roles associated with an architecture project such as those responsible for planning, execution, development, delivery, and operationc) Architects who are looking for a first introduction to TOGAF 9d) Architects who want to achieve Level 2 certification in a stepwise manner and have not previously qualified as TOGAF 8 CertifiedA prior knowledge of enterprise architecture is advantageous but not required. While reading this Study Guide, the reader should also refer to the TOGAF Version 9.1 documentation available online at www.opengroup.org and also available as hard copy from www.vanharen.net and online booksellers

Uncharted: How to Map the Future


Margaret Heffernan - 2020
    We are addicted to prediction, desperate for certainty about the future. But the complexity of modern life won’t provide that; experts in forecasting are reluctant to look more than 400 days out. History doesn’t repeat itself and even genetics won’t tell you everything you want to know. Ineradicable uncertainty is now a fact of life. In complex environments, efficiency is a hazard not a help; being robust is the better, safer option. Drawing on a wide array of people and places, Margaret Heffernan looks at long-term projects developed over generations that could never have been planned the way that they have been run. Experiments, led by individuals and nations, discover new possibilities and options. Radical exercises in forging new futures with wildly diverse participants allow everyone to create outcomes together that none could do alone. Existential crises reveal the vital social component in resilience. Death is certain, but how we approach it impacts the future of those we leave behind. And preparedness – doing everything today that you might need for tomorrow – provides the antidote to passivity and prediction. Ranging freely through history and from business to science, government to friendships, this refreshing book challenges us to resist the false promises of technology and efficiency and instead to mine our own creativity and humanity for the capacity to create the futures we want and can believe in.

The Conversation Manager: The Power of the Modern Consumer/The End of the Traditional Advertiser


Steven Van Belleghem - 2010
    This book looks at how to deal with the changing consumer and the social media as a marketing specialist.

In Search Of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies


Thomas J. Peters - 1982
    The "Greatest Business Book of All Time" (Bloomsbury UK), In Search of Excellence has long been a must-have for the boardroom, business school, and bedside table.Based on a study of forty-three of America's best-run companies from a diverse array of business sectors, In Search of Excellence describes eight basic principles of management -- action-stimulating, people-oriented, profit-maximizing practices -- that made these organizations successful.This phenomenal bestseller features a new Authors' Note, and reintroduces these vital principles in an accessible and practical way for today's management reader.

Remarkable!: Maximizing Results Through Value Creation


Randy Ross - 2013
    This translates into lackluster performance, lost opportunities, and a staggering loss of profits. So how does a team leader turn a business-as-usual team into a remarkable" "one? "Remarkable! "is an entertaining and enlightening business parable that has the power to turn any team around. Through the humorous and eye-opening story of Dusty, leaders will discover how to build a culture that inspires team members to bring the best of who they are to the table every day. Addressing the three dimensions of culture--values, beliefs, and behaviors--"Remarkable! "introduces readers to the Four Maxims of Value Creation: creativity, positivity, sustainability, and responsibility. It shows leaders the most effective ways to cultivate these qualities in their team members and how to craft a corporate culture where people can thrive.

The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking


Roger L. Martin - 2007
    Though following best practice can help in some ways, it also poses a danger: By emulating what a great leader did in a particular situation, you'll likely be terribly disappointed with your own results. Why? Your situation is different.Instead of focusing on what exceptional leaders do, we need to understand and emulate how they think. Successful businesspeople engage in what Martin calls integrative thinking creatively resolving the tension in opposing models by forming entirely new and superior ones. Drawing on stories of leaders as diverse as AG Lafley of Procter & Gamble, Meg Whitman of eBay, Victoria Hale of the Institute for One World Health, and Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, Martin shows how integrative thinkers are relentlessly diagnosing and synthesizing by asking probing questions including: What are the causal relationships at work here? and What are the implied trade-offs?Martin also presents a model for strengthening your integrative thinking skills by drawing on different kinds of knowledge including conceptual and experiential knowledge.Integrative thinking can be learned, and The Opposable Mind helps you master this vital skill.

Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It


Marshall Goldsmith - 2009
    This book is about that moment--and how we can create it in our lives, maintain it, and recapture it when we need it. In his follow-up to the New York Times bestseller What Got You Here Won't Get You There, #1 executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shares the ways in which to get--and keep--our Mojo. Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: identity (who do you think you are), achievement (what have you done lately?), reputation (who do other people think you are--and what have you've done lately?), and acceptance (what can you change--and when do you need to just "let it go"?). Goldsmith outlines the positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming. Mojo is: that positive spirit--towards what we are doing--now--that starts from the inside--and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and communicating this experience to the world around us. The Mojo Toolkit provides fourteen practical tools to help you achieve both happiness and meaning--not only in business, but in life.

Strategy Rules: Five Timeless Lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs


David B. Yoffie - 2015
    At their peaks, Microsoft, Apple, and Intel were collectively worth some $1.5 trillion. Strategy Rules examines these three individuals collectively for the first time—their successes and failures, commonalities and differences—revealing the business strategies and practices they pioneered while building their firms.David B. Yoffie and Michael A. Cusumano have studied these three leaders and their companies for more than thirty years, while teaching business strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship at Harvard and MIT. In this enlightening guide, they show how Gates, Grove, and Jobs approached strategy and execution in remarkably similar ways—yet markedly differently from their erstwhile competitors—keeping their focus on five strategic rules.Strategy Rules brings together the best practices in strategic management and high-tech entrepreneurship from three path-breaking entrepreneurs who emerged as CEOs of huge global companies. Their approaches to formulating strategy and building organizations offer unique insights for start-up executives as well as the heads of modern multinationals.

The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead


Warren Berger - 2018
    By asking questions, we can analyze, learn, and move forward in the face of uncertainty. But "questionologist" Warren Berger says that the questions must be the right ones; the ones that cut to the heart of complexity or enable us to see an old problem in a fresh way.In The Book of Beautiful Questions, Berger shares illuminating stories and compelling research on the power of inquiry. Drawn from the insights and expertise of psychologists, innovators, effective leaders, and some of the world's foremost creative thinkers, he presents the essential questions readers need to make the best choices when it truly counts, with a particular focus in four key areas: decision-making, creativity, leadership, and relationships.The powerful questions in this book can help you:- Identify opportunities in your career or industry- Generate fresh ideas in business or in your own creative pursuits- Check your biases so you can make better judgments and decisions- Do a better job of communicating and connecting with the people around youThoughtful, provocative, and actionable, these beautiful questions can be applied immediately to bring about change in your work or your everyday life.

The Ten-Day MBA : A Step-By-Step Guide To Mastering The Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools


Steven Silbiger - 1993
    Features chapters on finance, marketing, accounting, strategy, quantitative analysis, operations, economics, organisational behaviour, and ethics, all revised to reflect the contemporary corporate culture and economic climate.

Pivot to the Future: Discovering Value and Creating Growth in a Disrupted World


Omar Abbosh - 2019
    But what is new is the "wise pivot," a replicable strategy for harnessing disruption to survive, grow, and be relevant to the future. It's a strategy for perpetual reinvention across the old, now, and new elements of any business.Rapid recent advances in technology are forcing leaders in every business to rethink long-held beliefs about how to adapt to emerging technologies and new markets. What has become abundantly clear: in the digital age, conventional wisdom about business transformation no longer works, if it ever did.Based on Accenture's own experience of reinventing itself in the face of disruption, the company's real world client work, and a rigorous two-year study of thousands of businesses across 30 industries, Pivot to the Future reveals methodical and bold moves for finding and releasing new sources of trapped value-unlocked by bridging the gap between what is technologically possible and how technologies are being used. The freed value enables companies to simultaneously reinvent their legacy, and current and new businesses.Pivot to the Future is for leaders who seek to turn the existential threats of today and tomorrow into sustainable growth, with the courage to understand that a wise pivot strategy is not a one-time event, but a commitment to a future of perpetual reinvention, where one pivot is followed by the next and the next.

Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change


Lawrence G. Hrebiniak - 2005
    This book shows why execution is even more important than many senior executives realize, and describes why businesses fail to deliver on even their most promising strategies.