But are you using it to “out-think” your rivals? If not, you may be missing out on a potent competitive tool.In Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris argue that the frontier for using data to make decisions has shifted dramatically. Certain high-performing enterprises are now building their competitive strategies around data-driven insights that in turn generate impressive business results. Their secret weapon? Analytics: sophisticated quantitative and statistical analysis and predictive modeling.Exemplars of analytics are using new tools to identify their most profitable customers and offer them the right price, to accelerate product innovation, to optimize supply chains, and to identify the true drivers of financial performance. A wealth of examples—from organizations as diverse as Amazon, Barclay’s, Capital One, Harrah’s, Procter & Gamble, Wachovia, and the Boston Red Sox—illuminate how to leverage the power of analytics.

    The result is a tremendous amount of time and money wasted due to wrong assumptions, lack of focus, poor communication of objectives, lack of understanding and misalignment with overall goals. There has to be a better way to deliver!This handbook is a practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organisations make an impact with software. Impact mapping helps to create better plans and roadmaps that ensure alignment of business and delivery, and are easily adaptable to change. Impact mapping fits nicely into several current trends in software product management and release planning, including goal-oriented requirements engineering, frequent iterative delivery, agile and lean software methods, lean startup product development cycles, and design thinking.Who is this book for?The primary audience of this book are senior people involved in building software products or delivering software projects, from both business and delivery sides. This includes business sponsors and those whose responsibilities include product ownership, project oversight or portfolio management, architecture, business analysis, quality improvement and assurance and delivery. - Business people assigned to software projects will learn how to communicate their ideas better.- Senior product or project sponsors will learn how to communicate their assumptions more effectively to delivery teams, how to engage delivery teams to make better strategic decisions, and how to manage their project portfolio more effectively.- Delivery teams that are already working under the umbrella of agile or lean delivery methods, and more recently lean startup ideas, will learn how to better focus deliverables and engage business sponsors and users.- Delivery teams moving to agile or lean delivery methods will get ideas on how to address some common issues with scaling these practices, such as creating a big picture view, splitting work into small chunks that still have business value and reporting progress more meaningfully.About the authorGojko Adzic is a strategic software delivery consultant who works with ambitious teams to improve the quality of their software products and processes. Gojko won the 2012 Jolt Award for the best book, was voted by peers as the most influential agile testing professional in 2011, and his blog won the UK Agile Award for the best online publication in 2010. To get in touch, write to gojko@neuri.co.uk or visit http://gojko.net.

    Douglas Hubbard helps us create a path to know the answer to almost any question in business, in science, or in life . . . Hubbard helps us by showing us that when we seek metrics to solve problems, we are really trying to know something better than we know it now. How to Measure Anything provides just the tools most of us need to measure anything better, to gain that insight, to make progress, and to succeed." -Peter Tippett, PhD, M.D. Chief Technology Officer at CyberTrust and inventor of the first antivirus software "Doug Hubbard has provided an easy-to-read, demystifying explanation of how managers can inform themselves to make less risky, more profitable business decisions. We encourage our clients to try his powerful, practical techniques." -Peter Schay EVP and COO of The Advisory Council "As a reader you soon realize that actually everything can be measured while learning how to measure only what matters. This book cuts through conventional cliches and business rhetoric and offers practical steps to using measurements as a tool for better decision making. Hubbard bridges the gaps to make college statistics relevant and valuable for business decisions." -Ray Gilbert EVP Lucent "This book is remarkable in its range of measurement applications and its clarity of style. A must-read for every professional who has ever exclaimed, 'Sure, that concept is important, but can we measure it?'" -Dr. Jack Stenner Cofounder and CEO of MetraMetrics, Inc.

    The successful management of information has become so critical to a company’s goals, that in many ways, now is the age of the CIO. Yet IT executives are besieged by a host of contradictions: bad technology can bring a company to its knees, but corporate boards rarely employ CIOs; CIOs must keep costs down at the very same time that they drive innovation. CIOs are focused on the future, while they are tethered by technology decisions made in the past. These contradictions form what Martha Heller calls The CIO Paradox, a set of conflicting forces that are deeply embedded in governance, staffing, executive expectations, and even corporate culture. Heller, who has spent more than 12 years working with the CIO community, offers guidance to CIOs on how to attack, reverse, or neutralize the paradoxical elements of the CIO role. Through interviews with a wide array of successful CIOs, The CIO Paradox helps readers level the playing field for IT success and get one step closer to bringing maximum value to their companies.

    As newly appointed captain of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine, he was responsible for more than a hundred sailors, deep in the sea. In this high-stress environment, where there is no margin for error, it was crucial his men did their job and did it well.But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention in the fleet. Marquet acted like any other captain until, one day, he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. When he asked why the order wasn't challenged, the answer was "Because you told me to." Marquet realized he was leading in a culture of followers, and they were all in danger unless they fundamentally changed the way they did things. That's when Marquet took matters into his own hands and pushed for leadership at every level. Turn the Ship Around! is the true story of how the Santa Fe skyrocketed from worst to first in the fleet by challenging the U.S. Navy's traditional leader-follower approach. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control. Before long, each member of Marquet's crew became a leader and assumed responsibility for everything he did, from clerical tasks to crucial combat decisions. The crew became fully engaged, contributing their full intellectual capacity every day, and the Santa Fe started winning awards and promoting a highly disproportionate number of officers to submarine command.No matter your business or position, you can apply Marquet's radical guidelines to turn your own ship around. The payoff: a workplace where everyone around you is taking responsibility for their actions, where people are healthier and happier, where everyone is a leader.

    Richard Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” He debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for overcoming—the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect in challenges as varied as putting a man on the moon, fighting a war, launching a new product, responding to changing market dynamics, starting a charter school, or setting up a government program. Rumelt’snine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can be put to work on Monday morning.Surprisingly, a good strategy is often unexpected because most organizations don’t have one. Instead, they have “visions,” mistake financial goals for strategy,and pursue a “dog’s dinner” of conflicting policies and actions.Rumelt argues that the heart of a good strategy is insight—into the true nature of the situation, into the hidden power in a situation, and into an appropriate response. He shows you how insight can be cultivated with a wide variety of tools for guiding yourown thinking.Good Strategy/Bad Strategy uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis.Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.From the Hardcover edition.

    But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products.As legendary Silicon Valley coach--and coach to the founders of several of today's leading tech companies--Bill Campbell said, "Leadership is about recognizing that there's a greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge."The goal of EMPOWERED is to provide you, as a leader of product management, product design, or engineering, with everything you'll need to create just such an environment.As partners at The Silicon Valley Product Group, Marty Cagan and Chris Jones have long worked to reveal the best practices of the most consistently innovative companies in the world. A natural companion to the bestseller INSPIRED, EMPOWERED tackles head-on the reason why most companies fail to truly leverage the potential of their people to innovate: product leadership.The book covers:what it means to be an empowered product team, and how this is different from the "feature teams" used by most companies to build technology products recruiting and coaching the members of product teams, first to competence, and then to reach their potential creating an inspiring product vision along with an insights-driven product strategy translating that strategy into action by empowering teams with specific objectives--problems to solve--rather than features to build redefining the relationship of the product teams to the rest of the company detailing the changes necessary to effectively and successfully transform your organization to truly empowered product teams EMPOWERED puts decades of lessons learned from the best leaders of the top technology companies in your hand as a guide. It shows you how to become the leader your team and company needs to not only survive but thrive.

    The lessons he learned and the methods he uses should be required reading for anyone whose business relies on the art of negotiation. Ron never forgets that treating people with respect and fairness is the key to success. Ron and Mark have been helping our company for many years-I guess we won't need them anymore-they put it all in their book." --Charles M. Cawley, Chief Executive Officer, MBNA America Bank, N.A."In the field of negotiation Ron Shapiro has always been regarded as the quintessence of class and integrity. Predictably, he and Mark Jankowski have written a compelling book filled with anecdotes and insights. "The Power of Nice" is a fascinating and useful book that is a must read for anyone who wants to build long-term mutually profitable relationships." --Herb Cohen, Author, "You Can Negotiate Anything""This book taught me everything I ever wanted to know about negotiation-and I use it everyday." --Kirby Puckett, Former All-Star Center Fielder and Executive Vice President, Minnesota Twins"Negotiation is not war. Negotiation is not a science. Negotiation is the commerce of information for ultimate gain." --from "The Power of Nice"Though not a science, negotiating is an art, and in this eye-opening new book, a true master shares his secrets and strategies for success. Ron Shapiro is a corporate lawyer, teacher, and, in what is almost a contradiction in terms, one of today's most respected sports agents. He has worked with baseball's biggest names: Cal Ripken, Jr., Kirby Puckett, Brooks Robinson, Dennis Martinez, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, and many others. Rising to-and remaining at-the top of a competitive pool filled with smooth-talking, "sleazeball" sharks, he has succeeded by being, of all things, a nice guy. Now, along with his business partner, lawyer, lecturer, and negotiations expert, Mark Jankowski, Shapiro reveals how anyone who sits down to make a deal can get what they want by exercising the surprising "power of nice." Together, Shapiro and Jankowski have shared their negotiation insights with Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, universities, and government agencies.Though the name of the game in negotiating is to obtain desired results, how you get them is just as important. While many dealmakers play hardball by assuming a winner-take-all, scorched-earth attitude, they do so at the risk of alienating the party opposite them at the negotiating table, thereby losing out on future opportunities. This approach is, as Shapiro and Jankowski tell us, a major strike against effective negotiating, and can-and should-be avoided. By using a kinder, gentler approach that focuses on forming-and keeping-strong business connections, ultimate gain can still be yours: "You can be 'a nice guy' and still get what you're after. In fact, you often get better results, achieve more of your goals, and build longer-term relationships with even greater returns."Drawing on their vast experience in win-win negotiating, as well as such essentials as managing tough situations, handling difficult negotiators, and unlocking deadlocks, the authors take you, step-by-step, through a systematic approach that, when repeated and mastered, will maximize results. Based on "the three Ps," it consists of: preparing better than the other side; probing so you know what they want and why; and proposing, ideally without going first and revealing too much, but still achieving what you want.Supported by invaluable "portable" negotiation summaries-so you can take the "power of nice" with you-this is must reading for anyone who has to make a deal, whether it's negotiating with a customer, setting a curfew with a teenager, or getting the last seat on an over-sold airplane.

    Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs

    This book presents the tools and concepts needed to understand, implement, and leverage Lean Six Sigma. It provides analyses of nearly 100 tools and methodologies - from DMAIC and Pull Systems to Control Charts and Pareto Charts.

    This internationally recognized standard provides the essential tools to practice project management and deliver organizational results.

    It’s about inventing a whole new game—defining a new market category, developing it, and dominating it over time. You can’t build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, you’re going to lose. In this farsighted, pioneering guide, the founders of Silicon Valley advisory firm Play Bigger rely on data analysis and interviews to understand the inner workings of “category kings”— companies such as Amazon, Salesforce, Uber and IKEA that give us new ways of living, thinking or doing business, often solving problems we didn’t know we had.In Play Bigger, the authors assemble their findings to introduce the new discipline of category design. By applying category design, companies can create new demand where none existed, conditioning customers’ brains so they change their expectations and buying habits. While this discipline defines the tech industry, it applies to every kind of industry and even to personal careers.Crossing The Chasm revolutionized how we think about new products in an existing market. The Innovator’s Dilemma taught us about disrupting an aging market. Now, Play Bigger is transforming business once again, showing us how to create the market itself.

    The book teaches the basic methods for defining, planning, and tracking a project, as well as techniques for leading and building strong project teams.This new edition includes: Downloadable, customizable project management formsStudy aids for passing the popular Project Management Professional certification examGuidelines for building high-performance project teamsNew examples of project management at work in the 21st centuryEric Verzuh (Seattle, WA) is certified by the Project Management Institute and is President of The Versatile Company, which delivers project management training and consulting services to such companies as Adobe Systems, Inc., GE, Lockheed Martin, Nordstrom, and the United States Postal Service. He is also the author of The Portable MBA in Project Management (0-471-26899-2), from Wiley.

    How can you make sure not to leave human instinct behind?Businesses are leaving behind traditional meetings in favor of virtual ones, transitioning from surveys and studies to analytics and algorithms. The startling and often unacknowledged truth is that?the promise of digital transformation can only be realized when we find a way to balance it with the promise of people.?In the end, it’s the people that matter, and companies must never forget the soul that drives them.In Restoring the Soul of Business, business leader Rishad Tobaccowala?teaches you to: Understand how to unleash the significant benefit that can be realized by combining emotion and data, human and machine, analog and digital.Spot the warning signs of data-blinded companies: cold cultures with little human interaction, poor innovation stemming from discouraged employees who don’t contribute ideas, and poor customer service due to automated, robotic processes.Explore how organizations of various sizes and from different industries have successfully reoriented their thinking on how to fuse technology and humanity.Gain skills to become an expert in connections critical to growth and success, including the connection between being creative and using technology.Everyone working in an organization will find penetrating observations and guidance about how and why establishing the proper balance between human intuition and creativity and data-driven insights can lead to increased revenue, profitability, retention—and even joy—in their careers and business.Restoring the Soul of Business provides practical tools and techniques that every organization can and should implement, and challenges you to move forward with the kind of balance that capitalizes transformation and produces one great success after another.

    His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days—Jonah—to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done.The story of Alex's fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Eli Goldratt.