She stared at a long list of logistics--from hiring to firing, from meeting to messaging, from planning to pitching--and faced a thousand questions and uncertainties. How was she supposed to spin teamwork into value? How could she be a good steward of her reports' careers? What was the secret to leading with confidence in new and unexpected situations?Now, having managed dozens of teams spanning tens to hundreds of people, Julie knows the most important lesson of all: great managers are made, not born. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager.The Making of a Manager is a modern field guide packed everyday examples and transformative insights, including:* How to tell a great manager from an average manager (illustrations included) * When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway * How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss * Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answersWhether you're new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.

    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.

    What failed startups don't have are enough customers.Founders and employees fail to spend time thinking about (and working on) traction in the same way they work on building a product. This shortsighted approach has startups trying random tactics - some ads, a blog post or two - in an unstructured way that's guaranteed to fail. This book changes that. Traction Book provides startup founders and employees with the framework successful companies have used to get traction. It allows you to think about which marketing channels make sense for you, given your industry and company stage. This framework has been used by founders like Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Paul English (Kayak.com), and Alex Pachikov (Evernote) to build some of the biggest companies and organizations in the world. We interviewed each of the above founders - along with 35+ others - and pulled out the repeatable tactics and strategies they used to get traction. We then cover every possible marketing channel you can use to get traction, and show you which channels will be your key to growth. This book shows you how to grow at a time when getting traction is more important than ever. Below are the channels we cover in the book:Viral Marketing Public Relations (PR) Unconventional PR Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Social and Display Ads Offline Ads Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Content Marketing Email Marketing Engineering as Marketing Target Market Blogs Business Development (BD) Sales Affiliate Programs Existing Platforms Trade Shows Offline Events Speaking Engagements Community BuildingThis book draws on interviews with the following individuals: Jimmy Wales, Co-founder of Wikipedia Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of reddit Eric Ries, Author of The Lean Startup Rand Fishkin, Founder of SEOmoz Noah Kagan, Founder of AppSumo Patrick McKenzie, CEO of Bingo Card Creator Sam Yagan, Co-founder of OkCupid Andrew Chen, Investor at 500 Startups Justin Kan, Founder of Justin.tv Mark Cramer, CEO of SurfCanyon Colin Nederkoorn, CEO of Customer.io Jason Cohen, Founder of WP Engine Chris Fralic, Partner at First Round Paul English, CEO of Kayak.com Rob Walling, Founder of MicroConf Brian Riley, Co-founder of SlidePad Steve Welch, Co-founder of DreamIt Jason Kincaid, Blogger at TechCrunch Nikhil Sethi, Founder of Adaptly Rick Perreault, CEO of Unbounce Alex Pachikov, Co-founder of Evernote David Skok, Partner at Matrix Ashish Kundra, CEO of myZamana David Hauser, Founder of Grasshopper Matt Monahan, CEO of Inflection Jeff Atwood, Co-founder of Discourse Dan Martell, CEO of Clarity.fm Chris McCann, Founder of StartupDigest Ryan Holiday, Exec at American Apparel Todd Vollmer, Enterprise Sales Veteran Sandi MacPherson, Founder of Quibb Andrew Warner, Founder of Mixergy Sean Murphy, Founder of SKMurphy Satish Dharmaraj, Partner at Redpoint Garry Tan, Partner at Y Combinator Steve Barsh, CEO of Packlate Michael Bodekaer, Co-founder of Smart Launch Zack Linford, Founder of Optimozo

    Think about a company. Engineers build the product. Designers make sure it has a great user experience and looks good. Marketing makes sure customers know about the product. Sales get potential customers to open their wallets to buy the product. What more does a company need? What does a product manager do? Based upon Product School’s curriculum, which has helped thousands of students become great product managers, The Product Book answers that question. Filled with practical advice, best practices, and expert tips, this book is here to help you succeed! Product School offers product management classes taught by real-world product managers, working at renowned tech companies like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Airbnb, LinkedIn, PayPal, Netflix and more. The classes are designed to fit into your work schedule, and the campuses are conveniently located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

    We’re building more products than ever before, but most of them fail—not because we can’t complete what we set out to build, but because we waste time, money, and effort building the wrong product.What we need is a systematic process for quickly vetting product ideas and raising our odds of success. That’s the promise of Running Lean.In this inspiring book, Ash Maurya takes you through an exacting strategy for achieving a "product/market fit" for your fledgling venture, based on his own experience in building a wide array of products from high-tech to no-tech. Throughout, he builds on the ideas and concepts of several innovative methodologies, including the Lean Startup, Customer Development, and bootstrapping.Running Lean is an ideal tool for business managers, CEOs, small business owners, developers and programmers, and anyone who’s interested in starting a business project.Find a problem worth solving, then define a solutionEngage your customers throughout the development cycleContinually test your product with smaller, faster iterationsBuild a feature, measure customer response, and verify/refute the ideaKnow when to "pivot" by changing your plan’s courseMaximize your efforts for speed, learning, and focusLearn the ideal time to raise your "big round" of fundingGet on track with The Lean Series Presented by Eric Ries—bestselling author of The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses—The Lean Series gives you solid footing in a proven methodology that will help your business succeed.

    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.

    It's not the star.It's not money. It's not a strategy.It's something else entirely.Several years ago, Sam Walker set out to answer one of the most hotly debated questions in sports: What are the greatest teams of all time? He devised a formula, then applied it to thousands of teams from leagues all over the world, from the NBA to the English Premier League to Olympic field hockey. When he was done, he had a list of the sixteen most dominant teams in history. At that point, he became obsessed with another, more complicated question: What did these freak teams have in common?As Walker dug into their stories, a pattern emerged: Each team had the same type of captain--a singular leader with an unconventional skill set who drove it to achieve sustained, historic greatness.Fueled by a lifetime of sports spectating, twenty years of reporting, and a decade of painstaking research, The Captain Class tells the surprising story of what makes teams exceptional. Drawing on original interviews with athletes from two dozen countries, as well as general managers, coaches, executives, and others skilled at building teams, Walker identifies the seven core qualities of this Captain Class--from extreme doggedness and emotional control to a knack for nonverbal communication to tactical aggression and the courage to stand apart.Told through riveting accounts of some of the most pressure-soaked moments in sports history--from Bill Russell's legendary "Coleman Play" in the 1957 NBA Finals to Barcelona's "Figo Game" against Real Madrid in 2000--The Captain Class doesn't just bring these events to life; it presents a fresh, counterintuitive take on leadership that can be applied to a wide spectrum of competitive disciplines.The men and women who make up the Captain Class were never the most skilled athletes, nor were they gifted orators or paragons of sportsmanship. They were often role players who were allergic to the spotlight. In short, the seven attributes they shared challenge your assumptions of what inspired leadership looks like.

    And create Power it must, for without it your business is at risk. He explains why invention always comes first and then develops the Power Progression to enable you to target when your Power must be established: in the Origination, Take-Off or Stability phases of your business.Every business faces a do-or-die strategy moment: a crux directional choice made amidst swirling uncertainty. To get this right you need at your fingertips a real-time strategy compass to discern your true north. 7 Powers is that compass.

    As an agile coach, I've found the combination of straightforward advice and colorful anecdotes to be invaluable in guiding and focusing interactions with my teams. Jean's wealth of experience is conveyed in a carefully struck balance of reference guides and prose, facilitating just-in-time learning in the agile spirit. All in all, a superb resource for building stronger teams that's fit for agile veterans and neophytes alike." --Arlen Bankston, Lean Agile Practice Manager, CC Pace "If Agile is the new 'what, ' then surely Collaboration is the new 'how.' There are many things I really like about Jean's new book. Right at the top of the list is that I don't have to make lists of ideas for collaboration and facilitation anymore. Jean has it all. Not only does she have those great ideas for meetings, retrospectives, and team decision-making that I need to remember, but the startling new and thought-provoking ideas are there too. And the stories, the stories, the stories! The best way to transfer wisdom. Thanks, Jean!" --Linda Rising, Independent Consultant The Hands-On Guide to Effective Collaboration in Agile Projects To succeed, an agile project demands outstanding collaboration among all its stakeholders. But great collaboration doesn't happen by itself; it must be carefully planned and facilitated throughout the entire project lifecycle. Collaboration Explained is the first book to bring together proven, start-to-finish techniques for ensuring effective collaboration in any agile software project. Since the early days of the agile movement, Jean Tabaka has been studying and promoting collaboration in agile environments. Drawing on her unsurpassed experience, she offers clear guidelines and easy-to-use collaboration templates for every significant project event: from iteration and release planning, through project chartering, all the way through post-project retrospectives. Tabaka's hands-on techniques are applicable to every leading agile methodology, from Extreme Programming and Scrum to Crystal Clear. Above all, they are practical: grounded in a powerful understanding of the technical, business, and human challenges you face as a project manager or development team member. - Build collaborative software development cultures, leaders, and teams - Prepare yourself to collaborate--and prepare your team - Define clear roles for each participant in promoting collaboration - Set your collaborative agenda - Master tools for organizing collaboration more efficiently - Run effective collaborative meetings--including brainstorming sessions - Promote better small-group and pair-programming collaboration - Get better information, and use it to make better decisions - Use non-abusive conflict to drive positive outcomes - Collaborate to estimate projects and schedules more accurately - Strengthen collaboration across distributed, virtual teams - Extend collaboration from individual projects to the entire development organization

    Through cutting-edge research and case studies from leading organizations, including Spotify, Ericsson, Intuit, GE Healthcare, Pixar, CareerBuilder, and Intel, you'll discover proven patterns for developing that mindset. You'll see how to cultivate product teams that act like successful startups, create the kind of efficiency that attracts customers, and leverage the talents of bright, creative people. The Poppendiecks weave lean principles throughout this book, just as those principles must be woven throughout the fabric of your truly lean organization. Learn How To Start with an inspiring purpose, and overcome the curse of short-term thinking Energize teams by providing well-framed challenges, larger purposes, and a direct line of sight between their work and the achievement of those purposes Delight customers by gaining unprecedented insight into their real needs, and building products and services that fully anticipate those needs Achieve authentic, sustainable efficiency without layoffs, rock-bottom cost focus, or totalitarian work systems Develop breakthrough innovations by moving beyond predictability to experimentation, beyond globalization to decentralization, beyond productivity to impact Lean approaches to software development have moved from novelty to widespread use, in large part due to the principles taught by Mary and Tom Poppendieck in their pioneering books. Now, in The Lean Mindset, the Poppendiecks take the next step, looking at a company where multidiscipline teams are expected to ask the right questions, solve the right problems, and deliver solutions that customers love.

    At under 200 pages it's quick reading too. Makes a great airplane book.

    He explains why invisible and unmanaged queues are the underlying root cause of poor product development performance. He shows why these queues form and how they undermine the speed, quality, and efficiency in product development.

    In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth. In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company - the Exponential Organization - that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology.

    So what separates the startups that get disrupted and disappear from the ones who grow to become global giants?The secret is blitzscaling: a set of techniques for scaling up at a dizzying pace that blows competitors out of the water. The objective of Blitzscaling is not to go from zero to one, but from one to one billion -as quickly as possible.When growing at a breakneck pace, getting to next level requires very different strategies from those that got you to where you are today. In a book inspired by their popular class at Stanford Business School, Hoffman and Yeh reveal how to navigate the necessary shifts and weather the unique challenges that arise at each stage of a company's life cycle, such as: how to design business models for igniting and sustaining relentless growth; strategies for hiring and managing; how the role of the founder and company culture must evolve as the business matures, and more.Whether your business has ten employees or ten thousand, Blitzscaling is the essential playbook for winning in a world where speed is the only competitive advantage that matters.

    Porter). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you catalyze your organization's strategy development and execution.HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy will inspire you to:• Distinguish your company from rivals• Clarify what your company will and won't do• Craft a vision for an uncertain future• Create blue oceans of uncontested market space• Use the Balanced Scorecard to measure your strategy• Capture your strategy in a memorable phrase• Make priorities explicit• Allocate resources early• Clarify decision rights for faster decision making"This collection of best-selling articles includes: featured article "What Is Strategy?" by Michael E. Porter, "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy," "Building Your Company's Vision," "Reinventing Your Business Model," "Blue Ocean Strategy," "The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution," "Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System," "Transforming Corner-Office Strategy into Frontline Action," "Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance," and "Who Has the D? How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance."