The Project Manager's Guide to Mastering Agile

The Project Manager's Guide to Mastering Agile

Author: Charles G. Cobb

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-01-05

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1118991761

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Streamline project workflow with expert agile implementation The Project Management Profession is beginning to go through rapid and profound transformation due to the widespread adoption of agile methodologies. Those changes are likely to dramatically change the role of project managers in many environments as we have known them and raise the bar for the entire project management profession; however, we are in the early stages of that transformation and there is a lot of confusion about the impact it has on project managers: There are many stereotypes and misconceptions that exist about both Agile and traditional plan-driven project management, Agile and traditional project management principles and practices are treated as separate and independent domains of knowledge with little or no integration between the two and sometimes seen as in conflict with each other Agile and "Waterfall" are thought of as two binary, mutually-exclusive choices and companies sometimes try to force-fit their business and projects to one of those extremes when the right solution is to fit the approach to the project It’s no wonder that many Project Managers might be confused by all of this! This book will help project managers unravel a lot of the confusion that exists; develop a totally new perspective to see Agile and traditional plan-driven project management principles and practices in a new light as complementary to each other rather than competitive; and learn to develop an adaptive approach to blend those principles and practices together in the right proportions to fit any situation. There are many books on Agile and many books on traditional project management but what’s very unique about this book is that it takes an objective approach to help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of both of those areas to see how they can work synergistically to improve project outcomes in any project. The book includes discussion topics, real world case studies, and sample enterprise-level agile frameworks that facilitate hands-on learning as well as an in-depth discussion of the principles behind both Agile and traditional plan-driven project management practices to provide a more thorough level of understanding.


Measure What Matters

Measure What Matters

Author: John Doerr

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-04-24

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 052553623X

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#1 New York Times Bestseller Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive. In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention. In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.


Tribal Leadership Revised Edition

Tribal Leadership Revised Edition

Author: Dave Logan

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2012-01-03

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0062196790

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It’s a fact of life: birds flock, fish school, people “tribe.” Malcolm Gladwell and other authors have written about how the fact that humans are genetically programmed to form “tribes” of 20-150 people has proven true throughout our species’ history. Every company in the word consists of an interconnected network of tribes (A tribe is defined as a group of between 20 and 150 people in which everyone knows everyone else, or at least knows of everyone else). In Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright show corporate leaders how to first assess their company’s tribal culture and then raise their companies’ tribes to unprecedented heights of success. In a rigorous eight-year study of approximately 24,000 people in over two dozen corporations, Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright discovered a common theme: the success of a company depends on its tribes, the strength of its tribes is determined by the tribal culture, and a thriving corporate culture can be established by an effective tribal leader. Tribal Leadership will show leaders how to employ their companies’ tribes to maximize productivity and profit: the author’s research, backed up with interviews ranging from Brian France (CEO of NASCAR) to “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, shows that over three quarters of the organizations they’ve studied have tribal cultures that are adequate at best.


Confessions of an IT Manager

Confessions of an IT Manager

Author: Phil Factor

Publisher: Red Gate Books

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9781906434199

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Phil Factor is a legend in his own runtime. Scurrilous, absurd, confessional and scathing by turns, Confessions of an IT Manager targets the idiocy, incompetence and overreach of the IT management industry from vantage point all the way up and down the greasy pole. Phil Factor (real name witheld to protest the guilty) has over 20 years experience in the IT industry, specializing in database-intensive applications. For withering insight into the human weaknesses and farcical levels of ineptitude that bring IT projects to their knees, plus occasional escapes into burnished pastiche and cock-a-leg doggerel there is no funnier, more illuminating commentary on the IT crowd.


Wikinomics

Wikinomics

Author: Don Tapscott

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008-04-17

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1440639485

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The acclaimed bestseller that's teaching the world about the power of mass collaboration. Translated into more than twenty languages and named one of the best business books of the year by reviewers around the world, Wikinomics has become essential reading for business people everywhere. It explains how mass collaboration is happening not just at Web sites like Wikipedia and YouTube, but at traditional companies that have embraced technology to breathe new life into their enterprises. This national bestseller reveals the nuances that drive wikinomics, and share fascinating stories of how masses of people (both paid and volunteer) are now creating TV news stories, sequencing the human gnome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding cures for diseases, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, and even building motorcycles.


The Little Black Book of Project Management

The Little Black Book of Project Management

Author: Michael C. Thomsett

Publisher: Amacom Books

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 9780814415290

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"Amacom's classic black book on project management shows a new generation of readers the ropes with all new tips and strategies"--Resource description p.


The Cult of Smart

The Cult of Smart

Author: Fredrik deBoer

Publisher: All Points Books

Published: 2020-08-04

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 1250200385

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Named one of Vulture’s Top 10 Best Books of 2020! Leftist firebrand Fredrik deBoer exposes the lie at the heart of our educational system and demands top-to-bottom reform. Everyone agrees that education is the key to creating a more just and equal world, and that our schools are broken and failing. Proposed reforms variously target incompetent teachers, corrupt union practices, or outdated curricula, but no one acknowledges a scientifically-proven fact that we all understand intuitively: Academic potential varies between individuals, and cannot be dramatically improved. In The Cult of Smart, educator and outspoken leftist Fredrik deBoer exposes this omission as the central flaw of our entire society, which has created and perpetuated an unjust class structure based on intellectual ability. Since cognitive talent varies from person to person, our education system can never create equal opportunity for all. Instead, it teaches our children that hierarchy and competition are natural, and that human value should be based on intelligence. These ideas are counter to everything that the left believes, but until they acknowledge the existence of individual cognitive differences, progressives remain complicit in keeping the status quo in place. This passionate, voice-driven manifesto demands that we embrace a new goal for education: equality of outcomes. We must create a world that has a place for everyone, not just the academically talented. But we’ll never achieve this dream until the Cult of Smart is destroyed.


Winning

Winning

Author: Jack Welch

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 0061757586

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A champion manager of people, Jack Welch shares the hard-earned wisdom of a storied career in what will become the ultimate business bible With Winning, Jack Welch delivers a wide-ranging, in-depth, no-holds-barred management guidebook about the tough strategic, organizational, and personal challenges that face people at every stage of their careers. Loaded with candid personal anecdotes, hard-hitting advice, and invaluable dos and don’ts, Jack explains his theory of business, by laying out the four most important principles that form the foundation of his success. Chapters include: How to Get Promoted, How to Think about Strategy, How to Write a Budget that Works, How to Work for a Jerk, How Find Work-Life Balance and How Start Something New. Enlivened by quotes from business leaders that Welch interviewed especially for the book, it’s a tour de force that reflects Welch’s mastery of execution, excellence and leadership.


Good Strategy Bad Strategy

Good Strategy Bad Strategy

Author: Richard Rumelt

Publisher: Currency

Published: 2011-07-19

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0307886239

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Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. 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. Yet, 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.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and 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.