Ask a Manager


Book Description

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together




The Last Lecture


Book Description

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.




The DevOps Handbook


Book Description

Increase profitability, elevate work culture, and exceed productivity goals through DevOps practices. More than ever, the effective management of technology is critical for business competitiveness. For decades, technology leaders have struggled to balance agility, reliability, and security. The consequences of failure have never been greater―whether it's the healthcare.gov debacle, cardholder data breaches, or missing the boat with Big Data in the cloud. And yet, high performers using DevOps principles, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Etsy, and Netflix, are routinely and reliably deploying code into production hundreds, or even thousands, of times per day. Following in the footsteps of The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook shows leaders how to replicate these incredible outcomes, by showing how to integrate Product Management, Development, QA, IT Operations, and Information Security to elevate your company and win in the marketplace.




DevOps For Dummies


Book Description

Develop faster with DevOps DevOps embraces a culture of unifying the creation and distribution of technology in a way that allows for faster release cycles and more resource-efficient product updating. DevOps For Dummies provides a guidebook for those on the development or operations side in need of a primer on this way of working. Inside, DevOps evangelist Emily Freeman provides a roadmap for adopting the management and technology tools, as well as the culture changes, needed to dive head-first into DevOps. Identify your organization’s needs Create a DevOps framework Change your organizational structure Manage projects in the DevOps world DevOps For Dummies is essential reading for developers and operations professionals in the early stages of DevOps adoption.




The complete project manager


Book Description

This book is about the how of project management and about how you as a project manager can use a proactive attitude to stay in control, even during difficult situations. It shows you how to become an influencer of the path to the end result, of your environment, of your team and of your effectiveness. Today’s project managers have to meet high expectations. Challenging goals, a strong focus on cost management and lead times, serving the interests of different stakeholders and many dependencies between subprojects make project management an increasingly complex affair – especially in an environment where change and uncertainty have become the new norm. In addition, the creative abilities of knowledge workers have to be optimally utilised, which requires less hierarchical organisational structures and more multidisciplinary collaboration. Having the right project management skills is therefore essential at virtually every level of an organisation. As a result of these challenges, there is a growing demand for comprehensive methods and the popularity of Agile is on the rise. On the other hand, the increased complexity also results in a need for simplicity. That is what this book is about: going back to the basics, being able to combine useful elements from different methods and focusing on the most important aspect of all: the person behind the project manager! This book contains a wealth of practical descriptions with useful examples and anecdotes. Readers are constantly stimulated to internalise the essence and put it into practice in a manner that suits their own style and personality. That is the only way to keep at it, be successful and make others believe in you! The book consists of three parts. Part 1 (chapters 1 to 4) describes how to set up and manage a project. The focus is on the basic principles, the essence of taking control, creating structure and using Agile behavior. Part 2 (chapters 5 and 6) explains how to draw up a plan and schedule in small steps, which results in improved completeness, coordination and support. Finally, part 3 (chapters 7 to 10) covers how to manage the project execution: how to realize the path to the final goal with a strict PDCA rhythm, how to evaluate the quality of interim results and how to keep your team and environment motivated.




Making Things Happen


Book Description

Offers a collection of essays on philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. This book explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. It does not cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy.




Designing Together


Book Description

WHAT IS THE ONE THING not taught in design school, but is an essential survival skill for practicing designers? Working with other people. And yet, in every project, collaboration with other people is often the most difficult part. The increasing complexity of design projects, the greater reliance on remote team members, and the evolution of design techniques demands professionals who can cooperate effectively. Designing Together is a book for cultivating collaborative behaviors and dealing with the inevitable difficult conversations. Designing Together features: 28 collaboration techniques 46 conflict management techniques 31 difficult situation diagnoses 17 designer personality traits This book is for designers: On teams large or small Co-located, remote, or both Working in multidisciplinary groups Within an organization or consulting from outside You’ll also find sidebar contributions from David Belman (Threespot), Mandy Brown (Editorially, A Book Apart), Erika Hall (Mule Design Studio), Denise Jacobs (author), Jonathan Knoll (InfinityPlusOne), Marc Rettig (Fit Associates), and Jeanine Turner (Georgetown University).




Great Master


Book Description

Sly! A sect that had drifted away from orthodox Taoism and had long been submerged in the mists of history. Even though the Lord had massacred everything in the world, he had actually made a Grandmaster in all of history. Battle Empire's Assassin, Nie Zheng, Prime Minister Chen Ping, War God Han Xin, Huang Shuang, who ascended after killing all the evil spirits of the world, Dao Yan, who cultivated both Buddhism and Dao by Zhu Di's side, and a famous doctor of the Qing Dynasty, Ye Tong, how did they go from an ordinary mortal to an illustrious and illustrious Grandmaster? And why did he hide his identity, making it so that the crafty dao could not leave its name in history? The deceitful Dao has always been weak, but it has often turned the tide in troubled times. In the modern world, where Warlocks were withering away, what kind of earth-shattering things would the current heirs of the underworld do? Xu Yunfeng, a young man who had no ambition and only wished to live a peaceful life, was born with the fate of a Warlock. He tried his best to avoid it, but he was still unable to resist the wheels of fate and was swept into the world of Warlocks, becoming the second name in the history of the underworld. Because he wanted to become the strongest Warlock in his childhood, Wang Kunpeng, with his mediocre aptitude and perseverance, had ultimately become a well-known Warlock by relying on his extraordinary intelligence, tenacity, and hard work. His name was' Yang Huanzi ', but when the warlocks of this world had vied for the position of the Yin People, his final step had been foiled by a lunatic, and his efforts had been for naught. Brothers, there is a hidden reason. Crazy people took the Yin people away to let the bastard live a little longer, to let ordinary people live a plain and real life. As for his own fate, what he could not escape was to be unable to escape. Facing the loneliness and coldness of a hundred ghosts, he would have to shoulder it all on his own. But the stable life does not last forever, in 2008, the Yangtze River, surprised to find a twisted board carved into the iron plate, broke the quiet life. This was the last entrance to the world's ancient path, and it was bound to cause chaos among the Warlocks. The opponent in the fog came back. Under the efforts of many crazy supporters, he would use any means necessary to extend his life, exhausting all the calculations in his mind just because he wanted to change this unfair and imperfect world after trying to understand the nature of this world. The King Kun Peng, Xu Yunfeng, had found the descendants of the Four Great Families of the Southwest Warlock and had joined forces to lay down the nearly lost Seven Star Arena and the Red Water Killing Formation of the Divine Seal. A battle that lasted for thousands of years. The grievances and grievances had not yet subsided, and their friendship had not yet returned. Their faith still existed, and everything would eventually end here! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This book has a total of seven lines, five historical two modern, using POV writing intertwined. The five historical clues would eventually interweave into the main story and play a key role. The details are as follows: Counting Sand Division: Xu Yunfeng's Kunpeng, Zhang Wuju. Water Department: Chen Ping, Zhang Liang, Han Xin. Gui Branch: Huang Chang. Listening String Department: Daoyan, Southwest Warlock, Four Great Families. Look at the wax: Ye Gui. Underworld Wars Department: Zhang Tian, let's call it quits. Attached: Jin Zhong, Jin Li.




Changemakers


Book Description

This book argues that, as industrial capitalism enters a period of prolonged crisis, a new paradigm of ‘industrious modernity’ is emerging. Based on small-scale, commons-based and market-oriented entrepreneurship, this industrious modernity is being pioneered by the many outcasts that no longer find a place within a crumbling industrial modernity. This new industriousness draws on the new planetary commons that have been generated by the globalization of industrial capitalism itself. The outsourcing of material production to global supply chains has made the skills necessary to engage in commodity production generic and common, and the globalization of media culture and the internet have generated new knowledge commons. Together these new commons have radically reduced the capital requirements to engage in economic activity, and are providing new, highly efficient tools of productive organization at little cost. This timely analysis of the new forces of change in our societies today will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the impact of digital technologies and the future of capitalism.




The Data-Driven Project Manager


Book Description

Discover solutions to common obstacles faced by project managers. Written as a business novel, the book is highly interactive, allowing readers to participate and consider options at each stage of a project. The book is based on years of experience, both through the author's research projects as well as his teaching lectures at business schools. The book tells the story of Emily Reed and her colleagues who are in charge of the management of a new tennis stadium project. The CEO of the company, Jacob Mitchell, is planning to install a new data-driven project management methodology as a decision support tool for all upcoming projects. He challenges Emily and her team to start a journey in exploring project data to fight against unexpected project obstacles. Data-driven project management is known in the academic literature as “dynamic scheduling” or “integrated project management and control.” It is a project management methodology to plan, monitor, and control projects in progress in order to deliver them on time and within budget to the client. Its main focus is on the integration of three crucial aspects, as follows: Baseline Scheduling: Plan the project activities to create a project timetable with time and budget restrictions. Determine start and finish times of each project activity within the activity network and resource constraints. Know the expected timing of the work to be done as well as an expected impact on the project’s time and budget objectives. Schedule Risk Analysis: Analyze the risk of the baseline schedule and its impact on the project’s time and budget. Use Monte Carlo simulations to assess the risk of the baseline schedule and to forecast the impact of time and budget deviations on the project objectives. Project Control: Measure and analyze the project’s performance data and take actions to bring the project on track. Monitor deviations from the expected project progress and control performance in order to facilitate the decision-making process in case corrective actions are needed to bring projects back on track. Both traditional Earned Value Management (EVM) and the novel Earned Schedule (ES) methods are used. What You'll Learn Implement a data-driven project management methodology (also known as "dynamic scheduling") which allows project managers to plan, monitor, and control projects while delivering them on time and within budget Study different project management tools and techniques, such as PERT/CPM, schedule risk analysis (SRA), resource buffering, and earned value management (EVM) Understand the three aspects of dynamic scheduling: baseline scheduling, schedule risk analysis, and project control Who This Book Is For Project managers looking to learn data-driven project management (or "dynamic scheduling") via a novel, demonstrating real-time simulations of how project managers can solve common project obstacles