Navigating Complexity


Book Description

With greater organizational complexities looming on the horizon, PMI has introduced Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide. The definitive guide expands upon the principles, tools, and techniques presented in the PMBOK® Guide and other foundational standards, providing a streamlined approach to understanding and navigating complexity. This groundbreaking guide fills a void, providing the first published reference to help project management professionals successfully mitigate complexities and accomplish their organizational goals.




Higher Education's Road to Relevance


Book Description

Explores the current context, role, and challenges of post-secondary education and presents options for promising pathways forward. The post-secondary educational system has undergone dramatic changes and experienced immense stress in the past two decades. Once regarded as the logical next step toward career opportunities and financial security, higher education is a subject of growing uncertainty for millions of people across the United States. It is more common than ever to question the return on investment, skyrocketing cost, and student debt burden of going to college. Prospective students, and many employers, increasingly view attending institutions of higher learning as inadequate preparation for entering the 21st century workforce. High-profile scandals—financial impropriety, sexual abuse, restrictions of free speech, among others—have further eroded public trust. In response to these and other challenges, leading voices are demanding strengthened accountability and measurable change. Higher Education's Road to Relevance illustrates why change is needed in post-secondary education and offers practical solutions to pressing concerns. The authors, internationally recognized experts in college-level teaching and learning innovation, draw heavily from contemporary research to provide an integrative approach for post-secondary faculty, staff, and administrators of all levels. This timely book helps readers identify the need for leadership in developing new networks and ecosystems of learning and workforce development. This valuable book will help readers: Understand the forces driving change in higher education Develop multiple pathways to create and credential self-directed learners Promote access to flexible, cost-effective, and relevant learning Adapt structures and pedagogies to address issues and overcome challenges Use an inclusive approach that extends to employers, K-12 educators, post-secondary educators, and policy-makers, among others Higher Education's Road to Relevance is a much-needed resource for college and university administrators, academic researchers, instructors and other faculty, and staff who support and interact with students.




Navigating Complexity in International Development


Book Description

Development processes need to engage effectively with complex system dynamics. Navigating Complexity in International Development offers detail case studies of interventions which articulate clear methodological underpinnings and draws out the implications both for development, practise and practitioners.




Polarity Management


Book Description

University level text. Some complex problems simply do not have "solutions." The key to being an effective leader is being able to recognize and manage such problems. Polarity Management presents a unique model and set of principles that will challenge you to look at situations in new ways. Also included are exercises to strengthen your skills, and case studies to help you begin applying the model to your own unsolvable problems.




Navigating Complexities in Leadership


Book Description

Navigating Complexities in Leadership: Moving Towards Critical Hope emerged in response to the confluence of complexities experienced by leadership educators and practitioners amidst global pandemics. It is a guide for those seeking to learn through critical perspectives, and seek more agile, responsive tools for navigating complexity, change, and disruption. The audience for the book ranges from new and entry-level leadership educators to senior scholars in higher education. This book frames leadership learning and development as a process of adaptive action in complex systems. It brings to light patterns of complexity in current times through the lens of educators and practitioners in higher education. Readers are invited to actively engage with the text from an inquiry stance. Through curiosity, shared exploration, self-reflection we hope readers will discover patterns and insight that resonate and challenge their own experiences, find energy to engage the complexities being faced, and build adaptive capacity to live, work, teach, and lead in critical hope and possibility. The book concludes with questions and considerations that allow educators and practitioners to reflect on their own roles and contexts and move towards critical hope in navigating the complexities we will continue to face.




Navigating Network Complexity


Book Description

Design your networks to successfully manage their growing complexity Network professionals have often been told that today's modern control planes would simplify their networks. The opposite has happened: Technologies like SDN and NFV, although immensely valuable, are exacerbating complexity instead of solving it. Navigating Network Complexity is the first comprehensive guide to managing this complexity in both deployment and day-to-day operations. Russ White and Jeff Tantsura introduce modern complexity theory from the standpoint of the working network engineer, helping you apply it to the practical problems you face every day. Avoiding complex mathematical models, they show how to characterize network complexity, so you can understand it and control it. The authors examine specific techniques and technologies associated with network control planes, including SDNs, fast reroute, segment routing, service chaining, and cloud computing. They reveal how each of these affects network design and complexity and help you anticipate causes of failure in highly complex systems. Next, they turn to modern control planes, examining the fundamental operating principles of SDNs, such as OpenFlow and I2RS, network and other service function virtualization, content distribution networks, Layer 2 fabrics, and service chaining solutions. You'll learn how each of these might both resolve and increase complexity in network design and operations and what you can do about it. Coverage includes: Defining complexity, understanding its components, and measuring it Mastering a straightforward "state, speed, and surface" model for analyzing complexity Controlling complexity in design, deployment, operations, protocols, and programmable networks Understanding how complex network systems begin to fail and how to prevent failure Recognizing complexity tradeoffs in service virtualization and service chaining Managing new challenges of complexity in virtualized and cloud environments Learning why constructs such as hierarchical design, aggregation, and protocol layering work and when they work best Choosing the right models to contain complexity as your network changes From start to finish, Navigating Network Complexity helps you assess the true impact of new network technologies, so they can capture more value with fewer problems.




Navigating Complexity: Understanding Human Responses to Multifaceted Disasters


Book Description

This thought-provoking book unravels the intricate interplay between human behavior and disasters, weaving a rich narrative that transcends traditional boundaries. Embark on a captivating exploration of human responses to multifaceted disasters with this book. Unveiling the human psyche and the intricate web of emotions that intertwine with disaster events, this book offers a profound understanding of human responses to multifaceted disasters. Written with precision and meticulous research, this book captivates scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike. Its multidimensional perspectives offer valuable insights for disaster management, urban planning, sociology, and public health, transcending disciplinary boundaries.




Navigating Complexity


Book Description

A powerful guide to thinking and managing your way into the new economy. A how to think book for practicing managers.




MEDDICC


Book Description

What do the world's most successful enterprise sales teams have in common? They rely on MEDDICC to make their sales process predictable and efficient. MEDDIC with one C was initially created by Dick Dunkel in 1996 when he was at PTC. Since then MEDDIC has evolved to be better known as MEDDICC or MEDDPICC and has proliferated across the world being the go-to choice for elite enterprise sales organizations. If you ever find yourself feeling any of the following symptoms with your deal, you could benefit from MEDDICC: Your buyer doesn't see the value of your solution? (aka they think you are expensive) You are unable to find, articulate and quantify Pain You don't have a Champion or at the very least a Coach helping you navigate and sell You find yourself unable to gain access to people with power and influence You don't know how the customer makes decisions You don't know who is involved in the decision-making process You find yourself surprised by things that come up in the sales process The decision criteria seem to move throughout the process, and you're constantly playing catch up Your Competition is landing strikes against you that you neither see coming nor are able to defend You lose track of where you stand in your deals Whether you are an individual contributor or a sales leader embracing MEDDICC will help you to beat those symptoms and take back control of your deal. Historically, learning MEDDICC has relied upon hands-on training, but now you can learn MEDDICC from an expert who uses it every day. The Book deconstructs MEDDICC into easy to understand and implement steps. Breaking down every letter of the acronym into actionable insights complemented by commentary on how MEDDICC can help sales organizations to revolutionize their sales execution and efficiency. In the words of the original creator of MEDDIC, Dick Dunkel: Whether you are an individual contributor or sales leader, my advice is that you should start to implement MEDDICCinto what you do straight away. Embrace MEDDICC, and you and your team will more clearly understand the WHY to yourprocess, and you'll begin to execute your customer interactions with more purpose and achieve better results.And like so many others before, you will begin to reap the rewards of having a well-qualified pipeline of opportunitieswith clearer paths to success. - Dick Dunkel, MEDDIC Creator.




Strategy Execution and Complexity


Book Description

Almost all organisations today face unprecedented levels of change, complexity and volatility. Navigating the resultant disruption dynamics is one of the most important stewardship challenges facing strategic leaders. Getting it right can pay enormous dividends, but getting it wrong can lead to spectacular failure and the ultimate demise of once admired organisations. To address this threat, strategic leaders need to better understand how to navigate complexity and volatility and how to execute strategy in this rapidly changing environment. This book identifies 12 different strategy execution processes used to realise deliberate and emergent strategies – each illustrated with case studies and essential lessons for strategic leaders. The authors then discuss the effectiveness of these processes in different types of complex environments, showing how, used in isolation, each process can, at times, impede performance, sometimes creating survival risks that materialise today or in the future. The authors show the importance of "ambidexterity" and the need for organisations to balance the pursuit of internal efficiency and external market flexibility, both of which are essential to thriving in complex environments. This book provides essential tools for leaders to rethink and reconfigure their strategy execution practices in light of the significant change surrounding their organisations. The book is based on a 5-year, multistage study comprehensively reviewing cutting-edge research on strategy execution, reviewing seminal texts on strategy execution and, through in-depth case study interviews and cross-sectional surveys, identifying contemporary strategy execution practices of a range of different organisations across industries and sectors.