The People Project Triangle


Book Description

The People Project Triangle refers to the trade-off between the project, the ongoing business, and the people working in them. Driven by rapid external change, the modern corporation is lean and cost conscious. A consequence is an increasingly common project management situation of a medium important, medium complex business change project that cannot justify a full-time team. Consequently, it is resourced by in-house staff working on the project as homework, meaning in addition to their normal responsibilities. The authors term this a composite project. This book postulates that composite projects are increasingly used to meet the demands of rapid business change. However, they are largely unrecognized as a separate organizational category of project, with particular characteristics, management needs, and risks. The People Project Triangle refers to the trade-off between the project, the ongoing business, and the people working in them. When pressure mounts it is often the people who bear the brunt, risking stress and burnout. The authors assert that with better recognition, clearer understanding and appropriate measures, many of the common problems with composite projects can be foreseen and avoided or mitigated.




Hybrid Project Management


Book Description

Compared to a few decades ago, companies today are faced with a much more challenging environment providing successful products and solutions for their customers. They are dealing with global competition, very rapid change in technologies, and tremendous volatility in economic conditions. As project managers, we are helping our companies survive in this difficult landscape. We are “agents of change” and “drivers of change.” The most important project management methodology today that will help us deal with this change and this volatility is Agile. However, no one process or project management methodology fits all situations! Agile is not a panacea for all projects. Many times, our projects are large enough and complex enough that some parts of the project are best suited to using a predictive planning approach, and other parts are more suited to using Agile. Therefore, a hybrid approach that mixes the traditional, waterfall approach with Agile is really required in many situations today. The agile community oftentimes has quite a negative view of hybrid approaches. Key writers on Agile often say that attempting to use hybrid will corrupt all attempts to use Agile, and will result in failure. In this book, the argument is made that integrating these methodologies can be done if approached the right way, and in fact, this is necessary today.




Discoveries Through Personal Agility


Book Description

This book explores the nuances of different aspects of agility on a personal level. Agility brings personal value, leadership navigation, managing the tides of knowledge, and putting on the captain’s hat of resilience. As the winds change and the tides swell high, the Personal Agility Lighthouse (PALHTM) model in this book will guide you to safe shores. Navigating through the seven colors of agility such as education, change, emotional, political, cerebral, learning, and outcomes agilities, the anchor is dropped effortlessly. It is built on these seven competencies, and by using the Individual Personal Agility self-analysis assessment (see Appendix), swaying personal visions leading them up to organizational goals. Taking personal agility as the future competency with an agile mindset is a crucial starting point to transform yourself. Focusing your personal agility journey on outcomes and end-to-end customer experiences ensures value delivery. Especially within the elements of the VUCA environment where revised goals are the norm. Driving changes in the right direction leads you to the stable grounds of your personal vision. It prepares you to tread the long roads of transitions/transformations, which is a vital requisite for changes in any organization. Measuring performance metrics aptly is the rudder of strategy management and stability. Organizational goals and personal development are the strong pillars that will steer you to your organizational agility, getting you ready for opportunities and changes when your company trademark needs it. Agile practices and perspectives cut through impact and quality of personal and group knowledge. Take a journey on a Personal Agility Boat to visualize options, alternatives, and opportunities. Visualization is the way to your shore’s lighthouse.




Design: A Business Case


Book Description

Design: A Business Case challenges you to stimulate innovation in your own organization as an ongoing and integral dialogue between complementary skills–to bridge mind and matter, image and identity. Design thinking is a framework developed to ensure C-suite endorsement of the pursuit of design excellence in all actions undertaken by the organization. Design management is a rigorous and strategically anchored mechanism to capitalize on the investment in design as intellectual capital. And design – as we’ve always known it – is the skills, methods and creative capabilities needed to embody ideas and direction. Design thinking inspires, design management enables, design embodies. This book aims to build the bridges needed to reconcile the three, and to encourage organizational and professional environments in which their combined forces can thrive and reverberate.




A.G.I.L.E. Thinking Demystified


Book Description

The word agile has moved far beyond its original meaning in helping to transform large organizations. We now know that agile is used as the tool to accelerate an organization’s ability to adapt and thrive in a world of accelerating change. This book provides the missing link of how to shift mindsets on how to work effectively. This shift requires an investigation of how we can move organizations in the way they think about work–especially work that does not easily conform to the traditional plan-driven approach. The author takes the reader on a journey to be able to think in an A.G.I.L.E way. The approach taken is reflective and allows time for the insight to understand how to think differently about teams, work, and even organizations. It is said that all organizations are technology organizations, if that is true it brings risks and opportunities that many organizations have not seen before. The framework of the book will help grow a new way of thinking and is anchored in: Adaptability Growth Improvement Leadership Experience In order to make the full transition to thinking in an A.G.I.L.E way you will need to challenge everything you think you know about leading and working in large organizations.




Selected Readings on Strategic Information Systems


Book Description

"This book offers research articles on key issues concerning information technology in support of the strategic management of organizations"--Provided by publisher.




Workplace Jazz


Book Description

In Workplace Jazz, the author raises a battle cry for individual and corporate responsibility in building cultures that are healthier and more productive for those working in them. What should leaders do to address this workforce engagement and productivity gap? Should companies keep implementing culture improvement processes and procedures that do not address the emotional connection that teams need? Workplace Jazz offers a step-by-step process, enhanced with stories, neuroscience research, case studies, metaphors, and a strategic blueprint for developing connected and high-performing project teams based on the author’s experiences as a professional musician, certified conversational intelligence coach, and certified business consultant.




Be Agile Do Agile


Book Description

The global economy and free market philosophy have resulted in higher global competition and increased expectations from customers. It is obvious that new approaches are needed to satisfy demands and many of them fall under a broad umbrella called agile. To capitalize fully on the benefits of agile, one must first understand the concepts that underpin it. In this book, we first identify many concepts that various approaches advocate for agile and group them into three areas forming a simple, robust system. Then, we describe the most useful agile methods in savage summaries regardless of the approach that promotes them, grouping them logically and showing how to use them. We have an agnostic agile model that can be useful to anyone using any form of agile. Both concepts for being agile and techniques for doing agile are summarized in this book and there are several ways to use this book. To understand the concepts of agile, consult Chapters 3, 4, and 5. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 will help you learn and perform agile tools and techniques.




Successfully Achieving Strategy Through Effective Portfolio Management


Book Description

Organizations are successful based on their ability to achieve strategic goals. Why didn’t you achieve your strategy? Too many organizations waste time and money on developing strategy but don’t achieve their goals. What goes wrong? Poor predictions about the future; internal politics that impact the projects selected; biases in the decision-making process, and other stumbling blocks. This book provides the approach that significantly increases an organization’s ability to achieve its strategy. This is not a book about developing strategy. This is a book that will help you actually achieve the strategy the organization’s leadership has developed. Strategy is necessary but it is a complete waste of time unless it is effectively turned into real results. If you want to see where an organization will be in 5 years, don’t look at its strategic goals. Look at where management spends the money.




Project 2003 Personal Trainer


Book Description

Now included with Microsoft Office, Project 2003 is the world's leading project management tool. With extensive help resources and printing assistance, Project 2003 enables users to organize and track tasks and resources efficiently to keep projects on time and within budget.If you want to realize the immense potential of Microsoft Project 2003 and harness the many features and functionality of this powerful tool, you need Project 2003 Personal Trainer. It includes everything you want to know about Project 2003--and then plenty more. It's the most complete and engaging tutorial available for Microsoft Project.As part of O'Reilly's new Personal Trainer Series, this book is based on content from CustomGuide (www.customguide.com), a leading provider of computer training materials that fly in the face of traditional, dry course materials that bore users to tears. CustomGuide is dedicated to delivering courseware, quick references, software bulletins, and e-learning courses that are fun, flexible, and easy to use.And this book is no exception to their rule. Project 2003 Personal Trainer lets you, whatever your technical expertise (or lack thereof), learn exactly what you need to know--at your own pace. Unlike many consumer software tutorials that dumb down (and dull up) the material or make it exceptionally technical and confusing, this book is written in a style that you'll find entertaining, easy to follow, and most of all, clear and informative.Beginning with the fundamentals of planning and managing a project with Microsoft Project 2003, the book then includes sections on: working with the task list managing costs, timelines, and available resources using the project database viewing and updating a project tracking progress creating reports handling multiple projects The fully illustrated Project 2003 Personal Trainer features dozens of time-saving, task-oriented lessons, includes detailed diagrams, and comes with a fully interactive CD tutorial to guide your learning--everything you need to become a Project pro.