Making Sense of Change Management - Esther Cameron & Mike Green

A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change
The world we live in continues to change at an intense rate. 
The rate of change and discovery outpaces our individual ability to keep up with it. 
The organizations we work in or rely on to meet our needs and wants are also changing dramatically, in terms of their strategies, their structures,their systems, their boundaries and of course their expectations of their staff and their managers. 
Written for students and professionals alike, Making Sense of Change Management is the classic text in the field. 
It is aimed at readers who want to understand why change happens, how it happens and what needs to be done to make change a welcome concept rather than a dreaded one. 
It offers insights into the many frameworks, models and ways of approaching change and helps the reader apply the right approach to each unique situation.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.17 out of 5 (6 Ratings, 0 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5 
My Comments: Quite a comprehensive & useful guide for change management professionals. Nice explanation of the theories underpinning change management.  


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Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development - Craig Larman & Bas Vodde

Large, Multisite, and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale Scrum

Increasingly, large product-development organizations are turning to lean thinking, agile principles and practices, and large-scale Scrum to sustainably and quickly deliver value and innovation.

Drawing on their long experience leading and guiding lean and agile adoptions for large, multisite, and offshore product development, internationally recognized consultant and best-selling author Craig Larman and former leader of the agile transformation at Nokia Networks Bas Vodde share the key action tools needed for success.

Coverage includes

• Frameworks for large-scale Scrum for multihundred-person product groups
• Testing and building quality in
• Product management and the end of the “contract game between business and R&D
• Envisioning a large release, and planning for multiteam development
• Low-quality legacy code: why it's created, and how to stop it
• Continuous integration in a large multisite context
• Agile architecting
• Multisite or offshore development
• Contracts and outsourced development

In a competitive environment that demands ever-faster cycle times and greater innovation, the practices inspired by lean thinking and agile principles are ever-more relevant.Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development will help people realize a lean enterprise—and deliver on the significant benefits of agility.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 4.12 out of 5 (60 Ratings, 8 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5. 

Buying Options 
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Buy the Kindle  version
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.)
 

The Big Book of Team Building Games - John W. Newstrom & Edward Scannell

Quick, Fun Activities for Building Morale, Communication and Team Spirit 
Did you know that games can be a terrifically effective way to build team spirit, communication, and trust among people who work together day in and day out?

Team-building games and activities are so stimulating and enjoyable that everyone in the department actually looks forward to them! 
Now you can choose from 70 varied and imaginative games and activities that have been specifically designed for the manager who's looking to:

• Raise sagging morale in a department
• Liven up boring staff meetings
• Improve communication
• Promote a culture of harmony and cooperation
• Have fun with your work team

Each of these games is fast, creative, easy-to-lead, and will help you accomplish your team building goals.
Learn valuable tips on how to present games and how to select activities for particular situations. 
Get essential advice on what not to do when leading games, and much more!
 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.in]
 

Goodreads Rating - 2.0 out of 5 (46 Rating, 2 Reviews) 
My Rating:  2 out of 5. 

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From Complexity to Simplicity by Simon Collinson & Melvin Jay

Unleash Your Organization's Potential
Complexity is one of the biggest challenges facing modern business. 
It is slowing companies down, costing them over 10% of their profits and harming employee morale.
Yet very few people are offering practical advice on how to solve this problem.

From Complexity to Simplicity will equip you and your business with the understanding, tools and inspiration you need to identify and eradicate harmful complexity from your company or organisation. 
Based on cutting-edge research, it takes you through real business case-studies and offers a practical 'how to' approach to tackling this growing problem. 

• What is complexity? What is simplicity? 
• The true financial costs of complexity
• The impact of complexity on managers,employees and different parts of the business
• How to change the behaviors that create business complexity
• How to identify where complexity is hurting you most
• Clear guidance on how to remove harmful complexity from processes, organization design, strategy, product and service portfolios
• How to reduce the everyday complexity of work life

From Complexity to Simplicity will show you how to start your own simplicity revolution and achieve business success. 
[Source: As per the description on the book cover]

Goodreads Rating - 3.75 out of 5 ( 4 Ratings; 1 Review)

My Comments:
The first two chapters of this book explore the causes and consequences of complexity and provide guidelines to diagnose complexity and to develop a generic simplification strategy.
The subsequent six chapters are dealing with how to simplify -
 i) People Complexity
ii) Organization
iii) Strategy
iv) Processes
v) Product and Services
vi) Everyday work
The appendix of the book has three case studies about complexity in the Pharmaceutical , Banking and Insurance sectors.

A useful book to understand and deal with complexities in our working life.
 

Links:
Visit  http://www.simplicity-consulting.com/ for more details on simplifying the complexity.

Buying Options 

Readers in India

 
Buy from Amazon.in  
Buy the Kindle book version
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.) 

Readers in Other Countries 
Buy from Amazon.com

Buy the Kindlle book 
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.) 

Coaching Agile Teams

Author:         Lyssa Adkins

Published:   2010

Publisher:    Pearson 

Paperback: 344 pages.

  

Coaching agile teams is a challenging task. It means going beyond establishing and maintaining basic agile processes. The ultimate goal of an Agile coach should be to enable creation of a high-performing, self-sustaining, continuously improving and innovating team. Lyssa Adkins, a well known agile coach, presents her approach towards this goal through this book. This book while quite an useful addition to the agile coach's library is probably not the best choice as a first book to read on agile coaching.

To read an extended summary of this book please visit my business blog.

The Secrets of Success in Coaching: 12 Ways to Excel as a Coach

Author:        Mick Cope
Published:    2010
Publisher:     Pearson Education Limited
Paperback: 152 Pages

According to the author the coaching can be really successful only when the coach is truly competent, follows a client-centric coaching approach, has a deep sense of ethical responsibility and seeks to help the client deliver change that is of value and sustainable.


Through this book the author shares with the reader his years of coaching experience and intends to help them become a highly successful and competent coach.


The book offers a tool kit of 12 techniques to excel as a coach. Each  technique is supplemented by a list of questions to ask the client. Answering these questions will develop a sense of self-awareness in the client which will be of great help in  their professional or personal journey towards self-improvement.


The techniques described are simple and practical. However couple of them are somewhat idealistic in my view - for e.g. not to coach the clients  who do not take ownership of their goals, objective of the coaching  being to make the client self-reliant and not dependent on the coaches anymore. 
Really noble intent ! But how many coaches  follow this principle !


The book is elegantly written using a very simple language and in short self-contained chapters, so that one can read a chapter and apply the idea immediately with their clients. A real handy and concise guide which every consultant or coach will find useful.


Key Takeaways:
(Extracts from the last chapter of the book)

• Look for real clients with a real passion to change – and if they are not ready to change don’t feed their delusion by playing at a coaching relationship.
• There is only one coaching question – ‘So what is stopping you?’ Your role is not to fix the client – rather it is to help the client understand this question, its relevance to them and how to frame and answer the question.
• Great goals are robust, clear and the client understands what they will feel like once delivered. Great outcomes create great journeys.
• There is no single style – there are just variations. The more that a coach can understand the variations, learn to flex and adapt their style and use these styles in an effortless way with the client, the greater chance they will have of delivering a coaching outcome that is successful and sustainable.
• The trick with solution generation is to get a fix that will give a successful and sustainable outcome. Success can be easy – it is the sustainable bit that can be hard. This is where you have to work hard to really push the client to be innovative about solutions they might never have considered attempting.
• The ability to look beyond what the client is saying and listen to what isn’t being said is critical. The more that a coach can tune and hone their ability to listen to the unsaid, the deeper appreciation they will have of the real issue and the better chance there will be of creating a real and sustainable outcome.
• In most cases big successes come from small changes. Your job is to help the client understand this and then learn how to push the pause button and change the important choices.
• Most people have made a change that they have failed to sustain. The coach’s job is to turn the ‘I’ve failed’ statement into ‘That’s interesting’. From this point the client can learn about what happened and why it happens, and then learn to recognize the triggers that cause regression and anticipate and avoid them next time round.
• The first gift that you offer is to help client fix the problem and the second gift is to help ensure it sticks. The last and greatest gift the client can offer is to understand how to coach themselves in the future and so ease the dependency on others. To do this you can help them to understand reflective learning and from this learning develop a self-coaching style that frees them of any further need for a coach.

Useful Links:

• Table of Contents
• 10-Page Book Summary

Process Consulting

Author: Alan Weiss
Published: 2002
Publisher: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer

This book should be a compulsory reading for anybody who wants to get into the area process consulting - internal or external.
In 10 easy to read well organized chapters the author tells you how to work effectively with clients to launch, implement, and conclude successful consulting projects.
And it is not at all a theoretical stuff, but a very commonsense approach which the author had effectively implemented in his consulting projects for his clients which included Hewlett-Packard, GE, Merill Lynch.
I have been a fairly successful internal process consultant for the last 12 years in the organizations I have worked for.
However I very much wish that I had come across this book much earlier.
That would have really improved my effectiveness and efficiency.
The book provides powerful techniques for :
- creating initial conditions for a successful consulting intervention
- putting in place the strategy and tactics needed to gather intelligence
- coaching key people and establishing the rules of engagement
- reinforcing change and overcoming resistance
- creating dynamic training programs that can yield outright results for the client
- focusing on the transition from strategy formulation to strategy implementation
- improving leadership that is driven by values and measured by results
These techniques are supported by 40 short case studies most of them based on author's personal experiences, several useful checklists and nearly hundred hot tips (called Ultimata) spread across the ten chapters.
One thing I liked about the case studies is that the author has described his failures also.
This lends a human touch to this book.
How many of us readily admit our mistakes ?
The book is so well laid out that you can randomly open any page and you will come across very useful hot tip or a case study or a checklist.
One glance at the table of contents is by itself an education on how effective consulting.
Seeing is believing.
Browse through the Table of Contents and the Chapter 1 - Conditions for a Successful Intervention at the publisher's website.
Also visit the author Alan Weiss's company website - The Summit Consulting Group for more information and goodies.
I am glad that I came across this book in the British Library and borrowed it.
I would like to have a copy of my own, but it is rather expensive ($48!). Hopefully waiting for a low-priced edition or a second-hand sale !