Manage Your Project Portfolio - Johanna Rothman

Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
All of your projects and programs make up your portfolio. 
But how much time you actually spend on your projects, and how much time do you spend responding to emergencies?

This book will introduce you to different ways of ordering all of the projects you are working on now, and help you figure out how to staff those projects--even when you've run out of project teams to do the work.

Once you learn to manage your portfolio better, you'll avoid emergency "firedrills." 
The trick is adopting lean and agile approaches to projects, whether they are software projects, projects that include hardware, or projects that depend on chunks of functionality from other suppliers.

You may be accustomed to spending time in meetings where you still don't have the data you need to evaluate your projects.
Here, with a few measures, you'll be able to quickly evaluate each project and come to a decision quickly.

You'll learn how to define your team's, group's, or department's mission with none of the buzzwords that normally accompany a mission statement. 
Armed with the work and the mission, you can make those decisions that define the true leaders in the organization.
 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.61 out of 5 (127 Ratings; 17 Reviews - As on February 04 2017)
My Rating:  3.0 out of 5
My Comments: Good tips on managing the Agile project portfolios.


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Agile Portfolio Management - Jochen Krebs

Agile development processes foster better collaboration, innovation, and results. 
So why limit their use to software projects—when you can transform your entire business?
Written by agile-mentoring expert Jochen Krebs, this book illuminates the opportunities—and rewards—of applying agile processes to your overall IT portfolio.
Whether project manager, business analyst, or executive—you’ll understand the business drivers behind agile portfolio management. 
And learn best practices for optimizing results.
Use agile processes to 

• Align IT and business strategy
• Adapt and extend core agile processes
• Orchestrate the collaboration between IT and business vision
• Eliminate wish-list driven requirements, and manage expectations instead
• Optimize the balance of projects, resources, and assets in your portfolio
• Use metrics to communicate project status, quality, even team morale
• Create a portfolio strategy consistent with the goals of the organization
• Achieve organizational and process transparency
• Manage your business with agility—and help maximize the returns!

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.42 out of 5 (19 Ratings; 3 Reviews - As on January 21 2017)
My Rating:  3.0 out of 5
My Comments: Good tips on managing the Agile project portfolios.


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Traction by Gino Wickman

Get a Grip On Your Business
Do you have a grip on your business, or does your business have a grip on you?

All entrepreneurs and business leaders face similar frustrations—personnel conflict, profit woes, and inadequate growth. 
Decisions never seem to get made, or, once made, fail to be properly implemented. 
But there is a solution. It’s not complicated or theoretical.The Entrepreneurial Operating System® is a practical method for achieving the business success you have always envisioned. 
More than 2,000 companies have discovered what EOS can do.

In Traction, you’ll learn the secrets of strengthening the six key components of your business. 
You’ll discover simple yet powerful ways to run your company that will give you and your leadership team more focus, more growth, and more enjoyment. 
Successful companies are applying Traction every day to run profitable, frustration-free businesses—and you can too.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.15 out of 5 (713 Ratings; 78 Reviews - As on December 29 2016)
My Rating:  3.5 out of 5
My Comments: Sort of simplified version of Verne Harnish's book Scaling Up. Useful for startup companies.


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101 Design Ingredients to Solve Big Tech Problems by Eewei Chen

One page, one ingredient. 101 reasons to become more successful at solving those big technology problems. 
101 Design Ingredients will help your technology team identify problems, share responsibilities, and work better together.

In parts 1 through 4, you'll find 101 problem-solving ingredients grouped into project stages, to help you apply the right ingredient at the right time. 
Start at any point and page through the humorously illustrated ingredients until you find one that matches your needs best. 
The ingredients cover the spectrum your business needs to be successful, with tips on team-building, creating a business model, product launch, productivity, and much more. 
Each ingredient includes three practical suggestions to get you started right away.

In part 5, you'll see examples of how companies can blend some of the ingredients used in this book to solve specific business requirements for investment, innovation, leadership, and more. Each recipe shows how a company fine-tuned six of the ingredients to build their own unique solution. 
You'll learn how to mix and match ingredients to create your own recipes for success, tailored to your company's needs.

The ingredients and recipes in this book can be applied by beginners starting out on their first technology project, as well as seasoned professionals who have been tackling the same big problems for years and need a fresh new approach to problem solving.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.03 out of 5 (30 Ratings; 5 Reviews - As on December 25 2016)
My Rating:  3 out of 5
My Comments: Has got nice cartoons and lots of links which may be of interest. Content wise just OK.


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Scaling Up - Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles

In Scaling Up, Harnish and his team share practical tools and techniques for building an industry-dominating business.
These approaches have been honed from over three decades of advising tens of thousands of CEOs and executives and helping them navigate the increasing complexities (and weight) that come with scaling up a venture. 
This book is written so everyone -- from frontline employees to senior executives -- can get aligned in contributing to the growth of a firm. 
There's no reason to do it alone, yet many top leaders feel like they are the ones dragging the rest of the organization up the S-curve of growth. 
The goal of this book is to help you turn what feels like an anchor into wind at your back -- creating a company where the team is engaged; the customers are doing your marketing; and everyone is making money. 
To accomplish this, Scaling Up focuses on the four major decision areas every company must get right: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. 
The book includes a series of new one-page tools including the updated One-Page Strategic Plan and the Rockefeller Habits Checklist (TM), which more than 40,000 firms around the globe have used to scale their companies successfully -- many to $1 billion and beyond. 
Running a business is ultimately about freedom.  
Scaling Up shows business leaders how to get their organizations moving in sync to create something significant and enjoy the ride.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 


Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.24 out of 5 (761 Ratings; 64 Reviews - As on November 27 2016)
My Rating:  4 out of 5
My Comments: Very practical guide to scaling up your business. Provides several useful tools and techniques.  A slightly dry read but the utility of the book more than makes it up for it.


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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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Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo

Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders

In many organizations, management is the biggest obstacle to successful Agile development. 

Unfortunately, reliable guidance on Agile management has been scarce indeed. Now, leading Agile manager Jurgen Appelo fills that gap, introducing a realistic approach to leading, managing, and growing your Agile team or organization.

Writing for current managers and developers moving into management, Appelo shares insights that are grounded in modern complex systems theory, reflecting the intense complexity of modern software development. 

 Appelo’s Management 3.0 model recognizes that today’s organizations are living, networked systems; and that management is primarily about people and relationships.

 Management 3.0 doesn’t offer mere checklists or prescriptions to follow slavishly; rather, it deepens your understanding of how organizations and Agile teams work and gives you tools to solve your own problems. 

Drawing on his extensive experience as an Agile manager, the author identifies the most important practices of Agile management and helps you improve each of them.

Coverage includes

 • Getting beyond “Management 1.0” control and “Management 2.0” fads

• Understanding how complexity affects your organization

• Keeping your people active, creative, innovative, and motivated

• Giving teams the care and authority they need to grow on their own

• Defining boundaries so teams can succeed in alignment with business goals

• Sowing the seeds for a culture of software craftsmanship

• Crafting an organizational network that promotes success

• Implementing continuous improvement that actually works

Thoroughly pragmatic–and never trendy–Jurgen Appelo’s Management 3.0 helps you bring greater agility to any software organization, team, or project.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.12 out of 5 (771 Ratings, 61 Reviews)

My Rating:  4 out of 5.  

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Future Work - Alison Maitland & Peter Thomson

Changing Organizational Culture for the New World of Work
The way we work is overdue for change. 
This expanded and updated edition of the global bestseller sets out the compelling case for a revolution in organizational cultures and working practices, to boost output, cut costs, give employees more freedom over how they work and contribute to a greener economy.

Featuring insightful new case studies and updates on fast-moving trends, this book provides a clear framework and step-by-step guide to introducing new ways of working for leaders, managers and employees, with an extra chapter on how individuals can make change happen. 
Addressing both opportunities and challenges, this highly readable and inspiring book offers the most up-to-date guidance on modern business and organisational culture for everyone who wants, or needs, to embrace the new world of work.

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 4.67 out of 5 (4 Ratings, 0 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5.  


Buying Options 
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Emotionomics - Dan Hill

Leveraging Emotions for Business Success

For far too long, emotions have been ignored in favor of rationality and efficiency.  

Breakthroughs in brain science have revealed that people are primarily emotional decision-makers.  

Many companies have not yet accepted that fact, ignoring emotion in favor of rationality and efficiency.  

Even fewer have acted on it.

 

Emotionomics looks at emotions in terms of business opportunities, both in the marketplace and in the workplace. 

In today's highly competitive marketplace where many products look alike, a product's emotional benefit can make the difference.  

Moreover, a company with an emotionally engaged workforce will undoubtedly achieve competitive advantage.

 

Dan Hill's book draws on insights gathered through facial coding, the single best viable means of measuring and managing the emotional response of customers and employees. 

It shows how to leverage emotions for business success in branding, product design, advertising, sales, customer satisfaction, leadership, and employee management.

 

Emotions matter, and this book will help readers not only step closer to customers and employees, but also to step ahead of competitors.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Table of Contents
 

Part One: Why emotions matter
The new mental model - Overview, Science: the meaning of a three-part brain,Psychology: balancing blind instinct with growth,Economics: plugging emotions into the equation  

The science of facial coding- Overview,The challenge: when words along fail us,Origins and scope: why and how facial coding works, Deliverables: facial coding in practice  

Emotions and motivations- Overview, Contextualizing emotions: how feelings fuel behaviour, Motivations: what spurs us on,The Emotionomics Matrix: introducing a strategic model  

 

Part Two: Marketplace applications Branding - Overview, Reflected beliefs: keep consumers’ values in view,Belonging: where status and security meet,Telling a story: selling familiarity and comfort, Conclusion  

Offer design, packaging and usability- Overview, Winning superiority: nurturing a ‘wow’, Sensory payoff: the way to the heart,Functional fulfilment: joy not frustration,Conclusion Advertising- Overview, Being absorbing: what stopping power entails,The invisible line: why knowing the target market matters,Reassurance: defusing skepticism,Conclusion  

Sales - Overview, Commitment: adopting a relationship model, Unity: staying in step with the prospect, Interwoven rewards: creating a ‘we’ mentality, Conclusion  

Retail and service- Overview, Respectfulness: enabling efficiency, Engagement: bringing back delight, Reassurance: proving oneself right, Conclusion  

 

Part Three: Workplace applications Leadership - Overview, The greater good: why character matters, Clear vision: forward thinking and feeling, Cohesive culture: bringing everyone along, Conclusion  

Employee management - Overview Compatibility: identifying what works Reciprocating trust: avoid disconnects Mission critical: inspiring a questing mentality Conclusion

Goodreads Rating - 3.48 out of 5 (40 Ratings, 3 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5. 

Buying Options 
 

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