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.


Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in Buy the Kindle Version

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.


Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in Buy the Kindle Version

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.


Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in Buy the Kindle Version

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.


Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in Buy the Kindle Version

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.


Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in Buy the Kindle Version

Visual Meetings - David Sibbet

How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity

Use eye-popping visual tools to energize your people!
Just as social networking has reclaimed the Internet for human interactivity and co-creation, the visual meetings movement is reclaiming creativity, productivity, and playful exchange for serious work in groups.
Visual Meetings explains how anyone can implement powerful visual tools, and how these tools are being used in Silicon Valley and elsewhere to facilitate both face-to-face and virtual group work. 
This dynamic and richly illustrated resource gives meeting leaders, presenters, and consultants a slew of exciting tricks and tools, including

• Graphic recording, visual planning, story boarding, graphic templates, idea mapping, etc.

• Creative ways to energize team building, sales presentations, staff meetings, strategy sessions, brainstorming, and more
• Getting beyond paper and whiteboards to engage new media platforms
• Understanding emerging visual language for leading groups

Unlocking formerly untapped creative resources for business success, Visual Meetings will help you and your team communicate ideas more effectively and engagingly.

   
[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.79 out of 5 (783 Ratings; 22 Reviews - As on October 9 2016)
My Rating:   2 out of 5
My Review: Lots of interesting ideas but too much of self-promotion. Felt like I was reading a  long and dry brochure of the author's company. OK for people who have never been exposed to the concept of Visual Meeting but the rest can look elsewhere.


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

Simplicity - Edward de Bono

Simplicity is the classic work about making the complicated simple, from world-renowned writer and philosopher Edward de Bono. 
From confusing manuals to uninterpretable jargon to bureaucratic red-tape, modern life can be highly complicated and frustrating. 
For many of us it is almost impossible to make sense of. 
In Simplicity, lateral-thinking guru Edward de Bono shows us how to bring simplicity into our increasingly complicated lives. 
Through his ten rules of simplicity, he encourages us to be creative and break down the complex into manageable and recognisable parts. 
By making the complicated simple, you will free up time, reduce stress and make better decisions.
[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.7 out of 5 (297 Ratings; 23 Reviews; as on Aug 13 2016)
My Rating:  3 out of 5
My Comments: Though there are no path breaking techniques taught in this book, the concept of Simplicity and the general approaches to achieve is well explained in a concise manner. 
The book is "Simple" and light read, living up to its title. 
Liked it more than than the previous book of Edward de Bono  (Lateral Thinking) which was rather an insipid read, though the technique "Lateral Thinking" was path breaking.


Buying Options 
Buy from Amazon.com  Buy from Amazon.in  

Adaptive Leadership - Jim Highsmith

Accelerating Enterprise Agility

The agile software movement has now been around for a full decade. 

As coauthor of the original Agile Manifesto, Jim Highsmith has been at its heart since the beginning. 

He’s spent the past decade helping hundreds of organizations transition to agile/lean. 

When it comes to agile, he’s seen it all–in a variety of industries, worldwide.

Now, in Adaptive Leadership , he has compiled, updated, and extended his best writings about agile and lean methods for a management audience. Highsmith doesn’t just reveal what’s working and what isn’t; he offers a powerful new vision for extending agility across the enterprise.

Drawing on what’s been learned in application development, this guide shows how to use adaptive leadership techniques to transform the way you deliver complete solutions, whatever form they take. 

You’ll learn how enterprise agility can enable the ambitious organizational missions that matter most; how leaders can deliver a continuous stream of value; how to think disruptively about opportunities, and how to respond quickly by creating more adaptive, innovative organizations.

Coverage includes

• Discovering and executing new business opportunities far more quickly
• Delivering complete business solutions earlier, and iterating them more often
• Organizing for innovation, and systematically managing opportunity flow
• Clarifying the degree of strategic, portfolio, and operational agility you need, and focusing on your highest-value transformations
• Creating cultures that actually can adapt and learn
• Reinvigorating the roots of agile value and values
• Understanding IT’s changing value proposition, and retraining your people accordingly
• Integrating economics, products, and social responsibility
• Choosing metrics that guide agility, not counterproductive traditional metrics
• Understanding the financial implications of technical debt
• Optimizing business value by doing less–and guiding the process with ”NOT to do“ lists
• Speculating intelligently when you can’t plan away uncertainty
• Customizing management to each project’s needs (because not all projects should be equally agile)

[Book Description Source: www.amazon.com ] 

Ratings
Goodreads Rating - 3.74 out of 5 (19 Ratings, 3 Reviews)

My Rating:  3 out of 5.  

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

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.  

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