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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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 
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The Innovator's Toolkit - David Silverstein, Philip Samuel, Neil DeCarlo

50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth

The Innovator's Toolkit is an essential companion for every innovator, innovation team leader, operations manager, and corporate change agent who needs to drive organic growth. 
Written and presented in an easy-to-use reference format, the book helps users understand why, when, and how to apply each technique for maximum benefits and results. 
The fifty-plus tools and techniques in this book are organized around a framework for identifying innovation opportunities, generating new and unusual ideas, selecting the best ideas for further refinement, and implementing new solutions that better meet customer expectations.
This revised second edition includes significant updates to nearly two dozen techniques.
Also offers several brand new techniques, including Idea Harvesting and Treatment, Seventy-six Standard Solutions, and Six Thinking Hats
This updated and revised edition of The Innovator's Toolkit simply helps innovation leaders, managers, and specialists do their jobs better than ever before giving them more confidence, greatly reducing the chance of expensive failures, and packing more practical innovation knowhow under one cover than ever before.

 [Book Description Source: www.amazon.com]

Goodreads Rating - 3.84 out of 5 (56 Ratings, 6 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.)
 

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.)
 

What Works for GE May Not Work For You - Lawrence Solow and Brenda Fake

Using Human System Dynamics to Build a Culture of Process Improvement
This book provides new tools for managing and sustaining process improvement in today’s complex non-linear environments and helps readers apply new, relevant theory to their own management practices. 

With more than 50 combined years of change management and process improvement consulting experience, the authors offer valuable practical insights for creating dynamic organizational change. The first section of the book describes the key bodies of knowledge and process improvement processes (Lean, Six Sigma, and Human Systems Dynamics) used throughout the text. 
The next two sections focus on the case story of TryinHard Marine. 
The authors first highlight the dynamics of a typical linear process improvement implementation. 
They then present ways to combat a range of complex, non-linear, and emergent organizational issues as they arise during the implementation of a Six Sigma initiative. 
The last part explains how to assess readiness to begin a process improvement initiative, select consultants and internal "Belt" candidates, and choose the appropriate tools for projects. The authors also introduce additional tools and concepts to enable adaptive action at all levels of an organization.
This book provides useful information for thinking and behaving in adaptive ways that can be applied to any organization. 
By using the concepts, models, and tools presented, readers can improve their own business improvement processes.

 [Source: www.amazon.com ]

Goodreads Rating - 3.0 out of 5 (2 Ratings; 0 Reviews)

My Review:
Being a process improvement professional for so many years has taught me that you cannot ignore the human element in any process improvement initiative. 
Nor can you take a cookie cutter approach of installing a methodology, model or framework without adapting it  to the needs of your own organization.
This book is a very good introduction on how to take into account the complexity of human interactions in an organizational level process improvement effort. 
Though the example given in this book is about Six Sigma the concepts are equally applicable for any process improvement initiative.  
Be it Agile, CMMI, Lean or any other flavor of the day.
A must read for all process improvement professionals !


Links:

• Book website
• Human System Dynamics Institute 

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

The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring - Ilan Oshri, Julia Kotlarsky and Leslie P. Willcocks

The global outsourcing market for IT and business services exceeded $485 billion in 2011 and is set to grow at 8-10% per annum until 2015.
Of this, $65 billion was offshore outsourcing where some estimates suggest an annual growth rate of 15-20% over the next five years.
Furthermore, over 50 % of the Fortune Global 500 had offshored IT and business process activities through captive centers, representing $ 9 billion of business.
The expansion of outsourcing and offshoring and the emergence of new sourcing models are challenging existing management practices.
 It has become increasingly important to understand the phenomena, not least as a basis for suggesting what directions it will take, its impacts, how it has been conducted, and how its management can be better facilitated.

This book offers a broad perspective on various issues relating to the sourcing of IT and business processes and services in a company, national and global context. 
The authors examine both the client's and the vendor's involvement in sourcing relationships by putting the emphasis on the capabilities that each side should develop prior to entering a relationship but also that they should develop as a result of their interactions with each other.
 [Source: Inside Front Cover of the book ]


Goodreads Rating - 3.0 out of 5 (2 Ratings; 0 Reviews)

My Review:
A pretty useful book for organizations that are looking for outsourcing IT and business processes. It will guide them in getting the fundamentals of outsourcing right. Has some good case studies. Sort of dry read though.

Links:

• Preview of the Book  

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

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.) 

High Performance Operations

Author:        Hillel Glazer
Published:    2011
Publisher:     FT Press
Hardcover:  272 pages

Buy from Flipkart

Acknowledgement :

I thank the author and the publisher for sending me a free pre-publication copy of this book  and seeking an honest opinion of mine through this blog post. It has been a privilege to have read this book before it was released.

Book Review:

Many organizations treat compliance requirements like SOX, CMMI , FDA, ISO 9001, which are imposed on them either by clients or regulatory authorities as a necessary evil or a dead weight which needs to be endured as a hygiene factor to sustain their business. 

But at the same time there are also some organizations (though in minority numbers) who have successfully leveraged the same compliance requirements to enhance their business performance and gained competitive advantage. The author Hillel Glazer has helped several such organizations to achieve this feat by creating process solutions that build compliance into the value stream using a system engineering approach.

This book provides the essence of this approach called Process Solutioneering (R) [ patent applied for by the author].

The key points regarding  effective handling of the compliance requirements as described in this book are:

• To effectively integrate compliance requirements into the operation one must tie in their expectations to performance requirements.
• Instead of focusing on the compliance practices specified in the standards, one should focus on the values from which these practices are derived. This will enable the operations to address these practices without unnecessary additional work.
• Any activity undertaken to meet the compliance requirements should contribute to TQ$ (Time, Quality and Money)
• Compliance requirements must be examined from the two perspectives - risk it is intended to avoid or/and the opportunity it intends to exploit. If an existing operation is already avoiding the expected the risk or exploiting the same opportunity, the effort required to achieve compliance is minimized.

The author has primarily aimed this book at managers and executives. And it has found its mark right on ! The book can be a real eye-opener for them when they realize how compliance issues can be effectively leveraged to transform their operations to a high performing one  provided they are willing to invest in terms of establishing appropriate leadership, culture, trust, autonomy, learning and communication system.

As far as the experienced and well read  business process management professionals are concerned they may be already  aware of many of  the concepts discussed in this book.

A few suggestions  to enhance the utility and popularity of this book - lesser repetitions of the same concept, more diagrams to support the explanations (for e.g. the analogy of  Lift, Drag ,Thrust in an aircraft), inclusion of real life case studies from the organizations where the author had been a consultants.

Look forward to a second edition or  a sequel which addresses these suggestions.

Useful Links:

• Author's blog about the book -www.hillelglazer.com
• Table of Contents, Sample Content

[Please feel free to leave your comments below or bookmark/share this summary]