Project Leadership

In the run up to 2016 I was a senior manager making what I now know were dozens of mistakes every day, but fixing them with effort and determination, and stress. It nearly killed me, but as my dad says "experience is worth what it costs you", and that experience was worth a lot.

The world is facing a global leadership crisis. Seventy-seven percent of leaders think they do a good job of engaging their people, yet 88 percent of employees say their leaders don't engage enough. Based on extensive research, including assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 C-level executives, The Mind of the Leader concludes that organizations and leaders aren't meeting employees' basic human needs of finding meaning, purpose, connection, and genuine happiness in their work.

As mobile and web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of months. Agile Project Management for Dummies can make that happen. This is the first book to provide a simple, step-by-step guide to Agile project management approaches, tools, and techniques.

What is it about the top tech product companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix, and Tesla that enables their record of consistent innovation? Most people think it's because these companies are somehow able to find and attract a level of talent that makes this innovation possible. But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products.

Managing people is difficult wherever you work. But in the tech industry, where management is also a technical discipline, the learning curve can be brutal - especially when there are few tools, texts, and frameworks to help you. In this practical guide, author Camille Fournier (tech lead turned CTO) takes you through each stage in the journey from engineer to technical manager.

Emphasizing greater clarity on risk practice, this new edition maintains a focus on the ability to apply "planned clairvoyance" to peer into the future. The book begins by analyzing the various systems that can be used to apply risk management. It provides a fundamental introduction to the basics associated with particular techniques, clarifying the essential concepts of risk and how they apply in projects. The second part of the book presents the specific techniques necessary to successfully implement the systems described in Part I.

Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant new reality. But more modest endeavours, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, commonly fail. Why? Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg. In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors that lead projects to fail, and the research-based principles that will make yours succeed.

No organization is totally free from destructive friction; the forces that make it harder, more complicated and sometimes downright impossible to get things done. Drawing on years of research and featuring case studies on the likes of Uber, Netflix and Boeing, The Friction Project teaches listeners how to become 'friction fixers'. Stanford professors Sutton and Rao unpack how we should think and act like trustees of others' time. They provide friction forensics to help listeners identify where to avert and repair bad friction, and where to maintain and inject good friction.

In today's time-pressured, cost-conscious global business environment, tight project deadlines and stringent expectations are the norm. Project Management For Dummies shows business professionals what works and what doesn't by examining the field's best practices. You can learn how to organize, estimate, and schedule projects more efficiently.

In The Unicorn Project, we follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect, as she is exiled to the Phoenix Project, to the horror of her friends and colleagues, as punishment for contributing to a payroll outage. She tries to survive in what feels like a heartless and uncaring bureaucracy and to work within a system where no one can get anything done without endless committees, paperwork, and approvals. One day, she is approached by a ragtag bunch of misfits who say they want to overthrow the existing order, to liberate developers, to bring joy back to technology work.

We're now living in the project economy. As the number of projects initiated in both the public and private sectors skyrockets, project management skills have become essential for all leaders and managers. But despite this project boom, the failure rate remains extremely high. Why? Leaders have too many projects and too little visibility into them, and they lack the project implementation competencies necessary to deliver their projects successfully.

Product management has become a critical connective role for modern organizations, from small technology startups to global corporate enterprises. And yet the day-to-day work of product management remains largely misunderstood. In theory, product management is about building products that people love. The real-world practice of product management is often about difficult conversations, practical compromises, and hard-won incremental gains.

Microsoft project veteran Scott Berkun offers a collection of essays on field-tested philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. Each essay distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice, and the new edition now adds more value for leaders and managers of projects everywhere.

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, 5th Edition: The Comprehensive, Easy to Read Handbook for Beginners and Pros is a comprehensive guide to real-world project management methods, tools, and techniques. Practical, easy-to-use, and deeply thorough, this book gives you the answers you need now. You'll find cutting-edge ideas and hard-won wisdom of one of the field's leading experts, delivered in short, lively segments that address common management issues.

A young, untested team of problem solvers challenged with saving their company moves from board room to classroom in search of answers - and finds them through lively, open discourse with their innovative professor. This gripping, fast-paced business novel does for project management what Eliyahu M. Goldratt's other novels have done for production and marketing.

No project management training? No problem! In today’s workplace, employees are routinely expected to coordinate and manage projects. Yet, chances are, you aren’t formally trained in managing projects - you’re an unofficial project manager. FranklinCovey experts Kory Kogon, Suzette Blakemore, and James Wood understand the importance of leadership in project completion and explain that people are crucial in the formula for success.

In Project Management QuickStart Guide, author, speaker, trainer, and project management expert Chris Croft draws on his 30+ years of experience to deliver a comprehensive guide for would-be project managers, experienced project planners, and everyone in between.

In Project to Product, value stream network pioneer and technology business leader Dr. Mik Kersten introduces the Flow Framework - a new way of seeing, measuring, and managing software delivery. The Flow Framework will enable your company's evolution from project-oriented dinosaur to product-centric innovator that thrives in the age of software. If you're driving your organization's transformation at any level, this is the audiobook for you.

Gene Kim and John Willis present this nine-part series that includes an oral history of the DevOps movement, as well as discussion around pivotal figures and philosophies that DevOps draws upon, from Goldratt to Deming; from Lean to Safety Culture to Learning Organizations.The audiobook is a great way for listeners to take an even deeper dive into topics relevant to DevOps and leading technology organizations.

Risk isn’t just about threat; it’s also about opportunity. You have to be ready to take advantage of the most unexpected events — good or bad — with any project you are managing. But how does this work in practice? The Active Threat and Opportunity Management (ATOM) methodology offers a simple, scalable risk process that applies to all projects in all industries and business sectors. For each process step, the authors offer practical advice, hints, and tips on how to get the most out of the risk management process.