Making Things Happen

Making Things Happen PDF Author: Scott Berkun
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 0596517718
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Book Description
Offers a collection of essays on philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. This book explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. It does not cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy.

Making Things Happen

Making Things Happen PDF Author: James Woodward
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198035330
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Book Description
In Making Things Happen, James Woodward develops a new and ambitious comprehensive theory of causation and explanation that draws on literature from a variety of disciplines and which applies to a wide variety of claims in science and everyday life. His theory is a manipulationist account, proposing that causal and explanatory relationships are relationships that are potentially exploitable for purposes of manipulation and control. This account has its roots in the commonsense idea that causes are means for bringing about effects; but it also draws on a long tradition of work in experimental design, econometrics, and statistics. Woodward shows how these ideas may be generalized to other areas of science from the social scientific and biomedical contexts for which they were originally designed. He also provides philosophical foundations for the manipulationist approach, drawing out its implications, comparing it with alternative approaches, and defending it from common criticisms. In doing so, he shows how the manipulationist account both illuminates important features of successful causal explanation in the natural and social sciences, and avoids the counterexamples and difficulties that infect alternative approaches, from the deductive-nomological model onwards. Making Things Happen will interest philosophers working in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of social science, and metaphysics, and as well as anyone interested in causation, explanation, and scientific methodology.

Proactivity at Work

Proactivity at Work PDF Author: Sharon K. Parker
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317752570
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 615

Book Description
By providing insight on key advances and future directions for proactivity theory, research, and practice, this book synthesizes what we know and identifies what we still need to learn about 'making things happen' at work.

The Myths of Innovation

The Myths of Innovation PDF Author: Scott Berkun
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 1449399614
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
In this new paperback edition of the classic bestseller, you'll be taken on a hilarious, fast-paced ride through the history of ideas. Author Scott Berkun will show you how to transcend the false stories that many business experts, scientists, and much of pop culture foolishly use to guide their thinking about how ideas change the world. With four new chapters on putting the ideas in the book to work, updated references and over 50 corrections and improvements, now is the time to get past the myths, and change the world. You'll have fun while you learn: Where ideas come from The true history of history Why most people don't like ideas How great managers make ideas thrive The importance of problem finding The simple plan (new for paperback) Since its initial publication, this classic bestseller has been discussed on NPR, MSNBC, CNBC, and at Yale University, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Google, Amazon.com, and other major media, corporations, and universities around the world. It has changed the way thousands of leaders and creators understand the world. Now in an updated and expanded paperback edition, it's a fantastic time to explore or rediscover this powerful view of the world of ideas. "Sets us free to try and change the world."--Guy Kawasaki, Author of Art of The Start "Small, simple, powerful: an innovative book about innovation."--Don Norman, author of Design of Everyday Things "Insightful, inspiring, evocative, and just plain fun to read. It's totally great."--John Seely Brown, Former Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) "Methodically and entertainingly dismantling the cliches that surround the process of innovation."--Scott Rosenberg, author of Dreaming in Code; cofounder of Salon.com "Will inspire you to come up with breakthrough ideas of your own."--Alan Cooper, Father of Visual Basic and author of The Inmates are Running the Asylum "Brimming with insights and historical examples, Berkun's book not only debunks widely held myths about innovation, it also points the ways toward making your new ideas stick."--Tom Kelley, GM, IDEO; author of The Ten Faces of Innovation

Results Without Authority

Results Without Authority PDF Author: Tom Kendrick
Publisher: Amacom Books
ISBN: 0814429572
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
When you're a project manager with a team of people who don't technically report to you, your challenge is to get Results Without Authority. This book delivers proven techniques for controlling projects and managing diverse teams in a wide variety of situations, and bringing those projects to successful closure. The concepts in this book are essential for all project managers, with and without authority, because they offer a productive alternative to "command and control" management techniques that can easily backfire. Tom Kendrick's system will help you get successful project results from diverse, cross-functional, virtual, outsourced, and other types of project teams by showing how to establish and build: Control Through Process. Key project management processes, infrastructure, and the role of the project office. Control Through Influence. Productive leadership styles, reciprocity, and maintaining relationships. Control Through Project Metrics. Quantitative, predictive, diagnostic, and retrospective metrics for project control, motivating desired behaviors, and avoiding potential problems. Control Through Project Initiation. The role of the sponsor in project control, the importance of project vision, project launch documentation, and the project start-up workshop. Control Through Project Planning. Collaborative planning as the foundation of project control; planning as a key factor in setting baselines and establishing metrics. Control During Project Execution. Measurement and interpretation of project status, informal communication, and maintaining relationships as keys to maintaining control. Control Through Tracking and Monitoring. Controlling scope and other project parameters; formal project communication and reporting, rewards and recognition, and project reviews. Enhancing Overall Control Through Project Closure. Sign-off, evaluating retrospective project metrics, celebrating, and rewarding the team; improving long-term project control through lessons learned. Packed with invaluable guidance for controlling projects of all scopes and in any field, Results Without Authority will help novice and experienced project leaders get the best from their project teams.

Be Fast Or be Gone

Be Fast Or be Gone PDF Author: Andreas Scherer
Publisher: Prochain Solutions Incorporated
ISBN: 9781934979075
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Mike Knight, an executive in a semiconductor firm, learns that his eight-year-old son Tim has a rare form of brain cancer. Tim's best hope for long-term survival is a drug called Supragrel. Unfortunately, Supragrel is still in early clinical trials and may reach the market too late. Mike makes the agonizing decision to quit his job and go to work for Altus Labs, the developer of Supragrel, in hopes of helping them bring the drug to market more quickly. Mike is in for the challenge of his life as he struggles to keep his family together while racing against time to implement world-class project management in Altus Labs. Critical Chain Project Management is a superior project management process that has been quietly implemented in some of the world's best-known companies for over a decade. This book tells you the story of a Critical Chain Project Management implementation. The venue is a major pharmaceutical company, but it could happen anywhere in corporate America.

Strategic Project Management Made Simple

Strategic Project Management Made Simple PDF Author: Terry Schmidt
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 047044293X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
When Fortune Magazine estimated that 70% of all strategies fail, it also noted that most of these strategies were basically sound, but could not be executed. The central premise of Strategic Project Management Made Simple is that most projects and strategies never get off the ground because of adhoc, haphazard, and obsolete methods used to turn their ideas into coherent and actionable plans. Strategic Project Management Made Simple is the first book to couple a step-by-step process with an interactive thinking tool that takes a strategic approach to designing projects and action initiatives. Strategic Project Management Made Simple builds a solid platform upon four critical questions that are vital for teams to intelligently answer in order to create their own strong, strategic foundation. These questions are: 1. What are we trying to accomplish and why? 2. How will we measure success? 3. What other conditions must exist? 4. How do we get there? This fresh approach begins with clearly understanding the what and why of a project - comprehending the bigger picture goals that are often given only lip service or cursory reviews. The second and third questions clarify success measures and identify the risky assumptions that can later cause pain if not spotted early. The how questions - what are the activities, budgets, and schedules - comes last in our four-question system. By contrast, most project approaches prematurely concentrate on the how without first adequately addressing the three other questions. These four questions guide readers into fleshing out a simple, yet sophisticated, mental workbench called "the Logical Framework" - a Systems Thinking paradigm that lays out one's own project strategy in an easily accessible, interactive 4x4 matrix. The inclusion of memorable features and concepts (four critical questions, LogFrame matrix, If-then thinking, and Implementation Equation) make this book unique.

Energy Makes Things Happen

Energy Makes Things Happen PDF Author: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064452131
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 44

Book Description
Did you know that energy comes from the food you eat? From the sun and wind? From fuel and heat? You get energy every time you eat. You transfer energy to other things every time you play baseball. In this book, you can find out all the ways you and everyone on earth need energy to make things happen.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

When Bad Things Happen to Good People PDF Author: Harold S. Kushner
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0805241930
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Offers an inspirational and compassionate approach to understanding the problems of life, and argues that we should continue to believe in God's fairness.

Theory and Practice

Theory and Practice PDF Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022657248X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Book Description
Now in paperback, nine lectures from Jacques Derrida that challenge the influential Marxist distinction between thinking and acting. Theory and Practice is a series of nine lectures that Jacques Derrida delivered at the École Normale Supérieure in 1976 and 1977. The topic of “theory and practice” was associated above all with Marxist discourse and particularly the influential interpretation of Marx by Louis Althusser. Derrida’s many questions to Althusser and other thinkers aim at unsettling the distinction between thinking and acting. Derrida’s investigations set out from Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach,” in particular the eleventh thesis, which has often been taken as a mantra for the “end of philosophy,” to be brought about by Marxist practice. Derrida argues, however, that Althusser has no such end in view and that his discourse remains resolutely philosophical, even as it promotes the theory/practice pair as primary values. This seminar also draws fascinating connections between Marxist thought and Heidegger and features Derrida’s signature reconsideration of the dichotomy between doing and thinking. This text, available for the first time in English, shows that Derrida was doing important work on Marx long before Specters of Marx. As with the other volumes in this series, it gives readers an unparalleled glimpse into Derrida’s thinking at its best—spontaneous, unpredictable, and groundbreaking.
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