The Handbook of Project-based Management: Leading Strategic Change in Organizations Review

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The Handbook of Project-based Management: Leading Strategic Change in Organizations ReviewJ. Rodney Turner was Director of Project Management at Henley Management College (UK), where he used to run an MBA programme for project-based management. In 2001, he was Professor of Project Management at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. This book is part of the Henley Management Series and is split up six parts, with each part consisting of 2-to-7 chapters.
Part I - Introduction - provides an introduction into project management. Chapter I explains the difference between projects and operations, project objectives (managing scope, organization, quality, cost, and time), and the three dimensions of project management (objectives, management processes, and levels). Turner also gives an introduction into the structured approach to the management of projects, which is the basis/structure of the total book. This chapter is perhaps the most essential of the complete book.
Part II - The Context of Projects - describes the different settings of projects. The author describes projects for implementing corporate strategy, possible relationhip(s) to the parent organization, and strategic management of projects. These chapters are especially useful for specialists in order to understand and appreciate the place of projects within the overall organization.
Part III - Managing the Project Objectives - is the most comprehensive part of the book. It introduces methods, tools and techniques for managing the first dimension of project management, the five project objectives: scope, project organization, quality, cost, time, and the inherent risk. It also explains how to balance the systems and project objectives. Although most tools are explained in detail, there is better literature available for management of these methods, tools and techniques.
Part IV - Undertaking Projects - turns to the second dimension of project management, the management processes, and describes how the methods, tools, and techniques explained in Part III are applied to undertake project. It describes project definition, from project start-up via proposal and initiation, feasibility studies, design and appraisal, to the launch of the project. This Part III also discusses the execution and control, and the finalization and close-out of the project(s).
In Part V - Management Procedures and Systems, Turner describes how the tools and techniques from Parts II to IV have become formalized into standard systems and procedures. He explains some of the administrative procedures used and how they have been computerized into project management information systems. The author also look at what the systems can do, the different types of system available, and how to select and implement a system. The final chapter of this Part discusses the role of the project manager in building and maintaining the project team.
Part VI - Applications - compares the application of the processes introduced in the previous four Part to different types of projects. Turner classifies projects against three parameters: the position of the project in the life cycle of the product, the type of industry or technology of the project/parent organization, and the size of the project. The final chapter considers projects involving international collaboration and how different cultural approaches can conflict during the project management life cycle.
The book is useful as a starting point for students and as a reference for people experienced in project management. I personally keep the book as a reference (in combination with the Project Management Institute's Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge), but use additional, more detailed, literature for the different parts of the book. Please be aware that this book is written by an author with a engineering/construction-background so most of the examples are from these industries. Also note that the book is a very extensive piece of work consisting of 22 chapters, some 514 pages, and lots of figures and tables, so do not think that you can read it within a day.The Handbook of Project-based Management: Leading Strategic Change in Organizations Overview

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What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services Review

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What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services ReviewI have read several new books on innovation and I finally understand why Clayton Christensen referenced the work of Tony Ulwick frequently in his book the Innovator's Solution. Although at first blush, Ulwick's thinking could be cast aside as common sense, this book has made me realize that there is a brilliant, new way to think about innovation.
Let me try to explain how Ulwick frames his thinking. Generally speaking, innovation is the process of finding solutions that address the customer's unmet needs. Most companies agree that they should first uncover and prioritize the customer's unmet needs and then devise solutions that address them - but, as Ulwick explains very well, although companies think they understand this concept, they continue to get it so very wrong - to the point where their customer-driven, "voice of the customer" led efforts are causing the failures they are trying to avoid!
This book makes it clear that because companies are focused on customers and products (and not the job the customer is trying to get done), they are simply getting the wrong inputs into innovation, and incredibly, they don't know it. In my experience, this is exactly right. Ulwick contends that to truly succeed at innovation companies must understand just what a customer "need" is. Ulwick's notion that different innovation strategies require different customer inputs (needs) was an epiphany for me.
In his books and articles on innovation, Clayton Christensen mentions the jobs-to-be-done theory, but Ulwick turns this theory into a science by making the job the customer is trying to get done - not the customer or competition - the focal point of innovation. Ulwick provides ample evidence that the customers desired outcomes are the building blocks of innovation - the customers' measures of value - but they are rarely the company's focus of capture when using traditional "voice of the customer" techniques. In fact, Ulwick suggests that companies should "silence the literal voice of the customer", an argument that I now understand and agree with. His argument that there is no such thing as a latent, unarticulated need is also quite compelling.
Rarely does a book offer such new insight and theory along with practical ideas for execution and implementation. I have since read other articles on their web site (strategyn.com) and have become a fan. This sounds like the future of innovation to me.
What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services Overview

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The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary Review

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The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary ReviewStarbucks has many detractors -- people who object to its business model, the way it prepares its beans, or simply its ubiquity. And though they don't seem to have shown up in the reviews here yet, I'm sure there are readers who may object to this book because it offers a relentlessly positive look at the coffee giant. It's important to understand that "The Starbucks Experience" is not, and is not meant to be, an "exposé" of Big Coffee. People seeking that should look elsewhere.
(I probably should mention here that although I live in Seattle, I don't work for Starbucks. I am, however, a fan of theirs.)
What "The Starbucks Experience" is, is a very interesting inside look at the approach to business that has made Starbucks not only a commercial, but also a cultural, phenomenon. As William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre explained in their recent and important book "Mavericks at Work," Starbucks is an exemplar of the values-driven business model that will set apart the next generation of business leaders. Joseph Michelli has taken us deeper inside that business model and pointed out some important ways that all of us, whatever our job or station in life, can adopt and adapt "the Starbucks experience" for our own uses.
I call this a "half-caf" business book because unlike many other writers in this genre, Michelli doesn't pound away at "life applications" or "key learnings" (awful phrase). Much of the book, in fact, is pretty straightforward storytelling with some "Ideas to Sip On" at the end of each chapter. It's up to the reader to decide how much of this is relevant and useful, and what the important lessons may be.
I think the attentive reader will come away with many worthwhile ideas. We're not all in a position to shape corporate policy, but one of the powerful truths Starbucks teaches is that everyone can have a big -- even a defining -- impact on a customer's experience of your product or service. You don't have to be a Starbucks fan to get a mental caffeine-buzz off an idea like that.The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary Overview

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Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business Review

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Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business ReviewThe 2006 Zagat Survey lists Gramercy Tavern as New York's most popular restaurant. (It was also #1 last year.)

Union Square Café came in second. (As it did last year.)
Eleven Madison Park ranked fourteen. (Down one from 2005.)
Tabla was eighteen. (Up one from 2005.)
Blue Smoke --- unranked in 2005 --- was the 36th most popular restaurant.
These Manhattan restaurants were all conceived by one man: Danny Meyer, who has also created the restaurants at The Museum of Modern Art and an outdoor joint called Shake Shack. Most restaurants fail, and quickly; these restaurants have, most of them, been around long enough to qualify as "institutions." If you have ever had the good fortune to sample Danny Meyer's food, you know they are likely to remain so deep into the future.
Now Danny Meyer has written a book. It is nominally a memoir about his life in restaurants. But although there are mouth-watering descriptions of great meals, it will be a great tragedy if this book becomes "food porn," devoured by foodies and unknown to the general public. This is a bigger book, and a better book, than that. (Not that there's anything wrong with food porn.) For one thing, it is a business book that should be read --- like: today! --- by anyone whose livelihood involves face-to-face encounters with customers. For another, it is a hands-on, real-world book of practical philosophy that could knock a great deal of sense into those who believe that nice guys finish last and the only way to get to the top is to kick others off the ladder as you claw your way up.
This book obeys the form of memoir, especially in the young Meyer's culinary education --- his writing will remind some readers of A.J. Liebling's postgraduate adventures in Between Meals. But almost every story has a psychological twist; this is a man who has learned a lot by eating and a lot more by listening and watching.
What he's concluded is obvious to those who have been to his restaurants: It's not about the food. It's about the people. It's about the way you feel when you're there --- about the way the staff makes you feel. In a word, it's about hospitality. What is hospitality? It starts with a belief: "The other person is on your side." And then the belief becomes behavior: "Hospitality is present when something happens for you."
Meyer came to this business philosophy young. In 1985, when he was 27 and opening his first restaurant, Union Square Café, he had job applicants answer unusual questions: "Has your sense of humor been useful to you in your service career?" and "What was so wrong about your last job?" and "Do you prefer Hellmann's or Miracle Whip?" In this way, he hired "genuine, happy, optimistic" people. They shared their good feelings with customers. And customers felt liked and valued. They became regulars --- and if the secret of a successful long-term enterprise is not Repeat Business, what is it?
Make no mistake: this kind of hospitality requires work. Not just when the customer walks through the door, but before and after. If Meyer knows a couple is coming to celebrate a birthday or anniversary, he's not above picking up a phone and telling them how much he's looking forward to their visit. Then there was the dishwasher who took extra care with dirty dishes; soon, he'd cut knife-and-fork loss by 50%. His manager told Meyer. And Meyer went to the dishwasher to thank him. Or the time a woman left her wallet and cell phone in a taxi. The restaurant manager began calling her phone, reached the cab driver, and --- without saying a word to her --- he sent a staffer in a taxi to pick up her stuff while she was having lunch. Cost: $31. The customer's response: Overwhelmed. Benefit: "I'd be surprised if this woman hasn't already given Table 100 times that value in positive word-of-mouth."
Mistakes? Of course Meyer has made them. But he listened very hard to the advice he got from legendary retailer Stanley Marcus --- "The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled" --- and figured out how to turn a mistake into what he calls "a great last chapter." He learned about power and how best to use it. He grasped that his first customers are his workers. And he appreciated that, as Dylan says, "you gotta serve somebody" --- to his great credit, he serves both local causes and a remarkable anti-hunger charity called Share Our Strength.
None of this is original; these are lessons many people know. What is dazzling and inspiring about Danny Meyer is that he operates on what he believes. Sure, there's self-interest --- the more you give, the more you get --- but more to the point, there's a sense of a life well-lived. Of a business well-run. Of employees who feel trusted and respected. And, finally, of guests who can't wait to come back. This is the very definition of a "virtuous circle."
I once heard a guru say: "When you aim for the highest things, only the highest things happen." Danny Meyer is proof that this is so. Many would scoff. They cut corners and do well in the short run. They have power for the thrill of pushing people around. Their word is not their bond. But we are talking about the span of a life here, and the worth of your work. "Setting the Table" makes you hungry for the better life just in front of you ---and fills you with confidence that it's attainable. Eat this book.Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business Overview

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The AMA Handbook of Project Management Review

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The AMA Handbook of Project Management ReviewAs an Industrial Engineer I have been involved in many projects along my career of more than 25 years in business, I have used this book as a reference since 2000 when I got involved in ERP implementations, the book is packed with useful information and is very complete in all the BOK required to pass a PM certification.The AMA Handbook of Project Management Overview

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Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service Review

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Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service ReviewI've been a struggling small business owner (some 32 to 38 employees, depending upon the season) thinking my problem was either that I was undercapitalized or that I had hired the wrong people. Raving Fans was a wake up call. The problem was I wasn't creating raving fans. I was satisfied if my customers were satisfied, but I learned in this book that service is so bad that customers expectations are low. It's easy to satisfy low expectations and it doesn't mean very much. You have to create raving fans. Customers who tell others how wonderful you are. Today everyone in my company is focused on customers. Focused on creating stories our customers can tell others. Creating those magic moments the book calls giving symbolic hugs. Best of all Raving Fans gave me the road map to do it, all wrapped up in three easy lessons. This book may be simple, but it is also profound and by far the best customer service book I've ever read, and I guess the best business book too. I'd be out of business today if I hadn't adopted the strategy of creating raving fans and then getting everyone in the company to do the same. The result is we've stopped buring our customer list every six months. We're retaining old customers, adding new ones and sales are way up. Today Raving Fans is required reading for every new hire. Thanks Amazon for this opportunity to write this review. You're the best. I'm your RAVING FAN!
Richard AndersRaving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service Overview

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