In the contemporary dialogue surrounding business Web strategy, two salient concerns indicating trouble in virtual space are emerging: (1) that the Internet may create additional managerial problems, and (2) that it may not actually be a solution for corporate problems. Empirical studies point to a lack of sound managerial Web strategy as well as a mismatch between a firm s Web strategy and its business strategy.

Business Web Strategy: Design, Alignment, and Application addresses the gap in business Web strategy through a collection of concentrated managerial issues. Gathering the latest theoretical frameworks, case studies, and authoritative research, this in-depth collection will be a powerful tool for managers, consultants, and trainers in their efforts to maximize the power of the Web to support business strategy, and a rich reference for academics, researchers and students in the field of Web strategy.

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CEO of General Electric for 30 years, Jack Welsh was declared the greatest manager of the 20th century. Focusing firmly on results, he revolutionized management to achieve phenomenal growth for his company. In this inspiring volume, Robert Heller analyzes Jack Welsh’s core management strategies and presents a series of masterclasses that show how to put the business guru’s theories into practice. Discover how Welsh: eliminates bureaucracy and breaks down boundaries, mobilizes and motivates his workforce, exploits and embraces change, establishes a new company culture, and sets stretch targets for himself and others. Supplying lessons from today’s most celebrated and successful business thinkers, the Business Masterminds series is perfect for people hoping to advance their careers, make their own businesses grow and prosper, or achieve personal goals. In addition to providing overviews of each leader’s most influential writings and speeches, each title is packed with full-color charts, diagrams, and photographs that graphically illustrate complex concepts.

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It’s a fact: if you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you already have the tools you need to develop your own iPhone apps. With this book, you’ll learn how to use these open source web technologies to design and build apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch on the platform of your choice-without using Objective-C or Cocoa.

Device-agnostic mobile apps are the wave of the future, and this book shows you how to create one product for several platforms. You’ll find guidelines for converting your product into a native iPhone app using the free PhoneGap framework. And you’ll learn why releasing your product as a web app first helps you find, fix, and test bugs much faster than if you went straight to the App Store with a product built with Apple’s tools.

• Build iPhone apps with tools you already know how to use
• Learn how to make an existing website look and behave like an iPhone app
• Add native-looking animations to your web app using jQTouch
• Take advantage of client-side data storage with apps that run even when the iPhone is offline
• Hook into advanced iPhone features — including the accelerometer, geolocation, and vibration — with JavaScript
• Submit your applications to the App Store with Xcode

This book received valuable community input through O’Reilly’s Open Feedback Publishing System (OFPS).

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Ajax is unique because it combines technologies to make traditional web pages interactive. Ajax Patterns and Best Practices enables you to quickly write applications that work properly. This book is not just about the technical, low-level details of the APIs, but about making things happen on both the client and server sides.

This book addresses the server side with the REST protocol. REST and Ajax blend elegantly together, but REST can also be used alone, with just a computer-to-computer solution. Like Ajax, REST can be used with today’s existing technologies. Millions of client computers are now Ajax-ready, and millions of servers are REST-ready.

This is an ideal book whether or not you have already created an Ajax application. Because the book outlines various patterns and best practices, you can quickly check and verify that you’re building an efficient Ajax application.

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Build user friendly Web 2.0 Applications with JavaScript and PHP

• Create faster, lighter, better web applications by using the AJAX technologies to their full potential
• Leverage the power of PHP and MySQL to create powerful back-end functionality and make it work in harmony with a responsive AJAX clientWrite better JavaScript code to enable powerful web features
• Understand the complete client-server mechanism by following complete, step-by-step case studies

The agile model of software development has taken the world by storm. Now, in Agile Software Development, Second Edition, one of agile’s leading pioneers updates his Jolt Productivity award-winning book to reflect all that’s been learned about agile development since its original introduction.

Alistair Cockburn begins by updating his powerful model of software development as a “cooperative game of invention and communication.” Among the new ideas he introduces: harnessing competition without damaging collaboration; learning lessons from lean manufacturing; and balancing strategies for communication. Cockburn also explains how the cooperative game is played in business and on engineering projects, not just software development

Next, he systematically illuminates the agile model, shows how it has evolved, and answers the questions developers and project managers ask most often, including

·      Where does agile development fit in our organization?

·      How do we blend agile ideas with other ideas?

·      How do we extend agile ideas more broadly?

Cockburn takes on crucial misconceptions that cause agile projects to fail. For example, you’ll learn why encoding project management strategies into fixed processes can lead to ineffective strategy decisions and costly mistakes. You’ll also find a thoughtful discussion of the controversial relationship between agile methods and user experience design.

Cockburn turns to the practical challenges of constructing agile methodologies for your own teams. You’ll learn how to tune and continuously reinvent your methodologies, and how to manage incomplete communication. This edition contains important new contributions on these and other topics:

·      Agile and CMMI

·      Introducing agile from the top down

·      Revisiting “custom contracts”

·      Creating change with “stickers”

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Agile methods have taken software development by storm - but a growing controversy over their true effectiveness now pits proponents against detractors in a heated battle of claims. Here at last is a completely impartial guide that gives project managers both expert objective analysis of Agile software development methods and much-needed tools for evaluating the suitability of Agile methods for their organization. The book reviews the Agile Manifesto and the 12 Agile Principles, and discusses in detail each practice of the six most widely recognized Agile methods. Software developers get clear and unbiased insight into adoption implications, the benefits that may accrue, and the potential pitfalls they face.

At its core, this unique assessment resource helps developers systematically address key Agile adoption issues involving organizational culture, customers, staff, tools and processes, and project considerations. A comprehensive start-to-finish worksheet makes it easy for professionals to document observations, draw justifiable conclusions, and market their recommendations to the company. The guide also features expert guidelines for customizing an Agile method, training staff, testing the new method, and evaluating its performance - should readers go the Agile route. Practical ready-to-use tools, including equations and templates in Excel format, are provided in a handy workbook which can be accessed through the author’s website.

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Agile Estimating and Planning is the definitive, practical guide to estimating and planning agile projects. In this book, Agile Alliance cofounder Mike Cohn discusses the philosophy of agile estimating and planning and shows you exactly how to get the job done, with real-world examples and case studies.

Concepts are clearly illustrated and readers are guided, step by step, toward how to answer the following questions: What will we build? How big will it be? When must it be done? How much can I really complete by then? You will first learn what makes a good plan-and then what makes it agile.

Using the techniques in Agile Estimating and Planning, you can stay agile from start to finish, saving time, conserving resources, and accomplishing more. Highlights include:

• Why conventional prescriptive planning fails and why agile planning works

• How to estimate feature size using story points and ideal days—and when to use each

• How and when to re-estimate

• How to prioritize features using both financial and nonfinancial approaches

• How to split large features into smaller, more manageable ones

• How to plan iterations and predict your team’s initial rate of progress

• How to schedule projects that have unusually high uncertainty or schedule-related risk

• How to estimate projects that will be worked on by multiple teams

Agile Estimating and Planning supports any agile, semiagile, or iterative process, including Scrum, XP, Feature-Driven Development, Crystal, Adaptive Software Development, DSDM, Unified Process, and many more. It will be an indispensable resource for every development manager, team leader, and team member.

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For an increasing number of critical projects, traditional project management models simply are not appropriate. In many cases, complete requirements and objectives cannot be specified up front, and significant changes cannot be avoided. What’s needed is an entirely new framework for project management: one that combines agile methods with the profession’s most enduring best practices. In this book, Robert K. Wysocki provides that framework–the Adaptive Project Framework (APF)–and shows how to apply it in any domain.

Wysocki, one of the world’s leading project management consultants, has spent decades helping large organizations succeed with complex projects. Drawing on everything he’s learned, he explains why a fundamentally new framework is needed and introduces all five phases of that framework. He covers artifacts, processes, and deliverables, and shows how to utilize each phase most effectively in your environment. Through four detailed case studies, you’ll discover how APF can help you adapt to unexpected events, encouraging creative responses based on open partnerships between clients and project teams.

• Bringing greater flexibility and speed to any project, regardless of its goals or context
• Moving forward successfully with projects that have vague requirements
• Discovering what clients really want, not just what they say they want
• Managing ongoing scope changes throughout a project
• Customizing APF to your own environment
• Integrating APF with existing agile software development methods
• Using APF to overcome the obstacles to success
• Preparing for the future of project management

This book is written for every project participant–project and program managers, software and product developers, process designers, and business analysts–who needs to deliver results in a world that won’t stand still.

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If you’re a web developer with previous JavaScript and DOM scripting experience, Accelerated DOM Scripting with Ajax, APIs, and Libraries is perfect for you to take your knowledge up to the next level.

This book is about JavaScript and using the document object model—the conduit to the HTML document. This book is not about learning how to program JavaScript from scratch. It starts with the assumption that you have done some JavaScript development before and understand the JavaScript syntax. This book builds on top of that knowledge to give you a deeper understanding of DOM Scripting and how to apply that to your projects. It uses this new understanding to describe what JavaScript libraries are and show you how they can be applied to your project. The book will also explain Ajax and how best to plan and apply it to your projects. It explains how to build simple animation objects for adding movement to elements on the page. There are straightforward examples that demonstrate the techniques used throughout the book.

JavaScript has seen a resurgence in popularity over the past few years, and with it has come an exploration of the power of the language as well as what it can do within the browser. This book will explain techniques new and old—such as closures, encapsulation, and inheritance—that many are using and how you can best apply them to your own projects.

By reading this book, you should have a greater understanding of how JavaScript works and be able to use advanced concepts such as closures and event delegation to build more flexible applications for the Web. You’ll walk away with a greater appreciation for JavaScript libraries and how they can simplify and speed up your development. You’ll also be able to implement Ajax effectively into your site, create special effects, use JavaScript libraries, and know how best to apply these libraries to your projects.

• Where CSS, HTML, and the DOM fit into modern scripting, and how to use them together effectively
• OOP techniques for more efficient JavaScript coding
• How to use JavaScript libraries such as Prototype in your work
• How to build effective form validation into your applications using Ajax
• How to create mashups using APIs
• How to build dynamic user interfaces

This book is for beginner to intermediate developers, and already have knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

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