Practical Guide to Project Planning is filled with project documents and templates ready to use for planning and managing project. It explains project analysis and modeling techniques so these documents and templates can be used for effective project management. In addition, the book is also a guide to best practices that comply with the PMIs PMBOK ® 3.0.
Throughout the book, a real-world, practical project plan is used to explain all management issues related to a project, including scope, time, costs, quality, human resources, communication, risks, procurement, and integration. This example also covers every stage of implementing a project management office (PMO), from initial analysis to post-deployment review.
The text is filled with insightful tips on using the most popular project management tools and software, including Mindmanager for initial planning sessions, Milestone Project Companion for report generation, and Microsoft Project, the most widely used tool for project planning. Project documents discussed in the book are on the accompanying CD ROM, so readers can use them to develop and track their own projects. (more…)
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In this book, some of the world's leading scholars come together to describe their thinking and research on the topic of the psychology of leadership. Most of the chapters were originally presented as papers at a research conference held in 2001 at the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University. The contributions span traditional social psychological areas, as well as organizational theory; examining leadership as a psychological process and as afforded by organizational constraints and opportunities. The editors' goal was not to focus the chapters on a single approach to the study and conceptualization of leadership but rather to display the diversity of issues that surround the topic.
How should companies be organized? To whom should boards of directors be responsible-shareholders, or a wider group of stakeholders? In this fiercely competitive world we cannot judge our own system of corporate governance in isolation; it must bear comparison with the best. The second edition of this acclaimed and well-established book aims to do just that. Since publication of the first edition interest in corporate governance has greatly increased, codes have proliferated, and principles laid down nationally and internationally. In Keeping Good Company, the author describes developments in the system of corporate governance-both the business environment and the particular structures of company organization-in five major industrial countries: Germany, Japan, France, the USA and the UK. This second edition is fully revised, updated and expanded, and includes a new conclusion looking at a number of ongoing issues in corporate governance, and an appendix discussing the role of international organizations. 
Given that it costs approximately two and a half times his or her annual salary to get a new boss in place, it is essential that organizations hire someone who will give a good return on this investment. The New Boss is a guide for newly appointed senior managers to make a successful leadership transition. With tried and tested models and self-assessment tools, it covers all the dos and don'ts of the new boss' role.
Whether you are inheriting a test team or starting one up, Manage Software Testing is a must-have resource that covers all aspects of test management. It guides you through the business and organizational issues that you are confronted with on a daily basis, explaining what you need to focus on strategically, tactically, and operationally. Using a risk-based approach, the author addresses a range of questions about software product development. The book covers unit, system, and non-functional tests and includes examples on how to estimate the number of bugs expected to be found, the time required for testing, and the date when a release is ready. It weighs the cost of finding bugs against the risks of missing release dates or letting bugs appear in the final released product. It is imperative to determine if bugs do exist and then be able to metric how quickly they can be identified, the cost they incur, and how many remain in the product when it is released. With this book, test managers can effectively and accurately establish these parameters.
If you are a first time manager or a verteran and you find difficulty in keeping your employees accountable for their results then this book is for you. It draws a plan from the authors vast experience to guide you through an action of providing key deliverables from your direct reports or subordinates and monitor them on an ongoing basis. You do not have to wait till an annual performance review to be in trouble.
Integrating key concepts and ideas about public speaking into a clear, step-by-step, transformational method, Power Speaking teaches emerging speakers how to grow the necessary skills and unleash their inner power. Divided into proficiency levels-mastering the basics, making the connection, and polishing the core-this guide allows speakers to conquer public speaking systematically. Readers start with the use of voice and body movements, then move on to learn the use of personal stories, intent listening, and positioning or reframing a topic. 
Traditionally, company leaders develop a business strategy based on bottom lines and profit margins, then hire an ad agency to back up that strategy with creative advertising. But history shows that some of the most effective branding campaigns are born when companies work with ad agencies to develop a business strategy that has a big, creative idea at its heart–what CEO of Euro RSCG Bob Schmetterer calls the Creative Business Idea. In Leap, Bob Schmetterer shows advertisers how to combine advertising creativity and bottom-line realities to develop winning business strategies and winning ad campaigns. He analyzes some of the most creative business ideas in history, showing how successful advertising and marketing strategies do more than simply communicate the brand–they define it. Advertisers know how to create demand for an existing brand, but Schmetterer argues that the next challenge for advertisers is to help their clients apply creative thinking to their core business strategy before they launch a branding blitz. Leap is about connecting the left brain and the right brain to develop solid business strategies that are also creative, fresh, and exciting. Its about mixing businesss cold fixation on numbers with the warm heart of art and creativity to build revolutionary brands. Its about connecting with and listening to the client, understanding the business and the product, tapping into the clients passion for the product, and transmitting that passion to the consumer. Its about what happens when the business makes creativity part of its core strategy–enabling it to move beyond self-imposed boundaries and expand the limits of its reach. With a wealth of examples from Volvo to Purdue, Schmetterer shows ad agencies and managers how to help their clients develop the big, creative idea that will transform their businesses–and perhaps their industries. Its time for companies to make the Leap that synthesizes business and creativity to reap the full rewards of profitable innovation. BOB SCHMETTERER is Chairman and CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide, a one of the worlds top five global advertising and communications agencies with clients such as Intel, Peugeot, Air France, Orange, Abby National, MCI, Danone Group, Reckitt Benckiser, Volvo, and Yahoo!
Leading the Revolution begins by taking us through what Hamel describes as the End of Progress, whereby the evolution of industrial society is seen to be replaced by the revolution of the new economy. This change is underpinned by the rising expectations of the stakeholder economy: it is not enough to beat your last annual earnings, or be better than your competitor–the revolutionary company will be best of breed by every benchmark, nothing less. Failure to do so will leave you vulnerable to the other revolutionaries.
This earnest guide to career transition periods-when a new job or promotion puts an employee in an unfamiliar role-asserts, reassuringly, that navigating the all-important first 90 days is a "teachable skill." Business professor Watkins, co-author of Right From the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role, lays out a "standard framework" for leadership transitions, based on "five fundamental propositions," "ten key challenges," and a four-fold typology of situations that new managers find themselves in. Fortunately, Watkins balances the theorizing with practical steps managers can take to get on top of things and initiate changes, including elaborate self-assessment checklists, planning exercises and meticulous guidelines on how to have conversations with underlings and bosses. His advice, if not very original, is sound. He warns managers not to assume that their existing skills will suffice for new roles, advises them to pursue small-scale "early wins" to boost credibility, and admonishes workplace Machiavellis to "avoid pressing for closure until you are confident the balance of forces acting on key people is tipping your way." Watkins's penchant for cut-and-dried schematizations sometimes goes overboard, especially in the book's plethora of elementary graphs, tables, diagrams and matrices (novice orators are informed that "classic values invoked to convince others to embrace potentially painful change are summarized in table 8-1," while the oceanic topic of "Intersecting Cultural Dimensions" gets boiled down to a three-ring Venn diagram). But if the content of Watkins's counsel is not always obviously helpful, his systematized approach to thinking will at least help panicky executives keep their wits about them.
