Book Description
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—2000 Edition is now available in eight additional languages to help project managers around the world.
Each of PMI's official translations includes a bilingual glossary of newly translated and standardized project management terminology. This allows candidates to study the guide in the same language in which they plan to take the Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification exam.
PMI undertook a rigorous, year-long process to ensure the maximum effectiveness of each official translation. Each translation team included qualified bilingual PMPs as well as professional translators and editors.
Official translations: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Korean, German and Italian.
Customer Reviews:
Unfortunately badly written, but absolutely necessary.......2007-10-01
This book is absolutely mandatory to get a PMP certification, which is nearly a mandatory requirement for being a project manager. These days, it is difficult to get a PM job without this certification. And the only way to get it is by knowing this book from cover to cover no matter how dry and 'dictionary-like' it is.
That being said, it is not *that* bad. It is better than, for example, the CMMI 1.2 book. What is missing is why these practices are the "best practices" and why you would implement them - what the benefits would be. Also missing is any kind of comprehensible memorable writing style.
You're not going to pass the certification test by reading this book, but you can't pass without it either.
Good Book.......2007-09-28
A very good book for PMs, since it is from PMI, they have covered most aspects of PM, however, no that much in detail, so not that good for early career PMs.
Very good Book - - Un libro muy bueno, se los recomiendo........2007-09-24
This is a very good book, you should read it if you want to know more about project management.
Es un libro muy bueno, se los recomiendo si estan interesados en la administracion de proyectos.
Do NOT buy this book!!!.......2007-09-24
I really, really wish I would have read through the amazon reviews before buying this book. It looks like a good idea and that it will an informative read. It's a piece of summary junk that provides no real value whatsoever.
Instead of actually trying to teach concepts in detail, the objective of this book appears to be the mere identification of concepts. If you're content learning about the concepts that exist, maybe this book is for you. If you want to actually know how things work and be able to do them yourself, go elsewhere.
Extensive.......2007-09-24
This book is pretty much the field manual. I had been working as a project manager for two years and learned a great deal just from the first few chapters of the book. Definately worth the investment.
Amazon.com
Bestselling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb continues his exploration of randomness in his fascinating new book, The Black Swan, in which he examines the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. Engaging and enlightening, The Black Swan is a book that may change the way you think about the world, a book that Chris Anderson calls, "a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature." See Anderson's entire guest review below.
Guest Reviewer: Chris Anderson
Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and the author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.
Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. "Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of human nature." Chief among them: "Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature." Now consider the typical stock market report: "Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production." Sigh. We're still doing it.
Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don't--and, most importantly, can't--know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb first made this argument in Fooled by Randomness, an engaging look at the history and reasons for our predilection for self-deception when it comes to statistics. Now, in The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable, he focuses on that most dismal of sciences, predicting the future. Forecasting is not just at the heart of Wall Street, but it's something each of us does every time we make an insurance payment or strap on a seat belt.
The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the "millionaire next door," when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, "all swans are white" had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.
Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it's practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, "History does not crawl, it jumps." Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls "Mediocristan," while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of "Extremistan."
In full disclosure, I'm a long admirer of Taleb's work and a few of my comments on drafts found their way into the book. I, too, look at the world through the powerlaw lens, and I too find that it reveals how many of our assumptions are wrong. But Taleb takes this to a new level with a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature. --Chris Anderson
Book Description
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.
Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark book–itself a black swan.
Customer Reviews:
Very thoughtful and enlightening book.......2007-10-02
Taleb has a winner here. The book brings a new slant to what really drives almost every trend. Often the stock traders and predictors of political events are not just wrong, but dead wrong. The reasons for these mistakes and others are explained in entertaining fashion in this book "The Black Swan".
Mr. Taleb Should Stay Away from Theology.......2007-10-01
I found this book highly entertaining. I love the way he writes, his sense humor. But I was very disappointed to see him press repeatedly his complete rejection of the Christian/Judeo understanding of the history of man, the history of God's plan for man's salvation. Ok, he has not the gift of faith. That's ok, perhaps one day. But when I purchase a book on the markets, economics, etc. I expect just that. Not repeated remarks (page 100, 118, etc.) about the non-existence of miracles, how the human race is a mere accident. Why should he be selling this ? Why should I accept his assertions ? On faith ? He's a good man wrapped in a self-contradiction of skeptiscism. I just wish his editor had filtered these things out from the final MS.
Hard to Read.......2007-09-29
I read a chapter of this book. It seemed to me it was trying to make political points (and therefore I found it untrustworthy) also it was just hard to read because I found it boring.
You have to work to separate the wheat from the chaff.......2007-09-24
There's no doubt that Nassim Taleb is a brilliant man. And, there's no doubt that he is frustrated by having to work among people who don't get it. What is there to get? Simply that the quest for certainty -- through mathematics, science or other logic disciplines -- may end up being the very thing which obfuscates the truth; that we end up not being able to see the forest for the trees. I think what he is saying is that there can never be certainty; that there will always be Black Swans...random events.
The reason why I say "I think" that is what he is saying is because there is so much stuff here -- a lot of which is totally irrelevant. He talks about his home town, seemingly just to wax nostaligic, though he may use the vignette to talk -- belaboredly -- about a point. Among the other stuff he presents is: an unusally high regard for the French language; too much - again irrelevant - reference to and back-story about thought leaders, and; palpable disdain for some colleagues in the quantitative field. If you can get through all of that and hold on to the nuggets, though, you will see some fresh thinking. Just his distinction between 2 different systems of thought is worth the work required. There are other presentations which may shift the way you think about things, too. In the end, it's worth reading, but you will have to focus on what's important because he doesn't.
Not recommended.......2007-09-21
The author expressed his strong negative options on statistics, econometrics, some finance professors, some Nobel Prize winners, etc. The whole point is that traditional stat, econ, finance techniques are mostly around the first moment (mean) but the distributions in finance tend to be non-normal and it's the risk that we should pay more attention to. That's a point few people would disagree with. What the author may not have known is that there are stat techniques out there that handle all the issues mentioned - while it's true that there's a lot of room for improvement, it's misleading to say that this is an area ignored by the academics and practitioners. While fractals are recommended, it is not clear how they can be directly applied to the area of investment finance.
There is a 2007 issue in American Statistican dedicated to the debate with the author and is highly recommended.
Book Description
The completely revised and updated "bible"of new product development: The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Second Edition.
The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Second Edition provides a comprehensive, updated picture of what you as a manager need to know for effective new product development. The book's concise, map-like detail acts as a compass, offering practical information pertaining to every stage of the product development process -- from idea generation to launch to the end of the life cycle.
Whether you're a novice or an expert, this edition is ideal as it provides both fundamentals and reliable information on advanced and emerging concepts such as accelerated product development, new product development globalization and benchmarking, and Web-based concept development.
Customer Reviews:
Second Edition.......2007-04-11
This is the "Bible" for NPD professionals. An excellent addition to the guides by Cooper and Crawford.
PDMA - Handbook for new product development.......2007-01-12
Haven't read from cover to cover, but proving to be an excellent reference. Good examples from industry reinforce key messages. Haven't learnt anything groundbreakingly new, but it has been a good confirmation or fine-tuning reference when needed.
Product Marketing Professionals - BUY THIS BOOK!.......2002-03-14
The PDMA Handbook is one of those rare and valuable books that characterizes a "body of knowledge" for a professional discipline. It was produced by the preeminent industry organization for New Product Development (NPD) professionals, the PDMA .... This text describes current, best practices in NPD and includes contributions from knowledge leaders in academia, consulting, and industry practice. If you are a CEO, COO, CTO, Marketing Manager, Product Manager, Product Planner, Engineering Manager, Project Manager, Program Manager, or any other professional involved in new product development (especially for technically complex products like hardware and software) you really need this book.
Product Managers (should) perform the nitty, gritty, roll-your-sleeves-up: opportunity analysis, business case formulation, and requirements management for new products. Research shows that judicious performance of this critical pre-work is a key determinant in the ultimate market success of new products and is usually performed inadequately. Unfortunately, most professionals in such roles have had no formal training beyond an MBA (sometimes). The PDMA Handbook provides a comprehensive treatment of virtually all the subject areas new product development (business) managers need to understand to drive the success of their endeavors. Want to know the key success factors for new products, understand value proposition, differentiation, features vs. benefits, uniqueness, sustainable competitive advantage, the fuzzy front end, pipeline management, how to plan a new product launch, manage a product portfolio, and more? This is the book you need. The PDMA Handbook is the Gray's Anatomy of product management. Buy it and READ it at least twice.
This book should have been read when it was published!.......2001-08-19
This book seem to be written by persons who really know what NPD (or NPI) really is. All those described mistakes possible to be done is made by me during last five years...this is a good book.
The area of NPD is large. Luckily people in PDMA have come to the right conclution: it is not possible for one person to handle the whole area throughly. Every chapter in this book is written by expert on his/her own area. Unfortunately the maximum size of one book restricts the possible space per one writer to include only the most vital parts into this book.
To whom I can recommend this book? --- To anyone who will to increase his/her own scope of NPD and especially to a person who already have gained some experience on this field and is able to compare his/her own experiece to this book.
Wonderful!.......2000-02-02
I purchased the PDMA Handbook on the strength of a review and have been very glad I did so. After quoting a few passage to my staff they began to borrow it, and now the Handbook has made the rounds of the office. It is worn and dog-eared, and quoted from on a daily basis.
The message of "treating each other with respect and dignity" by author Holahan et al has really struck a chord around here. Many of us believe she must be staunch Christian, one who lives her faith on a daily basis.
The PDMA Handbook has provided guidance in mapping out strategies for new services we hope to bring to market as well as the way our organization is managed. It has changed the way we do business and the way we percieve the world.
Book Description
As the leading book in its field, Compensation Management offers a practical exploration of the systems, methods, and procedures involved in establishing and administering a compensation system within any organization.
In-depth explanations of the procedures involved in establishing and administering a compensation system including, analyzing work requirements and designing a job, determining job worth, establishing job rates of pay, the elements of a total compensation package, and the importance of labor costs in a modern economy.
For compensation managers, HR professionals, and others who want to know about the aspects of establishing and administering a compensation system.
Customer Reviews:
Outdated but - As Yet, Nothing Better.......2004-10-08
I assign this as one of two textbooks in teaching Compensation Administration in graduate school.
While it has undergone 9 revisions, the attempts to update it to today's compensation world are not adequate. Far too little is here concerning internet usage, for example.
But perhaps its greatest shortcoming is in its glancing treatment of group incentive plans as a key means to unlock workforce potential. It is a glaring and unforgivable gap.
If anybody out there knows of a better fundamental compensation textbook, I'd love to hear about it.
Best of the textbooks.......2004-03-10
Compared to the other major textbooks out there, especially
the better reviewed book by "M" this is by far the more useful.
When I need to find something practical, like the Federal Evaluation System for example, or Multiple Linear Regression as a job evaluation tool, 95% of the time it is in Henderson and it is very well documented. Both these topics are barely touched on in the other major texts which I also own.
From a guy with a Ph.D. and 30 years of paying my bills with
comp information, give me Henderson any day.
Painful!.......2002-12-10
There is nothing practical about this book. It is a looooong, purely theoretical torture with only a few examples that don't work too well in the real world. I had to buy it for one of my graduate classes and here I am three months later even more clueless than I was when I started. This book is very boring, painful to read. It doesn't help that the author is clearly biased in favor of traditional HRM and refuses to give much room to more modern thinking. The exercise book is a nightmare. The exercises are either impossibly difficult and time-consuming because the textbook does not offer valuable guidance for any practical problems, or they are an absolute waste of time - students basically have to copy a chapter. I could go on like this forever. In a nutshell: buy this book if you have to, but sell it as soon as you can.
Uninformative Drivel!.......2001-09-07
This text was a quagmire of unreadable editorial comments! I purchased this book for a Human Resource class. I gained more knowledge from my fellow students than I did from this book. Defiantely skip it!
Book Description
Praise for Service-Oriented Architecture
"This book provides a superb overview of the SOA topic. Marks and Bell provide practical guidance across the entire SOA life cycle-from business imperatives and motivations to the post-deployment business and technical metrics to consider. With this book, Marks and Bell demonstrate a unique ability to take the complex dynamics of SOA, and through an eloquent set of metaphors, models, and principles, provide an understandable and insightful how-to manual for both technical and business executives. This will become a required handbook for any organization implementing SOA."
—Dan Bertrand, Enterprise Technology Officer & EDS Fellow, EDS Corporation
"A fundamental breakthrough in the business and technology perspectives of SOA-this book belongs in every software developer, architect, and IT executive library. Marks and Bell demonstrate a creative and practical approach to building complex, service-oriented systems. I especially liked the hands-on perspective brought to multiple aspects of SOA. A must-have guide in the technology turbulence of the future."
—Ariel Aloni, Chief Technology Officer, SunGard Data Management Solutions
"This outstanding text gets straight to the heart of the matter, cutting through the hyperbole and discussing how to drive real business value through SOA. It will certainly impact my behavior, our governance models, and, subsequently, the successful business outcomes we derive as we continue to embrace SOA. A must-read for battle-scarred SOA veterans and fledgling architects alike."
—Christopher Crowhurst, Vice President and Chief Architect, Thomson Learning
"Too often, SOA has been perceived as 'all about the technology'-standards, technology stacks, operational monitoring, and the like. In this book, Marks and Bell expand beyond the technology to provide a refreshing business-driven perspective to SOA, connecting the dots between business requirements, architecture, and development and operations, and overlaying these perspectives with tried-and-true governance techniques to keep SOA initiatives on track. A must-read for those leading the charge to adopt SOA within their enterprise."
—Brent Carlson, Chief Technology Officer, LogicLibrary and coauthor of San Francisco Design Patterns: Blueprints for Business Software
"Marks and Bell have captured a wealth of practical experience and lessons learned in what has become the hottest topic in software development. In this book, they explain in detail what works and what does not, from procedural issues to technical challenges. This book is an invaluable reference for organizations seeking the benefits of SOAs."
—Dr. Jeffrey S. Poulin, System Architect, Lockheed Martin and author of Measuring Software Reuse: Principles, Practices, and Economic Models
"One of the last things companies often consider when implementing a business solution such as SOA is the impact on people. Marks and Bell provide an in-depth look at 'what has to change' from a process standpoint to make any SOA implementation a success. A great read for those considering to embark on an enterprise SOA and looking for the right mix of people, process, and products."
—Alan Himler, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, LogicLibrary
SOA is a complex topic and a complex organizational goal
Service-Oriented Architecture: A Planning and Implementation Guide for Business and Technology shows you how to plan, implement, and achieve SOA value through its prescriptive approach, joining the business and strategic perspective to the technical and architectural perspective.
Applicable to all industries, technology platforms, and operating environments, this innovative book provides you with the essential strategies to drive greater value from your SOA and realize your business goals.
Download Description
Praise for Service-Oriented Architecture ""This book provides a superb overview of the SOA topic. Marks and Bell provide practical guidance across the entire SOA life cycle-from business imperatives and motivations to the post-deployment business and technical metrics to consider. With this book, Marks and Bell demonstrate a unique ability to take the complex dynamics of SOA, and through an eloquent set of metaphors, models, and principles, provide an understandable and insightful how-to manual for both technical and business executives. This will become a required handbook for any organization implementing SOA."" Dan Bertrand, Enterprise Technology Officer & EDS Fellow, EDS Corporation ""A fundamental breakthrough in the business and technology perspectives of SOA-this book belongs in every software developer, architect, and IT executive library. Marks and Bell demonstrate a creative and practical approach to building complex, service-oriented systems. I especially liked the hands-on perspective brought to multiple aspects of SOA. A must-have guide in the technology turbulence of the future."" Ariel Aloni, Chief Technology Officer, SunGard Data Management Solutions ""This outstanding text gets straight to the heart of the matter, cutting through the hyperbole and discussing how to drive real business value through SOA. It will certainly impact my behavior, our governance models, and, subsequently, the successful business outcomes we derive as we continue to embrace SOA. A must-read for battle-scarred SOA veterans and fledgling architects alike."" Christopher Crowhurst, Vice President and Chief Architect, Thomson Learning
Customer Reviews:
AN EXCELLENT TECHNOLOGY BOOK .......2007-07-02
This book is an excellent SOA technological introduction that presents major architectural concerns that most architects, team leads, developers, and software modelers struggle with. It addresses fundamental service-oriented challenges and provides viable solutions that IT professionals can employ:
- A service lifecycle that identifies major modeling disciplines
- Introduction to service-oriented analysis, design, and realization
- Introduction to service-oriented technologies
- A service-oriented integration model that provide viable interoperable solutions
- Service reusability model that elaborates on various methods that can facilitate asset reuse in organizations
I'd recommend this book to IT personnel and SOA practitioners that would like to learn more about starting service-oriented projects and achieving effective results.
Business Focused SOA .......2007-06-26
This book is a must read for the Executive and Architect responsible for transforming their business processes and IT infrastructure from something resembling an anchor to an agile, flexible system that enables corporate progress. This book will show you a process that will help you get off step 0, define the right services, and ensure that your SOA efforts resolve your business and IT challenges. When implementing an SOA, the technology is the easy part, ensuring that services are created in a consistent manner, that they are designed with reuse in mind, that s/w creation, and hence new product development, gets less expensive and takes less time, over time, that's the hard part, that's where SOA Governance comes in, and this book will give you the SOA Governance basics you need to get your SOA transformation off to a good start. Get control of Governance and your 75% there. This book will not provide code snippets, developer advice, or describe technical specifications, if you want these things, get Thomas Url' or Greg Lomow' books. This book is about using a top-down business service analysis, bottom-up implementation considered, iterative SOA design model. Read it to develop or improve your SOA planning capabilities.
Not for a Developer.......2007-05-15
Note: My strong dislike of this book probably says more about me than the book...
As a developer I like books that bridge the technical and the business gap. I need to see, in concrete examples, how things might be implemented -- I want to see code, configuration documents, snippets of policy code etc. I also find it helpful when books build upon a sample application. I wanted to see examples of the technology that enables SOA, walk-thrus of standards such WSPL.
This book has none of that. To me it is a book of high-level lists of lists and every section I've read leaves me wondering what it said. I think they repeat themselves too much and the book seems poorly organized with material half way through a chapter which seemed to me to belong at the start. For all it being high-level, they make an assumption that the reader is familiar with a host of acronyms and/or the technology behind them.
SOA - Pragmatic Advice .......2007-03-05
Much has been written about the promise of SOA and, at the same time, the difficulty in realizing that promise to date. Most of us who work in this field know by now how to address the technical concepts, architecture and services in an SOA. Where this book stands apart from so many others is that it provides both conceptual and pragmatic advice in three critical areas which need attention for SOA to mature, to achieve business buy-in, and to attain the "SOA network effect" as the authors call it. These keys are: shifting focus to identification of candidate business services; SOA governance, organization, and behavior; and a framework for an SOA business case, ROI model and scorecard.
I enthusiastically recommend this book for the authors' lucid, insightful chapters on these three subjects alone. That they are woven nicely into a more complete system of processes and supporting structures to nurture along SOA through critical mass is an added bonus.
A Must Read !!!!.......2007-01-23
"Service Oriented Architecture is a hot topic and will be for times to come however it is often misunderstood topic in the Information Technology field today. Based on the SDN Network IT professionals see the potential of an SOA -- especially a web services-based SOA -- in dramatically speeding up the application development process They also see it as a way to build applications and systems that are more adaptable, and in doing so, they see IT becoming more agile in responding to changing business needs. Not only is SOA a hot topic, but it's clearly the wave of the future. Gartner reports that "By 2008, SOA will be a prevailing software engineering practice, ending the 40-year domination of monolithic software architecture" and that "Through 2008, SOA and web services will be implemented together in more than 75 percent of new SOA or web services projects." Bell articulately describes the concepts, specifications, technical nuisances and standards behind service orientation and Web Services. One primary objective of applying SOA in design is to provide business value to the solutions we build. Understanding the right approach to analyzing, designing, and developing service-oriented solutions is critical. This book is a must read!"
Amazon.com
Every year, companies spend billions of dollars on training programs and management consultants, searching for ways to improve. But it's mostly all talk and no action, according to Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, authors of The Knowing-Doing Gap. "Did you ever wonder why so much education and training, management consultation, organizational research and so many books and articles produce so few changes in actual management practice?" ask Stanford University professors Pfeffer and Sutton. "We wondered, too, and so we embarked on a quest to explore one of the great mysteries in organizational management: why knowledge of what needs to be done frequently fails to result in action or behavior consistent with that knowledge." The authors describe the most common obstacles to action---such as fear and inertia---and profile successful companies that overcome them.
Among the companies that Pfeffer and Sutton say do it right: General Electric, the Men's Wearhouse, SAS Institute, Southwest Airlines, Toyota, and British Petroleum. The book, based on four years of research, is broken into chapters with titles such as "When Talk Substitutes for Action," "When Fear Prevents Acting on Knowledge," "When Internal Competition Turns Friends into Enemies," and "Turning Knowledge into Action." Each chapter contains tips on what to do and what to avoid, and provides examples of how a lethargic company culture can be transformed. The Knowing-Doing Gap is a useful how-to guide for managers looking to make changes. Yet, as Pfeffer and Sutton point out, it takes more than reading their book or discussing their recommendations. It takes action. --Dan Ring
Book Description
The market for business knowledge is booming, as companies looking to improve their performance pour billions of dollars into training programs, consultants, and executive education. Why, then, are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire?
The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results.
Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear-firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place.
The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.
Download Description
Why are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire? The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear--firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use plans, analysis, meetings, and presentations to inspire deeds, not as substitutes for action. Companies that act on their knowledge also eliminate fear, abolish destructive internal competition, measure what matters, and promote leaders who understand the work people do in their firms. The authors use examples from dozens of firms that show how some overcome the knowing-doing gap, why others try but fail, and how still others avoid the gap in the first place. The Knowing-Doing Gap is sure to resonate with executives everywhere who struggle daily to make their firms both know and do what they know. It is a refreshingly candid, useful, and realistic guide for improving performance in today's business.
Customer Reviews:
This book Is The Best of The Best!.......2007-07-26
This book hits the nail on the head. It's straight forward, easy to read format makes it a must read for every business leader who wants to get out from under knowing what to do and move to DOING the things that need to be done to move their organization forward!
Effectiveness, honesty, simplicity.......2006-10-24
Certainly in modern hi-tech work people need to be skilled, and know how to do their work well. But with all that knowledge, and people and systems concerned with knowledge management (and management in general), one may wonder at times why more work doesn't get done sooner. The authors of The Knowing-Doing Gap address this question. If you see parts of yourself or your work environment in these examples, it may be time to discuss it with others so you can get more work done with what you know already.
Overcoming Inertia - Uniting New Knowledge with Action.......2005-11-08
Two stellar professors use their experience and research to address the problem of organizational inertia in spite of our wide-spread and prevailing knowledge.
The premise is that a gap exists between our knowledge and the application of that knowledge in business... and that it can be closed. It cites that every year 1,700 business books are published, 60 billion dollars spent on training, 443 billion dollars spent on consulting and 80,000 new MBAs hit the business landscape... and still businesses are failing to apply the latest well-known and most viable principles and practices.
The authors break down the causes of this gap into five main reasons. After backing-up each reason with facts and examples, direct solutions are given to its remedy. Eight guidelines for action are then presented to fix this problem in your company. Case studies of business that have made huge turn-arounds using this appoach really amplify the authors' message.
This book is a great guide and loaded with ideas to getting the ball rolling in your business, non-profit organization... and dare I stretch to say your personal affairs. Knowing what to do, by itself is not enough... in businesses, churches or homes.
Application of this book's guidelines will make all of your other books, training, consulting, and manpower pay off. The tendency to just 'intellectualize' this information will be offset by your exposure to the real reasons knowledge hasn't lead to action in your experience. At least, that is the goal!
Five Stars
Packed with Knowledge!.......2005-06-20
Comedian Bill Cosby once sang a metaphorical ditty about a man who sat on the railroad tracks each day, only to be hit by a train. He knew when the train was coming, but he just couldn't apply that knowledge to get out of the way. That circumstance will sound hauntingly familiar to corporate consultants. Consider the experience of two consultants conducting deregulation research for a Latin American utility company. They stumbled over an excellent 500-page report completed years previously by a prior consultant. The document had all the information and analysis the company was seeking, but it had never been utilized. Authors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton expose the alarming gap between what senior managers know and what they actually implement. After four years of intensive research into this issue, they uncover valuable lessons on how to make sure your organization doesn't talk itself to death. Today's companies are struggling to overcome inertia and become more nimble. That's why we strongly recommend this book for managers at every level; if nothing else, you'll know what you ought to be doing.
Knowledge alone is a watseful Investment .......2004-10-10
The only book on the very important subject I know off. The authors share their views on the their a well researched topic.
The key issues in Knowing Doing gap are 1. Top management 2. The culture 3. Aura of being knowledgable 4. Focus on sounding great with less emphasis on performance 5. Faulty Measurements 6. Fear.
They also cite exeample of companies that have less of this gap by focussing on simplicity, communcation that is imlementation oriented, simple plans that work rather than complex issues such as balance score cards. They indirectly bring out the fact that Top management gap in understanding of the ground realities, has a direct bearing on knowing doing gap.
Going by their own emphasis to help readers in reducing the knowing doing gap, they could have reduced the descriptive nature of the book. They could have inserted an overview chart, showing the various symptoms of knowing doing gap in one column, ccauses, remedies, good co examples in another column. Subsequesnt revisions of this book may consider this feedback.
Book Description
“We need a new theory of management. The assumptions built into business today are not accurate.”-Peter Drucker
For sixteen months before his death, Elizabeth Haas Edersheim was given unprecedented access to Peter Drucker, widely regarded as the father of modern management. At Drucker's request, Edersheim, a respected management thinker in her own right, spoke with him about the development of modern business throughout his life-and how it continues to grow and change at an ever-increasing rate.
The Definitive Drucker captures his visionary management concepts, applies them to the key business risks and opportunities of the coming decades, and imparts Drucker's views on current business practices, economic changes, and trends-many of which he first predicted decades ago. It also sheds light onto issues such as why so many leaders fail, the fragility of our economic systems, and the new role of the CEO. Drucker's insights are divided into five main themes that the modern organization needs to, as Drucker would say, “create tomorrow” by
- Connecting with customers
- Innovating without abandoning what works
- Developing lasting partnerships
- Creating and retaining knowledge workers
- Establishing disciplined decision making
Drucker's penetrating questions, posed to those seeking his advice, helped business, corporate, and political leaders throughout the 20th century to see their work in a new perspective, and create phenomenal innovation. Edersheim's extensive interviews with some of these luminaries, including Warren Bennis, Ram Charan, Bill Gates, George Gallup, Jr. and A.G. Lafley offer compelling commentary on Drucker's vast influence.
Delivering keen analysis and revealing insights into business, The Definitive Drucker is a celebration of this extraordinary man and his life's work, as well as a unique opportunity to learn from Drucker's final business lessons how to strategize, compete, and triumph in any market.
Customer Reviews:
A story of the interview process.......2007-09-22
I enjoyed this book. The author shared her experience of going to Peter Drucker's home over a period of time to interview him and recounts having to contend with Peter's wife and the 2 hour limitations on his time thru her. The book presents his theories of business management and real life examples how companies employed them and where certain com[anies did not employ them.
Very good reading.......2007-08-09
I enjoy reading this book. It's a very useful abstract about the most important Drucker management ideas. I strongly recommend it.
Drucker as For-Profit Management Expert and Consultant for Large Companies with Newer Examples .......2007-05-28
I had the good fortune to spend one to three days a year with Peter Drucker from 1992-1999: He consulted with Carol Coles and me in developing research and consulting services for lowering the cost of capital, launching the 400 Year Project to accelerate global progress by 20 times during 2015 through 2035, and in writing about what the next generations of leadership best practices would be like. You can get a glimpse of that connection in Jack Beatty's book, The World According to Peter Drucker. I also will be writing more about Peter's ideas on and contributions to these subjects in the forthcoming book, Adventures of an Optimist.
I once asked Peter how he would guard his intellectual legacy after his death. He confidently replied that he had a very good plan and that all would be well. Having seen that this book was published after his death under the title, The Definitive Drucker, I'm not so sure he was right about protecting his intellectual legacy.
For the record, this book is not the definitive book on Peter Drucker. Why?
1. The book is almost totally devoted to his ideas about for-profit management as pursued by very large companies.
2. There is virtually no mention of his ideas about society in general.
3. His work on how to be effective executive is incompletely shared.
4. Dr. Haas Edersheim deliberately ignores the roots of Drucker's concepts as described in Adventures of a Bystander, which I believe is essential context for appreciating his observations.
5. The manner by which his nonprofit consulting experiences helped him formulate his for-profit ideas is ignored.
6. Almost all of my favorite anecdotes based on what Peter said to me about the companies described in this book are left out. Here's an example of the insights those anecdotes provide: Can anyone appreciate Drucker's tendency to revise his opinions to claim that he was the first to notice something without knowing that he insisted that I take most of my Dell examples out of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise because he was concerned that Dell wouldn't continue to prosper after 1999?
7. The full scope of his thoughts about for-profit management is ignored. For instance, his many questions and ideas about capital markets are mostly missing . . . except as they arise in the DLJ example of how he encouraged the founders to go public in the 1970s.
There is one excellent element about this book that makes it well worth reading: If you renamed this book, The Definitive Drucker as Consultant, you wouldn't be far off the mark. His consulting practice was mostly invisible to those who weren't his clients, but his approach is one that most consultants could learn much from. I was very impressed by the way that Dr. Haas Edersheim's interviews and writings captured the essence of Peter Drucker in a one-on-one situation. Although some of the earlier books about Peter addressed this topic, none did so as thoroughly and as well as this book.
Most business leaders today have read relatively little of Peter Drucker's writings. But most have read some of the so-called original management theories that are little more than a rephrasing of Peter's original designs while not acknowledging Peter's work at all. Where Peter always tried to pick the best example for a point he had to make, most business authors seem to be only able to write about recent examples that they have experienced. And many business book readers prefer it that way. Dr. Haas Edersheim's book fits that mold very well. She develops themes from some of Peter's long-time, large-company clients (like GM and GE), adds some of her own clients, and finds a few other examples that seem to fit what Peter has to say. For those who want to see some of Peter's work dressed up with more recent examples, this book is probably the best resource.
Even though English was a learned language for Peter, he wrote English like a talented, native-speaking novelist. Where Peter is quoted in the book, the beautiful language shines. Dr. Haas Edersheim, by comparison, writes like an academic/consultant and the experience is not always pleasant. She likes to force ideas into her metaphors (something Peter would never do), display lots of grids (something Peter couldn't imagine anyone wanting to do), and ramble on endlessly about things that could be stated quite simply (something Peter would use his ruthless self-editing to avoid).
Interestingly, Peter always told me that the impact of his books was quite minor compared to the effect of his essays in The Wall Street Journal and other mass media. Why? Lots of people read well-constructed essays in the mass media and few read more than a few pages in any business book. He also doubted if very much in the Harvard Business Review was really read and understood. I was shocked to see how little this book relied on his essays. Hopefully, someone will realize that those essays are the essential kernel of his influence and write about them in the future.
Dr. Haas Edersheim obviously is drawn to strategic questions and Peter, of course, founded the field of strategy for organizations. If that's your interest, you'll find this book to be quite solid.
Great Drucker as always, differently written........2007-05-23
I love two opposite characters of Guru of Management, Tom Peters and Drucker, both are absolute dream management gurus. Personally I am more inclined to Tom. But I started to read and re read Drucker as my management readings get more "mature".
This book is not written by Drucker, but made out of months of interviews with Drucker and other people. This book is ABOUT Drucker and his thinking as interpreted by Elizabenth.
It is easy to follow, alive and well narrated, and will be more interesting and insightful if you know who is who the writer interviewed and talked to.
The insights articulated is deep and profound, even that it often repeat what has been said in previour Drucker's books. If you have any interest in Drucker (that will be a lot of "you" there) this book will delight. I think this is the "Management Biography" that Drucker wanted to be remembered.
Needs Restructuring and Updating.......2007-05-22
A silent revolution has taken place in business since the early 1990's - instant information flow, an exploding geographic reach of companies and customers, basic demographic assumptions have been upended (aging population), and walls defining "inside" and "outside" the corporation have fallen. All important insights. However, Drucker goes on to assert that the latest transformation is from an industrial society to a knowledge society - completely missing the revolutionary focus on dramatically lowering costs by outsourcing jobs to China and India, INCLUDING knowledge jobs!
Drucker then goes on to conclude that "companies aren't selling products; they're selling experience" such as dining out. Again, Drucker is right on, but misses the fact that the effect of outsourcing is to steadily move Americans DOWN the Maslow hierarchy of wants, where experiental wants are much less predominant.
Reading further, one sees that Drucker misses this key point a third time, claiming that "the U.S. economic engine is facing the gravest threat of the past 100 years: the need for corporations to be strategic collaborators rather than unilateral superstars." Reality - American corporations and its citizens are much more threatened by Asian powerhouses and illegal immigrants who remit billions to Mexico.
Drucker is rightly credited with emphasizing a focus on customers, as well as identifying those who are NOT targeted customers. However, as Clayton Christensen has demonstrated, even a focus on customers can be overdone and wreak havoc on a corporation. Nonetheless, Drucker's "If you weren't in this business today, would you invest the resources to enter it?" remains another stellar contribution.
Clearly Drucker has contributed much to management thought; however, one must be careful to not just read Drucker - the Toyota Production System, Hammer (re-engineering), Jack Welch, Clayton Christensen, Lou Gerstner, and others are also very important. "The Definitive Drucker" would also significantly benefit by restructuring it into a format more easily followed and assimilated.
Average customer rating:
- Amazing book for information design
- An Obsolete Glance At A Classic Problem
- one of three or four
- A wonderful book!
- An outstanding addition to my library
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Envisioning Information
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ASIN: 0961392118 |
Amazon.com
A remarkable range of examples for the idea of visual thinking, with beautifully printed pages. A real treat for all who reason and learn by means of images. -- Rudolf Arnheim
Customer Reviews:
Amazing book for information design.......2007-07-15
I am the type of person who dabbles in all kinds of design, and I think of the ideal designer as one who knows a little about everything. Designers design ways of output, whether it be lemon juice from a lemon or ways to fit all vital components in a laptop in the most efficient way. This book is about the output of information from our multidimensional world to the flat paper space, and he does it brilliantly.
It's even worth mentioning the book itself as a good piece of design. All the images are vivid, the pages feel crisp and durable, even the color of the pages I bet was an attention of detail (it's slightly offwhite, but in an extremely good way). It's like good ol' fashioned timeless design.
He covers the subject wide and far, dips into everything from visual illusions to hardcore information displays. Sometimes you wonder where the heck he gets all these wonderful images, they span from the stoneage till today and show the vast variety of ways to display information, both simple and complex.
It is a beautiful book and an absolute must for people interested in the design of information. Actually, I'd say it's a must for anyone interested in information at all, be it for powerpoint or for magazine layout. This will be one of the most intelligent books on my shelf.
An Obsolete Glance At A Classic Problem.......2007-06-28
This is a short book, 126 pages. An interesting cursory exploration of the subject. However, it feels like it predates information technology (1990 predates the web by 5 years), and seems to have more in common with how to communicate elements of a hand-drawn map atlas if you were living in the 1700s than it has with using Adobe Illustrator to convey an idea for the web. I bought this book to see if it would help me as a web developer, and instead when it arrived I realized I got a weird coffee table book that feels like it was written in the 1960s, at the latest, to summarize that you can use different icons or pictographs of small size to communicate important ideas without words. (Sorry, I already gave away the story of the book.)
I know this review isn't going to get very popular marks, but, put simply, this book is probably good for professional or student pure designers, but it's useless for me. I honestly don't think the book targets web designers, but somebody here reviewed that it was "great" for web designers, so because of that remark I bought it. Sorry, but I don't see the applicability. But then, I only skimmed over the book before I put it back on Amazon Marketplace.
While one should normally never judge a book by its cover, in this case I think you should.
one of three or four.......2007-01-10
this is part of a series from tufte. he uses examples to describe techniques of visualization. if you do presentations to others or write reports that present complex data, several of his books should be in your library.
A wonderful book!.......2006-11-04
No designer should be without this book. I especially enjoy the historical accounts of information design. Of course hind sight is 20/20 so his redesigns seem obvious from our perspective.
An outstanding addition to my library.......2006-06-23
An outstanding addition to my library, Edward systematically explores the presentation of data showing the value of data rich content when it is properly displayed. After reading half the book, I couldn't sit through a presentation without coming up with at least 3 ways to improve it. The illustrations in the book are beautifully rendered and cover a diverse set of subject matter each as interesting as the next. The only topic concerning this book that I struggled with is whether or not to mark it up. In the end, as I do with all of my books I intend to refer back to, I did.
Book Description
How have Japanese companies become world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries, among others? What is the secret of their success? Two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, are the first to tie the success of Japanese companies to their ability to create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. In The Knowledge-Creating Company, Nonaka and Takeuchi provide an inside look at how Japanese companies go about creating this new knowledge organizationally. The authors point out that there are two types of knowledge: explicit knowledge, contained in manuals and procedures, and tacit knowledge, learned only by experience, and communicated only indirectly, through metaphor and analogy. U.S. managers focus on explicit knowledge. The Japanese, on the other hand, focus on tacit knowledge. And this, the authors argue, is the key to their success--the Japanese have learned how to transform tacit into explicit knowledge. To explain how this is done--and illuminate Japanese business practices as they do so--the authors range from Greek philosophy to Zen Buddhism, from classical economists to modern management gurus, illustrating the theory of organizational knowledge creation with case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, Nissan, 3M, GE, and even the U.S. Marines. For instance, using Matsushita's development of the Home Bakery (the world's first fully automated bread-baking machine for home use), they show how tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge: when the designers couldn't perfect the dough kneading mechanism, a software programmer apprenticed herself with the master baker at Osaka International Hotel, gained a tacit understanding of kneading, and then conveyed this information to the engineers. In addition, the authors show that, to create knowledge, the best management style is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather what they call "middle-up-down," in which the middle managers form a bridge between the ideals of top management and the chaotic realities of the frontline. As we make the turn into the 21st century, a new society is emerging. Peter Drucker calls it the "knowledge society," one that is drastically different from the "industrial society," and one in which acquiring and applying knowledge will become key competitive factors. Nonaka and Takeuchi go a step further, arguing that creating knowledge will become the key to sustaining a competitive advantage in the future. Because the competitive environment and customer preferences changes constantly, knowledge perishes quickly. With The Knowledge-Creating Company, managers have at their fingertips years of insight from Japanese firms that reveal how to create knowledge continuously, and how to exploit it to make successful new products, services, and systems.
Download Description
Manufacturers around the world have learned much from Japanese manufacturing techniques. However, any company that wants to compete on knowledge must also learn from Japanese techniques of knowledge-creation. Managers at Japan's most successful companies recognize that creating knowledge is not simply a matter of processing objective information. Rather, it depends on tapping the tacit and often highly subjective insights, intuitions, and ideals of employees.
Customer Reviews:
Not even worth one star.......2005-11-21
I was very disappointed by this book. Not only was it painful to read, because it dragged on and was full of academic nonsense, the authors views were also unconvincing and based on old research.
This book is outdated and not relevant to the way Japan is today. The authors use a lot of research and examples from the 80s and even the 70s. They make the claim that Japanese firms experienced a lot of success in the late 70s and 80s because of their superior ability to "create knowledge." They seem to be in complete denial that Japan's economic bubble had anything to do with this "success" that they are talking about. Also, the book was written over 10 years ago, before the financial crisis and before people realized that a lot of this so-called success was just cooked in the books by accountants.
They do give some reasonable examples of knowledge creating firms that are successful, but that's all they are, just a few examples and not an accurate representation of the whole picture of Japanese Management. Also, most of the examples are of Japanese manufacturing firms. What about the service sector? Suspiciously they did not use examples of companies from Japan's service sector, which are extremely inefficient and not the text book perfect examples of successful "knowledge creating" firms.
The theories and models in this book are a bunch of overly abstract vague pretentious academic nonsense. The real life examples are so nebulously related to the theories and models that most successful (or unsuccessful) companies can be used as examples.
If you want to read a bunch of nonsense based on old research with the names of Harvard professors and some philosophy thrown in to make the nonsense seem legit and intelligent, then by all means, read this book. But if you are like me and want to learn about Japanese management, don't waste your time or money on this book.
BEWARE! Digital version is only a 10 page summary!.......2004-03-16
Don't get caught like I did.
From information-processing machine to knowledge-creating co.......2002-08-28
This book is the classic in the organizational learning approach. But it¡¯s more than that. This book is not about lean production or Japanese kaizen system, but about how to enhance a firm¡¯s adaptability to turbulent environment through knowledge creation. with suggesting new concept of knowledge-creation as the tangible base of organizational capabilities or innovation, this book serves as the bridge between organizational learning school and resource-capabilities view.
As the being to survive in environment, the firm processes signals or information from environment. Knowledge is the framework to process info to interpret the state of environment. Up to 1980s, the company was viewed as information-processing machine. Indeed, firm is the flow of information. That kind of view has been justified against the business reality. Actually, it¡¯s the very picture of bureaucratic organization which culminated in GM¡¯s M-form model. Here, CEO like Jack Welch is the hero. Such an organization is effective when the environment is stable and predictable. But since 1970s, things have changed. Uncertainties have been amplified with the hypercompetition on global scale. Now the framework to interpret the signal from environment, itself should incessantly and systemically be adapted to turbulent reality. Knowledge and innovation have come the words of the day. Not surprisingly, there has been growing dissatisfaction with traditional organizational structure. Kao¡¯s CEO, Maruta put it in this way: ¡®The intelligence of a firm does not come from the president nor top management. That must come from the gathering of all knowledge of all members.¡¯ This book is about to how to build organization as the effective innovation site. To do so, all the available knowledge in and out of company should be able to be mobilized and freely flow throughout the firm. For instance, front line employees are constantly in direct touch with the outside world. They can obtain access to the up-to-date info on the market, technology, or competitors. But their knowledge is, in most cases, not able to be expressed in explicit way. Generally, it¡¯s the tacit knowledge. But to survive more and more intensified competition, the firm should be apt to mobilizing their tacit knowledge. To achieve such a goal, task force or bottom-up organizational model emerged. In those model, the creative knowledge worker, in Peter Drucker¡¯s term, is the hero. But in those models, knowledge tends to be confined to narrow front line, and comes and goes with creative employees. And worse, the firm can¡¯t react as an efficient unit to threats from environment. As a result, innovation is the haphazard event. So there should be some integrating mechanism like hierarchy. To be efficient unit, knowledge should flow all over the company. Here, authors rediscover the significance of middle managers. They play the role of midwife and amplifier of knowledge from front line employees and between various divisions in the firm. They coordinate the flow of knowledge and maintain the firm as a coherent knowledge-creating unit. In short, the firm should be organized as the melting pot of member¡¯s knowledge. Authors take examples from Japanese firms to illustrate what¡¯s like such a site.
A look at knowledge creation.......2001-11-26
I came to this book through a reference in Novak & Gowin. What caught my eye was that someone was willing to talk about an epistemological stance other than the analytic, reductionist view held in science. For the most part, I found this book's understanding of Western epistemology to be reasonable; I can't speak for the Japanese epsitemology cited. What interested me, and for which I recommend the book, is their view of knowledge creation. The case studies lend weight to their view, but they do explicate a possible model for turning subjective knowledge into explicit knowledge. They suggest a management model for making it happen. The book is very well written and edited.
I believe the book needs a very careful read *outside* the business community. I would put this book down as the business version of Feynman's *The Character of Natural Law*.
An essential book on knowledge management.......2001-09-28
This is perhaps one of the most important books presently available on knowledge management. The authors demonstrate how 'knowledge' is vital to innovation within Japanese firms, with clear distinction made between 'tacit' and explicit' knowledge. An effort is made to distinguish the differences between Japanese and Western firms through an emphasis on the importance of 'tacit' knowledge and a 'middle-up-down' management process. Other than Chapter 2 (a review of philosophical background relating to epistemology which might put some readers off), this book has minimal jargons and complexities and would be an easy and enjoyable read even for non-academics. The arguments presented by the authors are well-illustrated with relevant industrial examples. Overall, this is a book that not only brings a new perspective to knowledge management but also raises questions for the ardent researchers who might ponder over its relevance to non-Japanese firms.
Book Description
Integrate IT with business strategy
Now updated and revised, this Third Edition of Managing and Using Information Systems by Pearlson and Saunders arms you with the insights and knowledge you need to become an active participant in information systems decisions. Taking a strategic approach to information systems, the authors show how to manage information as a resource and use information for competitive advantage.
This brief, yet complete, paperback provides a basic framework for understanding the relationships among business strategy, information systems, and organizational strategies. You'll learn how IT relates to organizational design and business strategy, how to recognize opportunities in the work environment, and how to apply current technologies in innovative ways.
New Features of the Third Edition
* New coverage of off-shoring
* New coverage of IT portfolio management
* Expanded coverage of management of security
* Expanded coverage of Supply Chain Management (SCM)
* Additional cases
Cases are available with Business Extra Select
Custom CoursePacks of cases and readings for each chapter are available via Wiley's Business Extra Select program. Go to www.wiley.com/college/bxs for more details.
Customer Reviews:
Managing and Using Information Systems.......2007-02-16
Book shipped extremely fast and was just as described. Thanks.
Adequate read for IT courses.......2007-01-20
I'm reading this in an MBA MIS course. I'm also an IT manager, so I have a little more experience and perception behind what I'm reading.
No IT book is real life. They're mostly theory. This one does a decent job of integrating theory with recent case studies. It would suffice as an adequate IT training book for anyone who may be managing IT or may encounter those working in the field.
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