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Creating a Trading Floor: The Project Manager's Guide to the Design, Construction and Launch of Trading Floors and Data Centers
Charles Smith
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Build the Best Data Center Facility for Your Business (Networking Technology)
ASIN: 0749448385 |
Book Description
The project manager's Bible to the design and implementation of ground-breaking trading floors
To stay competitive, trading floors require cutting-edge technology, a complex network that consists of everything from phone lines to data servers. This practical manual offers extensive, up-to-the-minute advice for all those involved in the planning, design and construction of trading floors and data centers in any of the world's major financial centers, from New York to Hong Kong. It covers timetables, sequential planning lists, financial regulations, corporate governance and data security. In addition, it includes lists of the vital questions to ask suppliers, contractors and clients. An invaluable reference for IT professionals and senior executives in the world's leading investment banks.
Book Description
Burgelman, Maidique, and Wheelwright have written the market leading text for a course in technology and innovation. This text covers the latest research by using a combination of text, readings, and cases. Based on reviewer response to a survey, the authors have updated many of the cases and instructors found outdated or lacking. As in the current edition, the book has a strong case foundation at Harvard and Stanford. Classic cases such as Claire McCloud have been kept, while newer cases such as Intel Corporation in 1999 have been added. There is also a strong set of readings from sources such as Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, and Sloan Management Review.
Customer Reviews:
Good.......2007-08-01
This is a textbook for my class. The information is chock full of case studies. The studies are written in a way that they are understandable and easy to follow, more of a story rather than a lecture. This is not a book that you read from cover to cover, but would instead refer to for a specific instance. It is dense and heavy but all told it is very acceptable as a text.
Comprehensive, but weird and boring.......2006-11-10
I bought this as a textbook for one of my classes. Overall, this is a decent book on strategic management of technology and innovation. I think some of the articles in the book are really good, but the book is very disorganized and hard to read. I would recommend it, but it seems that the editors should address major organization issues in the next addition.
very technical.......2006-02-24
The book was ok but it made for very difficult reading; it was very technical. I had to purchase it for class. Luckily I had a good professor who could break down the concepts more clearly. I would, however, suggest that Devry get an easier book to digest next time.
Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation.......2005-10-24
This book includes many good papers and many hi-tech business cases associated with technology and innovation management. Some of them are a little old but still useful to understand strategic management. If you have learned general management and marketing and want to get a view of the management of technology and innovation, this is worthwhile reading.
a useful collection of case studies and key papers.......2000-03-17
This book offers a large number of case studies from the areas of research and technology development in various industries. It covers most the important concepts of technology management such as "core competencies". It follows the traditional model employed in business schools: learning from others' experiences by means of case studies. Particularly relevant are the sections on "heavyweight teams".
Book Description
PRAISE FOR ACHIEVING BUSINESS VALUE FROM TECHNOLOGY
"Clearly, IT investments have never before played such a critical part in business growth. The book addresses the weakness existing in most management systems involving the lack of a systematic process to realize the economic benefits of the IT investment and provides a clear A-Z methodology for business to bridge this gap. This book is clearly written for all levels and backgrounds in business management and is a must-do for those whose business involves IT, is considering IT, or would like to significantly tailor IT investments for their economic advantage."
—Professor Richard P. Wool, University of Delaware, President and CEO, Cara Plastics Inc.
"Tony Murphy addresses the difficult question of the value of IT investments head on. He translates an elegant theory into effective practice. The case studies in the book effectively reinforce his key messages."
—Dr. Dermot Moynihan, Senior Vice President, World Wide Chemical Development, GlaxoSmithKline
"This book is the answer to most CIOs' need for a well-structured, pragmatic, and easily implemented set of tools and practices designed to answer the universal problem of managing and measuring IT's contribution to the business. Tony Murphy's unique blend of practical experience, industry best practice, and excellent communication skills provides the reader with a valuable-and highly readable-guide on how best to achieve that elusive objective of reliably realizing the business benefits of IT investments."
—Michael Rice, oup Director of IT, Kerry Group plc
"At Oxfam we are one year into a three-year IT strategy based on the principles Tony Murphy lays out in this book, and there is a real, positive difference in how IT is perceived, and in its real strategic position within the organization. If you have ever wondered just how you can gain strategic alignment for your IT function, and then how to make the practical link to IT investment for the organization, Tony has provided a framework that joins them both."
—Simon Jennings, Head of Information Systems, Oxfam GB
Customer Reviews:
Clear modern thinking about Business Value.......2002-10-18
Clearly written, this book debunks some myths and sets a modern path towards pursuit of business value. We need plain talking books that bridge the business/IT divide and tell it the way it is.
Great reading and immediately useful.
Well written, well organized, very practical.......2002-10-08
I was leary when I saw the words "practical guide" in the title as I find that the phrase is often far from the truth. I guess I was in a gambling mood because I took a shot and found that this is a rare case where the advice here is actually implementable. The book includes detailed case studies, very specific advice on appropriate measures or "pillars" as the author calls them of IT project value, and lists of sample questions and metrics for each pillar.
All in all this is a very useful book for justifying IT projects particularly in today's environment when your pal the CFO is squeezing every penny trying to get blood out.
Book Description
This book heralds a breakthrough that redefines competitive advantage for the next fifty years. Don't bridge the business-IT divide: Obliterate it! The book is the first authoritative analysis of how third-wave business process management (BPM) changes everything in business and what it portends. While the vision of process management is not new, existing theories and systems have not been able to cope with the reality of business processes --until now. This book describes a radical, simplifying shift in process thinking and technology that utterly transforms today's information systems and reduces the lag between management intent and execution.
A process-managed enterprise makes agile course corrections, embeds Six Sigma quality and reduces cumulative costs across the value chain. It pursues strategic initiatives with confidence, including mergers, consolidation, alliances, acquisitions, outsourcing and global expansion. Process management is the only way to achieve these objectives with transparency, management control and accountability. The process-managed enterprise grasps control of business processes and communicates with a universal process language that enables partners to execute on shared vision --to understand each other's operations in detail, jointly design processes and manage the entire lifecycle of their business improvement initiatives.
Process management is not another form of automation, a new killer-app or a fashionable new management theory. With the third-wave BPM breakthrough and its solid mathematical underpinnings, business processes can now be unhindered by the constraints of existing IT systems. Short on stories and long on insight and practical information, this book will help your business become the company of the future, the real-time enterprise, the fully digitized corporation --the process-managed enterprise. The book also offers continually updated information and a dialog with the authors at its Web site.
Customer Reviews:
This book shows the way.......2006-07-26
This book clearly outlines how process management has matured well beyond the reengineering phase and is blending with automation and quality management.
This book showed the way how Six Sigma is part of BPM and how BPM and SOA merge. It clearly relates technology and business opportunities. I be interested in an update, especially in relation to Peter Fingar's GREAT new book: Extreme Competition.
The Third Wave and Extreme Competition is a must read for every manager and MBA student.
THIS BOOK DOES NOT GET FULL STAR RATING AS IT LACKS CLEAR STEPS ON HOW TO MAKE THIS ACTUALLY HAPPEN
Business Process Management - The Third Wave.......2006-04-05
This book can be summed up quote from page 70 of the text: "long on talk and short on results." I was very disappointed with the investment of any money in this hyped book. The authors ramble on and on and give little but their long winded examples of what they think the third wave is. My advice is to read the introduction and don't waste your time with the rest of the book.
Get it, read it, buy it if ..........2005-07-27
you want to improve business processes.
History of business process management and beyond.......2005-05-19
I run a business in Maine, USA, and while I have no knowledge of BPM or workflow in a business context, this book helped me a great deal. I don't know if BPM is an important as the authors state, but it did present the past, present and future of a simple idea, improving business by improving business processes. I can well imagine new BPM and workflow systems helping enormously. But what I liked most of all was the explanations of how process has been a thread throughout business, from the 1920s to today, through the quality and reengineering movements. I heard about this book on the grapevine like a lot of management books. I run an operation, and don't have time for theory, but this book put a lot of what happens in my IT department into context. I like the idea of people being in charge of the processes that run on engines maintained by IT folks.
Ahead of its time.......2005-05-19
Its well known that people in business who tout business processes can come unstuck when they encounter people who don't believe in process improvement. I am a process improvement director in a fast moving consumer goods company. Process works. But I have an awful job convincing some of my colleagues. This book tells the story, and was way ahead of its time when first published. Now the case studies are coming in (as reported by Gartner et al) and anyone doubting this book is going to eat humble pie. BPM works.
Amazon.com
In this book about the darker side of technology's impact on our lives, Alan Cooper begins by explaining that unlike other devices throughout history, computers have a "meta function:" an unwanted, unforeseen option that users may accidentally invoke with what they thought was a normal keystroke. Cooper details many of these meta functions to explain his central thesis: programmers need to seriously reevaluate the many user-hostile concepts deeply embedded within the software development process.
Rather than provide users with a straightforward set of options, programmers often pile on the bells and whistles and ignore or deprioritize lingering bugs. For the average user, increased functionality is a great burden, adding to the recurrent chorus that plays, "computers are hard, mysterious, unwieldy things." (An average user, Cooper asserts, who doesn't think that way or who has memorized all the esoteric commands and now lords it over others, has simply been desensitized by too many years of badly designed software.)
Cooper's writing style is often overblown, with a pantheon of cutesy terminology (i.e., "dancing bearware") and insider back-patting. (When presenting software to Bill Gates, he reports that Gates replied: "How did you do that?" to which he writes, "I love stumping Bill!") More seriously, he is also unable to see beyond software development's importance--a sin he accuses programmers of throughout the book.
Even with that in mind, the central questions Cooper asks are too important to ignore: Are we making users happier? Are we improving the process by which they get work done? Are we making their work hours more effective? Cooper looks to programmers, business managers, and what he calls "interaction designers" to question current assumptions and mindsets. Plainly, he asserts that the goal of computer usage should be "not to make anyone feel stupid." Our distance from that goal reinforces the need to rethink entrenched priorities in software planning. --Jennifer Buckendorff
Book Description
The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, leading to products and processes that waste huge amounts of money, squander customer loyalty, and erode competitive advantage. They have let the inmates run the asylum. Alan Cooper offers a provocative, insightful and entertaining explanation of how talented people continuously design bad software-based products. More importantly, he uses his own work with companies big and small to show how to harness those talents to create products that will both thrill their users and grow the bottom line.
Download Description
Imagine, at a terrifyingly aggressive rate, everything you regularly use is being equipped with computer technology. Think about your phone, cameras, cars - everything - being automated and programmed by people who in their rush to accept the many benefits of the silicon chip, have abdicated their responsibility to make these products easy to use. The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, leading to products and processes that waste money, squander customer loyalty, and erode competitive advantage. Business executives have let the inmates run the asylum! In his book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum Alan Cooper calls for revolution - we need technology to work in the same way average people think - we need to restore the sanity. He offers a provocative, insightful and entertaining explanation of how talented people continuously design bad software-based products. More importantly, he uses his own work with companies big and small to show how to harness those talents to create products that will both thrill their users and grow the bottom line.
Customer Reviews:
No Cognitive Friction Here.. .......2007-06-12
Alan Cooper gives the reader insight into why so many of today's technological products frustrate and confuse users. Yet he goes past this to discuss a methodology for keeping it simple and designing for the user i.e. avoiding cognitive friction. This book has changed the way I will develop products and should be a must read for product managers of application developers. Just learning Mr. Cooper's vocabulary is worth the read. The ideas such as personas, keywords, and designing for an individual push the book way above average. This is an easy read that should be done in your spare time if you want to avoid cognitive friction with your users. It has changed the way I view technology and brought a new awareness to thoughtless technology implementation which often cause failure or misuse. The only reason I gave this book a 4 out of 5 as I feel it could have been reduced a little bit more, certain points I felt like the author was rambling about personal fustrations.
an essential handbook for designing software.......2007-06-11
Cooper's argument in this book is simple: you have to know your users, and you have to understand what they're trying to accomplish with your software. The method that he puts forth for achieving this understanding is personas, richly-described archetypical users.
The book is easy to read and understand. He begins with a detailed description of the problem with software design as carried about by programmers who can only imagine themselves as the users of their software, resulting in software that makes really difficult things possible but doesn't bother to make easy or common things quick and easy.
After making the argument that programmers shouldn't design interfaces and making the case both for usability and interaction design, he lays out the personas concept. Cooper's guidelines for creating personas and using them are well-written and well-thought-out. However, his examples of applying them to some of his own customers are rather repetitive, and sometimes come across as somewhat whiny.
Now that it's time for my group at Microsoft to revisit our personas and determine what needs to be tweaked for our next version, I decided that I should revisit the book that first advanced the idea. It has stood up well to the test of time (something that not many computer books can do). I highly recommend it, both to usability and design professionals, as well as programmers.
Great writing, very illustrative examples, definitely not a detailed how-to.......2007-05-13
The strength of this book its clear and easy-to-read writing. Cooper's examples are instructive and the theory of why design-centric business approaches are the most powerful. It's supposed to be a business-case book but I'm quite sure all programmers and even designers would find the read very worthwhile.
My only wish for the book would be that Chapter 10 onwards seemed to be the really exciting stuff, detailing the how more than the why of design-centric approaches. This part feels like a rushed summary in comparison the the attention paid to the why aspect in the rest of the book. You may want to consider Cooper's newly revised "how" book although it is mainly a designer's handbook: About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
I'm not done with that About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design but I'm starting to worry it's going to leave me wishing it had more specific methodologies as opposed to theories. Of course, it has much more methodological attention than The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) and there's no fault in what is written, only in what is omitted.
If you're really looking for the ultimate how-to, you might want to consider attending the four-day "Cooper U". Case in point: I had the chance to ask Alan Cooper where I could learn more about how to create the design documents he writes about in the last part of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) and he really couldn't say what books would be able to instruct that (including his own) and that it would be covered in his course.
this book changed my life.......2007-02-22
I was a well-paid systems administrator/help desk guy until I read this book. This book really did inspire me to change careers!
The book basically outlines why engineers (and people who think like engineers) are INCAPABLE of designing effective interfaces. It delves into specifics and supplies some great examples.
I am amused by some of the reviewers here who display the same sort of arrogant contempt that the book outlines. OF COURSE programming a VCR is easy for YOU--you're a person with an "engineer mind". My mom can't program a VCR at all, and that's not because she didn't try hard enough or read the instructions. She can't use it because everything about it's interface is counter-intuitive to someone who does not understand machine/code logic.
Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it doesn't stink. Just because it makes sense to you doesn't mean it can't be made better--to work intuitively for "regular" people. Buy this book. Read it. Demand more from your products. It's time to end the insanity.
Blown out of proportion.......2007-01-18
It's true that some products have poor interfaces, but in my experience this "problem" is blown way out of proportion with reality. The only people I know who couldn't figure out how to program their VCRs were people who did not try for more than 5 minutes. Read the instructions, both in the book and onscreen, and VCR programming is a snap, from the earliest models to today.
I think the real question should be: Why are so many users so lazy? This is more of a social problem than a technological one. Some think that if any effort is required to learn how to use a new device then it's poorly designed. Poppycock!
Book Description
Offshoring and outsourcing have generated substantial savings and often controversial news coverage for many companies. But these technologies aren’t even close to being the real story. Two of business’ leading strategy thinkers argue that the only sustainable advantage will come not from using technology to cut costs—but to get better faster than rivals. The authors identity two key forces—dynamic specialisation and productive friction that will dramatically reshape the competitive landscape and show what firms must do to understand, build and exploit these forces before their competitors do.
Customer Reviews:
Good introduction to some important global trends.......2006-12-01
I recently heard John Hagel present on this book. In the book John and his co-author John Seely Brown discuss how recent changes in the world will force, indeed are forcing, companies to change how they think about offshoring and outsourcing, innovation and even their core business processes. They describe how a combination of "Converging forces generate margin squeeze" where those forces are digital technology (driving down interaction costs) and public policy (deregulation, trade and market liberalization and globalization). These trends are certainly real and visibly changing our world as we watch. Not only can "Customers can access more information about more vendors, negotiate more effectively with still more vendors, and switch from one vendor to another whenever they find greater value" but companies have more options for how to piece together the resources they need to do business. These new conditions and options, though, require companies to change the way they plan, operate and turn a profit and it is these changes that the book mostly discusses. The authors argue that these trends and opportunities are actually changing what it means to be a company. Redefining the role of the firm from economizing on market transactions, the original raison d'etre of most companies, to one of accelerating knowledge and capability growth.
The book does a good job of showing how some companies are competing in ways that would be unimaginable just a few years ago and the authors lay out a compelling case that companies who do not respond to these new threats and opportunities are taking an enormous risk. Whether or not you believe the change will be as widespread as the book implies, the changes are real and will impact your business to at least some degree and this makes the book worth reading.
board implications for sustainable advantage........2006-02-19
John Hagel is a Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company. For two decades, John Seely Brown was Executive Director of the legendary Palo Alto Research Center. The authors argue that the only sustainable edge is to generate shareholder value through constant innovation. Current approaches to strategic thinking are inadequate to the task.
The book has one irritating quality and one large value for Board members.
This is a small booked packed with lots of ideas. I was distracted by the use of "new words" to describe old concepts. It is almost as though the authors are trying to invent a new vocabulary using concepts that could be best explained in plain English. Examples of this business psychobabble include "radical incrementalism," "performance fabrics," "process networks," and "productive friction." These are really not new concepts but they have invented new words. I want to read a business book that would help me improve my company's effectiveness. I didn't sign up to learn a new language.
The good news is that Boards and CEOs ought to carefully consider their matrixed approach to talking about strategy. They call this matrixed approach "dynamic specialization."
The current fad is to talk about business models organized along industry lines. The authors argue that industry focus is insufficient for a proper conversation about strategy. Within that industry-focused model, there needs to be a second strategic focus.
They see this new strategic focus along three dimensions:
Infrastructure Management. Financial services, pharmaceuticals, and the computer industry are already structured in significant ways along these lines. State Street Corporation is an example of a company that services the financial services industry but its value clearly revolves around infrastructure management. UPS revolves around infrastructure management of logistics. An infrastructure management theme works well for relatively routine, high volume business activities.
Product Innovation. Specialized biotech companies are taking on more of R&D activities so that large pharmaceutical companies can focus on scale intensive manufacturing and distribution. There are specialty design shops that serve the fashion industry. There are specialty semiconductor design shops that serve the electronics industry.
Customer Relationship. These firms concentrate on identifying target customer segments, getting to know that segment very well, and using its resources to mobilize third party products and services to address the needs of their customers. Physicians who practice general medicine, financial planners, real estate agents, and attorneys all provide this framework. Accenture is a company with this type of framework.
From a strategic perspective, most companies today like to say that they do all three types of services within their walls. But each approach requires different economics, different skills, and different cultures. When Boards accept the CEOs notion that all three models are appropriate in the strategic mix, the inevitable implication is sub optimization of one or all of these strategies.
This sub optimization increases company vulnerability to its more focused competitors.
Laurence J. Stybel
Boardoptions.com
lstybel@boardoptions.com
Difficult to read.......2006-01-22
The book is extremely poorly written. Very difficult to read. The ideas are not new. Don't buy it.
Good analysis but limited examples.......2005-11-14
Not being a specialist in business strategy I thought there was a lot of great material with excellent insights and analysis in this book, but I would have liked to see more examples or case studies that supported their views. I was suprised that after a slow start the sections on dynamic specialization and productive friction were brilliant and I think even surpass Clayton Christenson's anaylsis of the mechanisms of innovation inside corporate cultures.
In the early parts of the book, particularly the acknowledgements, it appeared that this might be another treatise on how great outsourcing is, but no matter where one stands on the issue it's established that it's a fact of life for corporate america and that the business strategy to leverage specialization outside your core competencies is going to determine future success. To take Paul Graham's analogy a bit further" "Companies are going to learn about outsourcing and specialization the same way a gene pool learns about new environmental conditions."
There's a lot of great insight to take away from The Sustainable Edge, though I wish there were more examples that illustrate their ideas.
Sharing a Macro Vision with Micro Precision...and Passion.......2005-09-08
Previously, I read and then reviewed three books co-authored by Hagel which I greatly admire. Specifically, Net Worth, Net Gain, and Out of the Box. In this most recently published volume, Hagel and Brown assert that effective business strategy "depends on productive friction and dynamic specialization." As I began to read this book, I was curious to observe how Hagel and Brown formulate and then present what they call a "compelling case [for reshaping] the business landscape -- where and how value and profit get created -- to create a scalable catalyst for broader institutional and policy changes."
For them, "edge" has several dimensions. "First, we mean the edge of the enterprise, where one company interfaces or interacts with another economic entity and where it currently generates marginal revenues rather than the core of its profits. Second, the edge refers to the boundaries of mature markets as well as industries, where they may overlap, collapse, or converge...[Third], geographic edges, especially those of such emerging economies as China and India, where consumers of all kinds crave Western goods and services that will ease their burdens and improve their lives. Finally, we refer to the edges between generations, where younger consumers and employees, shaped by pervasive information technology, are learning, consuming, and collaborating with each other and where baby boomers are preparing to retire or switch careers over the next decade."
Hagel and Brown explain how to build a sustainable competitive advantage by focusing on three broad strategic imperatives: dynamic specialization, connectivity and coordination, and leveraged capability building. Of special interest to me is what they have to say about process outsourcing and offshoring, loose coupling of extended business processes, and what they call "productive friction." Many of those who reads this book will derive substantial benefit from completing three "quick audits" (pages 26-29) because they will help those who comprise a senior management team to build a shared view of where their organization is. Only then can an appropriate strategy (or strategies) be formulated and then implemented to get that organization where it needs to be.
By the way, according to research which Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton provide in The Strategy-Focused Organization, only 5% of the workforce understand their company's strategy, only 25% of managers have incentives linked to strategy, 60% of organizations don't link budgets to strategy, and 85% of executive teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy. If true, these are chilling statistics which suggest that few decision-makers in any organization (regardless of its size or nature) would be able to answer, clearly and realistically, questions such as these when completing a migration path audit:
What have been the five most important operating initiatives -- based on resource commitments -- during the past twelve months?
How to characterize each of the five initiatives in terms of its efficiency, specialization, coordination of third-party resources, and accelerating capability building across enterprises?
Based on a calendar review of executive involvement, how much time was spent over the past twelve months discussing the four elements of each operating issue?
Approximately what were the resources committed to these four elements across the five operating initiatives?
When you next participate in a group discussion of strategic planning, ask questions such as these. The silence which follows will be almost deafening.
As indicated earlier in this brief commentary, when Hagel and Brown refer to "the only sustainable edge," they do so in terms of four separate but closely related dimensions. It is important to keep that in mind as you follow their narrative through seven chapters to the Epilogue. It is also helpful to remember that Hagel and Brown are intrigued by an often troublesome but irrevocable convergence as digital information technology expands both within the enterprise and beyond through global communication networks as public policy in diverse domains continues to shift and thereby intensify competition on a global scale.
When formulating new approaches to developing strategy, Hagel and Brown suggest, first build alignment on the long-term direction of the company. (They pose three excellent questions on page 160. Can you answer them?) "To sustain a meaningful longer-term direction, explicitly identify what you will not do as a business. Most companies will probably shed areas of activities for which other firms have developed world-class capabilities." Next, build alignment around near-term operating initiatives. (There are two more excellent questions on page 162.) Then identify and address major organizational barriers. Finally, create tight performance feedback loops. I think it would be a serious mistake to think that this recommended process is relevant only to larger organizations, especially those competing or at least operating on a global scale. The information and counsel they provide as well as the questions they pose will be of substantial value to decision-makers in any organization, whatever its size or nature.
In their Epilogue, they shift their (and the reader's) attention to still another of those questions which are so easy to ask but so difficult to answer: How to recast public policy to develop talent? The suggestions they offer are eminently sensible and best revealed within the context created for them. Of special interest to me is the fact Hagel and Brown seem to function so effectively on both the macro and micro levels. Although they provide an abundance of specifics throughout their brilliant book, they always have the so-called Big Picture in mind. This is especially evident in the remarks with which they conclude The Only Sustainable Edge:
"By focusing on talent development, policy makers can help individuals in their society more effectively realize their full potential. But the benefits extend far beyond this. Talent development, especially when situated in economic activity, can drive improved productivity and, in turn, enhance the standard of living in any society. Even more broadly, a focus on talent development helps attract highly motivated and creative people and provides them with the resources and time to develop a rich and evolving cultural and social environment. Talent development is an ongoing race, but those who lead the race will unleash passion and rewards that will make the race worth winning."
Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the works co-authored by Kaplan and Norton (especially The Strategy-Focused Organization) as well as Don Mankin and Susan G. Cohen's Business Without Boundaries: An Action Framework for Collaborating Across Time, Distance, Organization, and Culture, Robert Simons' Levers of Organization Design: How Managers Use Accountability Systems For Greater Performance and Commitment, and Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through The Wilds of Strategic Management co-authored by Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand, and Joseph Lampel.
Book Description
Knowledge Networks: Innovations Through Communities of Practice draws on the experience of people who have worked with CoPs in the real world and to present their combined wisdom in a form that is accessible to a wide audience. CoPs are examined from a practical, rather than a purely academic point of view. The book also examines the benefits that CoPs can bring to an organization, provides a number of case studies, lessons learned and sets of guidelines. It also looks at virtual CoPs and to the future by asking 'what next?' This book is a resource for all people who work with CoPs - both in academia and in the real world.
Customer Reviews:
A Rich crop...Well harvested..........2004-04-06
The management of knowledge is a diverse field of study and within the field new crops of ideas are constantly emerging. One of the most resource-rich crops is that of community of practice. Sometimes generic, often hybrid and capable of being genetically-modified they have vast potential in supporting knowledge ecologies.
The agricultural metaphor lends itself well to the nurturing of knowledge. Of course, this is not the first time it has been used nor will it be the last. My own particular interest in the metaphor is how it not only lends itself to communities of practice but also to the process of learning.
For the last three years, I have been involved in teaching a module entitled "Knowledge Management" to students Mastering in Information and Library Management at a University in the North East of England. During those three years, communities of practice have emerged as a significant tool in understanding the creation, capture and transfer of knowledge within and between organizations.
The method of teaching involves lectures (theory-based) and seminars (case study-based) with the use of specific tasks to link the two areas.
This collection of papers is, perhaps, the single most useful text to emerge for teaching the concept of communities of practice, how they relate to managing knowledge within organizations and how they are cultivated and developed. It is abundant in well-researched and relevant commentary, which avoids the jargon of other works. The case studies are particularly useful to information management students trying to understand the relationship between information and knowledge management.
Congratulations to the editors for their conceptualization of the structure and identification of appropriate areas of content and to the individual authors for the quality of their contributions.
Average customer rating:
- Verbose, dull, and utterly uninspiring
- The Big Picture on Management of Technology
- Too simple and too much introductory -not for grad student
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Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change
Frederick Betz
Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Competing on the Edge : Strategy as Structured Chaos
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Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation
ASIN: 0471225630 |
Book Description
Management of technology (MOT) is the crossroads at which technological strategy meets business strategy to create new business opportunities. Managing Technological Innovation introduces technology management and illustrates the importance of managing information technologies, as well as how MOT is carried out with today’s physical, biological, and information technologies. New material for this edition examines the ethical side of technology to address advances made in biotechnology and human genome research.
Customer Reviews:
Verbose, dull, and utterly uninspiring.......2004-04-06
This textbook was a requirement for a graduate-level course taught by (guess who?) Dr. Betz. I had read the entire book before the class even started (thank god for coffee), and I re-read every chapter as the semester progressed. I received an 'A' on every assignment, which is good, considering that I was bored out of my mind with the material. The book has a few interesting anecdotes, and a lot of page-filler anecdotes. It is more concerned with scientifically correct vocabulary than giving context to concept in plain English (e.g. endless ranting about physical morphologies, schematic logic, and different flavors of paradigms -- YAAAWN). Overall, this forgettable piece of work is reflective of an uninspiring academic.
The Big Picture on Management of Technology.......2003-03-26
Betz's book qualifies as a "seminal work" on the subject of the Management of Technology. The book is concise and well-written.
It gives the needed historical perspective on technology issues.
To give you an idea of the scope and clarity of Betz's vision I note that he aptly summarizes the technological history of the world in a few paragraphs of his introduction. These most pithy sentences present a Big Picture that will serve as the backdrop to his cogent exploration of contemporary management of technology issues (a sample):
"The gun ended the ancient dominance of the feudal warrior, and the printing press secularized knowledge. The combination of the rise of the mercantile class and the secularization of knowledge are hallmarks of modern societies."
Betz brings together a lot of good research and presents it in a concise and stimulating format. He doesn't present the research as if the thinking had already been done. He ends each chapter with some questions for reflection.
Having written myself on the subject of intellectual property law [in the International Media Encyclopedia Academic Press 2002, 2003], I was amazed to find illuminating case studies on the subject that I had overlooked. For example, Betz explains that the drug Penacillin was not developed commercially until WWII because companies did not want to undertake development costs without a patent.
I highly recommend Betz's book both for Managers of Technology and for classroom use in Undergraduate and Graduate Business schools and perhaps even in Econ departments. While not an economics textbook it serves as a good introduction to technology issues for economists as well. Economists of course need to read the original papers by Schumpeter and Kondratieff, Sah and Stiglitz, but they will find important clues to the significance of those works here. I recommend the reader follow up this book by reading Hal Varian's Internet Economics or Paula Samuelson's publications on Intellectual Property along with Eric Reymond's
The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
I find the book's case studies well written and very thought provoking. I literally couldn't put the book down. At the first reading I skipped the main text to read the case studies on Apple, RCA and Ford.
Too simple and too much introductory -not for grad student.......1999-05-31
This book is too simple to use as a textbook. It's a nice book for undergrad class in business school or introductory class of management in engineering fields. Again, this is not the book that can be used as a textbook at all. Too simple and spend half book just for "roughly talking". Reader can found more reviews in "Interfaces, Vol.29, (2), 1999", in Book review section. The economic of technology is the more important is ignored in this book. Not recommend.
Amazon.com
"Metanational" is the term that Jose Santos, Peter Williamson, and Yves L. Doz--management and technology professors at the international INSEAD graduate school of business--coined to describe a new type of global corporation. It refers, they explain in From Global to Metanational, to "a company that builds a new kind of competitive advantage by discovering, accessing, mobilizing, and leveraging knowledge from many locations around the world." And as they unveil and dissect the concept, it becomes apparent that it may indeed be an apt description for those worldwide enterprises most likely to succeed in our rapidly changing times. Based on interviews with 36 companies from America, Asia, and Europe (including long-established firms like 3M and Toyota and newcomers like Acer and Shiseido), the authors describe innovative ways to efficiently tap into "pockets of technology, market intelligence and ... specialist knowledge scattered around the world," rather than relying solely on input from a home nation or a few select locales. They explore how trailblazers are identifying this information wherever they find it, parlaying it into new products, services and processes, and merging the result with all sales, distribution, and marketing efforts. Anyone involved in multinational business should find this both provocative and potentially useful. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
Becoming a global company once meant penetrating markets around the world. But the demands of the knowledge economy are turning this strategy on its head. Today, the challenge is to innovate by learning from the world .
This book provides a blueprint for companies ready to embrace this new globalization challenge. In
From Global to Metanational , international business and strategy experts Yves Doz, José Santos, and Peter Williamson introduce a radically different kind of company-the metanational-defined by three core capabilities: being the first to identify and capture new knowledge emerging all over the world; mobilizing this globally scattered knowledge to out-innovate competitors; and turning this innovation into value by producing, marketing, and delivering efficiently on a global scale.
The authors explain why traditional global strategies are no longer sufficient to differentiate leading competitors, what the knowledge economy means for managers, and why opportunities to leverage globally dispersed knowledge are growing. Most important, they outline exactly how managers can build a metanational advantage for their own organizations by:
* Prospecting for and accessing untapped pockets of technology and emerging consumer trends from around the world
* Leveraging knowledge imprisoned in a multinational's local subsidiaries
* Mobilizing this fragmented knowledge to generate innovations, profits, and shareholder value
Drawing from the experiences of pioneering metanationals including STMicroelectronics, ARM, Acer, Nokia, Shiseido, and PolyGram, the book shows how today's multinationals can use their existing global networks to gain an important head start in the global game-and how newcomers can leapfrog traditional competitors by rapidly building a new-style metanational corporation.
Must-reading for every leader-from the CEO of a new global venture, to the executive of a currently successful multinational, to the founder of an e-business startup getting ready to "go global"-this pathbreaking book shows how to reshape strategies to compete and win in the global knowledge economy.
AUTHORBIO: Yves Doz is Timken Professor of Global Technology and Innovation at INSEAD. José Santos is Professor of International Management at INSEAD. Peter Williamson is Professor of International Management and Asian Business at INSEAD's Euro-Asia Centre.[EBK1]
Customer Reviews:
The new small world.......2003-02-10
I was delighted to grab a better understanding on global competitiveness and the new productive opportunities provided by the Metanationals.
You don't know about it yet?? God, your business is under great danger...
Finding knowledge in unlikely places.......2002-09-26
What does a large company need to concentrate on for sustained success in a globalized world? Doz and his colleagues claim that it is to become metanational and to become good at innovating from a platform of bringing together knowledge from many different parts of the world. Metanationals differ from globalized companies in that they recognise that new ideas, products or directions may originate somewhere other than the corporate centre.
The focus of the authors is on innovation and they argue that this requires that the organization becomes good at :
* identifying where good ideas and special competencies are;
* mobilizing the often scattered capabilities and opportunities (they use the term 'becoming a magnet' for such capabilities); and
* optimising the size and configuration of operations for efficiency, flexibility and financial discipline.
This is a book that makes an important point about success in a globalized world, but presents one factor in success as if it was the whole. As with a number of books, I had an uncomfortable feeling that the content of a very good article was expanded into an only moderately good book.
The core message is important and useful. Organizations that operate on a global scale need to move beyond the extension of a unitary culture into new localities and recognise that new knowledge is found in unlikely places. They need to become excellent at recognising that knowledge, becoming an attractor for it, mobilizing it to provide a superior stream of innovations and operationalizing production, distribution and marketing into diverse markets.
The weakness is that the book is written at a fairly high conceptual level - for all the detailed example - that fails to get to grips with how to manage multiple cultures or the detail of innovation, or the issues of governance across countries. It also has surprisingly little on the major changes that are occurring in world consumer markets.
The book also falls into the 'one size fits all' trap. Issues of being effective globally are very different for a consumer fashion business, a high tech product or service industry and a major commodity business, but this is not recognised explicitly in the book.
Must reading for international business.......2002-07-23
This is one of the most refreshing books about managing multinationals that I have read. It goes one step beyond the idea of a transnational, proposing a new model of how a company can succeed by prospecting the world for new knowledge about technologies and customer behaviour and using this to innovate. It won't be easy to implement, but the last three chapters provide a good starting point about how to make it happen. I was convinced that if we didn't try and build a metanational we would simply be left behind.
Nostalgia for Globalization.......2002-05-20
The first two chapters tell you the picture and that is it. The kernel is summarized in a table at page 83 (end of chapter 3). Make a copy of this page, file it for later reference, and you are done. At best, this book reviews the vaunted wisdom of globalization, which many companies have been living at and dealing for years. At worst, it recites the squabbles between the global platform (the standardization) and regional initiatives (the deviations and the sensing ends). No specific solution or action is advised for the first & most obvious problem - how to transcend the intracompany transaction, which more than often bogs down companies attempting to quickly profit from the global learning.
Average customer rating:
- Great management book
- Great book on Management!
- If Humphrey was my manager I'd quit
- Not what I expected from a great man like Humphrey
- Really perceptive book
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Managing Technical People : Innovation, Teamwork, and the Software Process (SEI Series in Software Engineering)
Watts S. Humphrey
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0201545977 |
Amazon.com
Written for project leaders and managers, Managing Technical People delivers advice on how best to deal with the particulars of leading talented, technically minded people through project cycles. Author Watts Humphrey explains his methods for becoming a better project leader, recognizing and recruiting talented people for the right job, and effectively managing those people through the software product cycle. Most of his points are illustrated with anecdotes, tables, and charts, and there are plenty of the requisite multistep methods for improving specific problems.
Customer Reviews:
Great management book.......2002-02-22
This is a great book for someone who's looking for cases and practical ideas. It doesn't give any numerical analyses or "magical" formulas. It's a guide for project managers and how to manage different people with different skills and professional perspectives.
Great book on Management!.......2002-02-18
This book is a great book for anyone who currently manages and wants to understand how to get the most out of his team. It has plenty of great suggestions to improve people-development as well as process-development. But more important than the suggestions, this book explains why and how certain courses of action succeed while others fail.
Too often technical people are promoted into management with no training. One cannot learn how to manage by merely performing technical tasks. One can learn by reading books like this one.
If Humphrey was my manager I'd quit.......2001-07-21
Some of what he writes is correct, some of it is malarky. I read the entire book hoping he reveal some valuable information. Nope. Worse, in that his methods destroy morale. He seems to think that being a tyrant is the way to get a project done. Ive seen plenty of tyrants fail. Dont waste your time. Try reading Steve McConnel and Tom Demarco instead. (Peopleware and Rapid development)
Not what I expected from a great man like Humphrey.......2000-03-07
This book was not what I expected. Humphrey uses mostly anecdotal examples to illustrate his many points. Though this helps get his points across, it does not really prove his assertions.
Most of his advice is not practical, or even possible in the employment situations I've seen (and heard about) over the last ten years or so. I found a few interesting parts, much like I would find it interesting to listen to the tales of any old-timer about the `good old days', and some of his insights about people in general are quite keen.
Some parts really hurt my will to read on. For example, he seems to believe that if a manager can get his team members to work lots of overtime, that higher productivity will automatically follow. Someone who has written books about the use of careful measurements during software development should know better. The evidence I've seen and read (in other books) indicates that regular overtime is a `bad smell' of deeper problems, and a perfect recipe for low quality and ultimately failed projects.
He even claims that the manager's job is to put schedule pressure on the engineers, otherwise they'll take forever and never get anything done. Again, he includes a little anecdotal example. However, with very few exceptions all of the engineers I've worked with hold themselves to certain standards of quality and productivity. Usually management pressure (especially the old time-crunch game) just hurts more than it helps.
Overall, much of his advice doesn't fit with the reality I've been experiencing lately.
I recommend comparing and contrasting Humphrey's advice with that found in "Peopleware" (2nd ed.) by DeMarco & Lister.
Also, for even better book full of `management tips' see "201 Principles of Software Development" by Davis.
Really perceptive book.......2000-01-18
Keenly written book, shows the depth of Watts Humphrey's experience. Greatly rewarding for anyone who is willing to look at situations without applying oppressor/oppressed stereotypes. The book will sail cleanly over the heads of those who do not have at least 4-5 years of hands-on management experience, and will boink the others between the eyes. The sections where he talks about why technical people appear dissatisfied and how managers fail them were just amazingly useful once I forgot to fight the contents.
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