Project Leadership

Product management has become a critical function for modern organizations, from small startups to corporate enterprises. And yet, the day-to-day work of product management remains largely misunderstood. In theory, product managers are high-flying visionaries who build products that people love. In practice, they're hard-working facilitators who bring clarity and focus to their teams. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition, Matt LeMay provides real-world guidance for current and aspiring product managers.

A young, untested team of problem solvers challenged with saving their company moves from board room to classroom in search of answers - and finds them through lively, open discourse with their innovative professor. This gripping, fast-paced business novel does for project management what Eliyahu M. Goldratt's other novels have done for production and marketing.

A lot of Engineering Managers and leaders studied for years and years to become the best Engineer they possibly could be... and then they were promoted. It can be very tough for those of us who didn't go into Engineering with the distinct concept that we would become managers, but still want to do our best to support our teams. I wrote this book because there's so much no one told me about management that I wished I would have known. There's a lot to be purposeful about that many of us learn on the job, and worse: learn on people.

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, 5th Edition: The Comprehensive, Easy to Read Handbook for Beginners and Pros is a comprehensive guide to real-world project management methods, tools, and techniques. Practical, easy-to-use, and deeply thorough, this book gives you the answers you need now. You'll find cutting-edge ideas and hard-won wisdom of one of the field's leading experts, delivered in short, lively segments that address common management issues.

The world is facing a global leadership crisis. Seventy-seven percent of leaders think they do a good job of engaging their people, yet 88 percent of employees say their leaders don't engage enough. Based on extensive research, including assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 C-level executives, The Mind of the Leader concludes that organizations and leaders aren't meeting employees' basic human needs of finding meaning, purpose, connection, and genuine happiness in their work.

A good product road map is one of the most important and influential documents an organization can develop, publish, and continuously update. In fact, this one document can steer an entire organization when it comes to delivering on company strategy. This practical guide teaches you how to create an effective product road map, and demonstrates how to use the road map to align stakeholders and prioritize ideas and requests. With it, you’ll learn to communicate how your products will make your customers and organization successful.

“This book will help you win in the game of life!” – Dick Vitale, ESPN analyst Learn how to capture—and keep—the awesome power of momentum! Most leaders believe in momentum—a phenomenon that's easy to perceive but difficult to define. Which is why so few have been able to explain how...

Product management has become a critical connective role for modern organizations, from small technology startups to global corporate enterprises. And yet the day-to-day work of product management remains largely misunderstood. In theory, product management is about building products that people love. The real-world practice of product management is often about difficult conversations, practical compromises, and hard-won incremental gains.

Drawing on her extensive experience, Jamie proposes a new role for Agile projects: the Agile business analyst. She details 30 achievable ways that such a role will increase relevance, quality and overall business value, and provide business users with crucial support. This second edition has expanded to include new Agile methods that have emerged or gained prominence since the first edition.

Tired of misalignment, friction, and stalled workflow? Flow Engineering is a practical guide to using value stream mapping techniques to align teams, unlock innovation, and optimize performance. Based on foundations from Value Stream Mapping, cybernetics, and the Toyota Production System, Flow Engineering's lightweight and iterative practices build the value, clarity, and flow required for effective collaboration and collective action.

Managing Priorities is your guide to prioritizing anything-anytime and anywhere. Harry Max digs into the best practices for prioritization at Apple, DreamWorks, NASA, Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and beyond, and brings them together in a single, practical method that you can apply step by step.

Our companies, our communities, and our planet are facing unprecedented challenges - challenges that will not be solved by a small group of people from a single entity. Today's leaders need a set of tools specifically designed to harness the power of collaborative networks. Strategic Doing introduces you to the new disciplines of agile strategy and collaborative leadership. You'll learn how to design and guide complex collaborations by following a discipline of simple rules that you won't find anywhere else.

Great engineers don't necessarily make great leaders—at least, not without a lot of work. Finding your path to becoming a strong leader is often fraught with challenges. It's not easy to figure out how to be strategic, successful, and considerate while also being firm. Whether you're on the management or individual contributor track, you need to develop strong leadership skills. This practical book shows you how to become a well-rounded and resilient engineering leader.

With an easy-to-understand approach, Cost Estimation: Methods and Tools provides comprehensive coverage of the quantitative techniques needed by professional cost estimators and for those wanting to learn about this vibrant career field. Featuring the underlying mathematical and analytical principles of cost estimation, the book focuses on the tools and methods used to predict the research and development, production, and operating and support costs for successful cost estimation in industrial, business, and manufacturing processes.

This book is my journey from chaos to clarity, from the brink of failure to the heights of leadership. It's a testament to the lessons learned in the trenches of the remodeling industry and how those lessons can sculpt a leader capable of not just managing projects but inspiring people. Here's to turning past mistakes into future successes, one project, one team, at a time.

There’s nothing more frustrating than an unproductive meeting - except when it leads to another unproductive meeting. Yet every day millions of people conduct meetings - in person or online - without the critical understanding or formal training on how to plan and lead them effectively. This book offers a structured method to ensure that meetings will produce clear and actionable results. Meetings that are profitable and productive ultimately lead to fewer meetings. This book offers leaders a significant edge by

Scale collaboration, not process. If you're trying to use agile and lean at the program level, you've heard of several approaches, all about scaling processes. If you duplicate what one team does for several teams, you get bloat, not delivery. Instead of scaling the process, scale everyone's collaboration. With autonomy, collaboration, and exploration, teams and program level people can decide how to apply agile and lean to their work.

Risk isn’t just about threat; it’s also about opportunity. You have to be ready to take advantage of the most unexpected events — good or bad — with any project you are managing. But how does this work in practice? The Active Threat and Opportunity Management (ATOM) methodology offers a simple, scalable risk process that applies to all projects in all industries and business sectors. For each process step, the authors offer practical advice, hints, and tips on how to get the most out of the risk management process.

Launch your ERP the right way. The concept of an ERP system—where all of your company’s software talks with each other—is pretty amazing. But sometimes, launching one into your ecosystem can be treacherous. And why wouldn’t it be? You only update your ERP once every ten to fifteen years, so there’s often nobody at your organization that’s been through one, much less two, who could show you the way. Mistakes are bound to happen, but the benefits are manifold. How do you cross that chasm? First, you get the experience you need, and in this case it’s through Evan Schwartz.

Scrum is the most successful framework for agile product development, and much has been written about how to follow the Scrum process, but the key to success is in the leadership skills of the product owner. Product Mastery explores the traits of the best product owners, offering an insight into the difference between good and great product ownership and explaining how the best product owners are driven to be successful.