Book Description
Corporate Information Strategy and Management: Text and Cases 7/e by Applegate, Austin and McFarlan is written for students and managers who desire an overview of contemporary information systems technology management. It explains the relevant issues of effective management of information services activities and highlights the areas of greatest potential application of the technology. No assumptions are made concerning the reader’s experience with IT, though it is presumed that the reader has some course work or work experience in administration and/or management. This text is comprised of an extensive collection of Harvard Business cases devoted to Information Technology.
Customer Reviews:
A Crappy Textbook.......2007-09-21
My MBA professor said this was an excellent book, but it was HORRIBLE. Well, at the least the first four chapters were extremely, extremely bad. I could barely finish them--if the professor hadn't been excellent, and gone "outside the book" most of the time, it would have been the worst class I've every taken. After the first four chapters, the book became tolerable, and even somewhat enjoyable (for the technically oriented), but nothing makes up for the first four chapters. What the other negative reviews say is very true.
Very satisfied.......2007-07-03
The book was brand new and I recieved the order on the day promised. Price beat all other sources I checked.
Received the item promptly and it was in good shape.......2007-01-18
Shipper got to me right away. The book was correct.
A forum for the authors' self-aggrandizement.......2006-11-30
Expensive and full of fluff. The authors simply love citing their own work. They do so at LEAST twice per chapter. All the cases in the book were written by the authors and the cases themselves are riddled with meaningless buzzwords and are just downright lame (e.g. "a lights-out data center"). Small wonder why the non-English speaking reviewer had problems. Poor guy.
It's obvious that the only opinions the authors value is their own. Beware of any class that requires this textbook because it means the professor has no idea what they are talking about. Just because you teach at Harvard does not necessarily mean you are smart or intelligent.
Approximately 7 of 10 chapter induce eye gouging............2006-07-29
This book only gets 2 stars from me because 3 or so chapters are actaully worthy of reading. The remainder compells the reader to gouge out their own eyeballs to avoid reading another sentence of the poorly written chapters. You'd think with having 3 authors they could do better than this but alas...no. Most likely you don't have a choice of whether or not to read this book however I am a better man for not having to read this book again. I'll be getting my MBA in 8 days and look forward to NOT reading books like this for the rest of my natural life. Best of luck, you'll need it.
Book Description
Misaligned companies, like cars out of alignment, can develop serious problems if not corrected quickly. They are hard to steer and don't respond well to changes in direction. This groundbreaking book shows you how to get -and keep -all the vital elements of your organization aligned and headed in the same direction at the same time.
Managers must now keep their people centered in the midst of change, deemphasize hierarchy, and distribute leadership by distributing authority, information, knowledge, and customer data throughout their organization. Alignment is a response to the new business reality where customer requirements are in flux, where competitive forces are turbulent, and where the bond of loyalty between an organization and its people has been weakened. The old linear approach to management has given way to one of simultaneity -to alignment.
As pioneers of the alignment concept, the authors have developed this unique approach based on their work with leading companies throughout the world. The Power of Alignment is packed with war stories and the firsthand perspectives of industry leaders. You'll learn how world-class organizations, including Federal Express, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Columbia/HCA Healthcare, Citizens Utilities, AirTouch, and UNUM achieved extraordinary business results. Now, through the authors' expertise, you'll see how alignment can work for your organization.
In essence, alignment links the five key elements of an organization -people, process, customers, business strategies, and, of course, leadership -to obtain breakthrough results, chief among them, sustained growth and profit, loyal customers, and a high-performing work force. The Power of Alignment:
* Offers a clear framework for aligning and linking the crucial elements that build and sustain a company's success
* Provides self-assessment tools as well as benchmarking measures for evaluating an organization's critical competencies
* Enables managers to create a work force where each employee can relate his or her activities to the goals and strategic objectives of the company
* Helps a company determine when and where it is out of alignment, and gives descriptions of such common company pathologies as "The Phantom Limb Syndrome," "Strategy Interruptus," and "Dead Man Walking"
* Prescribes specific steps for getting an organization back on track toward a single, shared vision of its goals
Essential reading for all managers and executives, The Power of Alignment offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance.
"This book is savvy, detailed, timely, and clearly written. I highly recommend it for any leader facing the challenges posed by global business today." - Dana Mead Chairman and CEO, Tenneco Former Chairman National Association of Manufacturers
"It's not only the stars that have to be in alignment to reach your destination, it's all the internal processes, rewards, and drivers. Read The Power of Alignment, and while you may not unlock the secrets of the universe, you will overcome the barriers to corporate success." - William L. Boyan President and COO John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company.
"This important book goes beyond TQM and reengineering by creating a new approach called Alignment. The authors show that great companies manage to link strategy and people and integrate customer needs with continuous improvement processes." - Peter Augustsson President and Group Chief Executive AB SKF.
"The Power of Alignment gets to the heart of a critical element of organizational leadership, namely focus. Every leader who reads it will undoubtedly do some serious soul-searching about the consistency of corporate vision, goals, management systems, and incentive mechanisms." - Louis E. Lataif Dean Boston University School of Management.
Customer Reviews:
As significant today as it was when first published.......2007-08-26
After reviewing several books on Strategic Execution, I was continuously left with the feeling that the authors had ommitted a key ingredient. This book has convinced me that that key ingredient was "Alignment".
This book was published 10 years ago (OK, I am embarrassed that I have only just got around to reading it) but it is as significant today as it was when it was first published. Probably more so considering the rapid state of change that most companies are faced with today.
It is a simple read, and the concepts are easy to follow. What I enjoyed most about the book is that the suggestions are practical and you can take them and implement them immediately within an organization.
I noticed that one of the readers who has reviewed the book said that the book was required reading for his MBA course. 10 years on, I still think it should be required reading for any business executive.
This Is a Great Resource!.......2007-07-10
I'm always looking for visual ways of understanding critical elements of strategy. The Power of Alignment offers a very helpful way of thinking about four important ingredients in keeping the main thing, the main thing. Vertical alignment, the relationship between your strategy and the people on your team, "energizes...provides direction, and offers opportunity for involvement." Horizontal alignment refers to the connection between your processes and customers. Taken together the two measures provide some great insight into the development of genuine alignment.
One of the most interesting elements of the book is a 16 question diagnostic tool that is designed to provide a graphic view of your organization's alignment. Very helpful!
Make Sure That Everything You Do Points To Success !.......2006-05-03
Great book! The basic premise is that once a business has a raison d'etre, or a 'main thing', that profits are maximized by the alignment of four key business areas: Strategy, Processes, People, and Customers. Built on this premise are actionalbe ways to build a self-aligning organization. I got the sense of discovering truth while I read this book. Leadership isn't really about power, it is about responsibility. This book shows a manager at any level how to align his area to the overall strategy of the company and to the end products of the company. It shows how processes should be designed and what factors should be used to reward, recognize and evaluate employees. Great food for thought and realistic to implement.
Five Stars
Powerful Organizational Focus.......2003-05-28
Quite simply, this book was one of the best business management and leadership books I have ever read. It was well-written and expertly balanced management and leadership concepts with real-world examples of effectively aligned organizations, such as Federal Express and Southwest Airlines. This book should be read and discussed by leaders and managers at all levels, especially by mid- to senior-level executives.
In brief, alignment deals with the relationships among the people, processes, strategy, and customers of an organization relative to that organization's purpose, or what the authors called "the main thing." Alignment is both a noun, a state of being, and a verb, a set of actions. Vertical alignment connects organizational strategy with the people responsible for transforming that strategy into meaningful work. Horizontal alignment deals with understanding your customers' wants and then creating processes to deliver what your customers want, when and how they want it. Effective leadership nurtures the organizational culture that is built around and upon "the main thing," and it is this culture and leadership combination that drives and sustains self-aligning organizations in turbulent times.
The authors' analogy of landing a plane helped me to visualize the dynamics involved with organizational alignment. To land a plane, a pilot must adjust and react to multiple simultaneous factors and conditions (i.e. air speed, altitude, angle of approach, wind speed and direction, etc.) and then understand how a change in one will affect the others. Likewise, to align an organization, a leader must adjust and react to feedback about his people, processes, strategy, and customers, and then understand how a change in one will affect the others.
The authors clearly and thoroughly explained the alignment factors and conditions throughout the book. They followed their explanations with incisive questions for readers to ask about themselves and their organizations to assess their degree of alignment. Those questions were definitely a highlight of the book for they really helped to stimulate my thinking and should help inspire organizational progress to alignment. Another highlight was the appendices that contained examples of actual tools and products used and created by some of the aligned organizations studied by the authors.
The inside back cover jacket sums up why I give the book my highest recommendation: "Essential reading for all managers and executives, "The Power of Alignment" offers a new way to reestablish focus and sustained energy, and is a dynamic approach for staying balanced and achieving extraordinary levels of performance."
Alignment is Key Essential Usually Overlooked.......2001-07-13
I found this book easy reading, concise, and presented it's basic premise well with specific examples and good suggestions for creation and implementation.
Working as a Director in Managed Care for several pharmaceutical companies, it creates a focus for any organization and a roadmap for the future(physician, health plan, pharmaceutical company) to avoid many of the mistakes and pitfalls that have already been experienced in an attempt to align with the ever changing healthcare landscape.
For those who do account management, it provides a construct and roadmap to use to optimize alignment with internal customers and maximize resources to create value and return with the external customers (....and their customers.) As the authors point, alignment is a continuing process, not a single event in time. Many companies become quickly aligned with the past, and misaligned with the present & future, and can not sustain the competitive edge because they forget this basic premise that the authors reinforce.
The concepts are basic and fundamental, but usually overlooked and forgotten in the day to day business of rapidly growing companies and changing environments.
Book Description
Internet and intranet technologies offer tremendous opportunities to bring learning into the mainstream of business. E-Learning outlines how to develop an organization-wide learning strategy based on cutting-edge technologies and explains the dramatic strategic, organizational, and technology issues involved.
Written for professionals responsible for leading the revolution in workplace learning, E-Learning takes a broad, strategic perspective on corporate learning. This wake-up call for executives everywhere discusses:
• Requirements for building a viable e-learning strategy
• How online learning will change the nature of training organizations
• Knowledge management and other new forms of e-learning
Marc J. Rosenberg, Ph.D. (Hillsborough, NJ) is an independent consultant specializing in knowledge management, e-learning strategy and the reinvention of training. Prior to this, he was a senior direction and kowledge management field leader for consulting firm DiamondCluster International.
Download Description
Learn what companies like AT&T, Cisco Systems, Dell Computer, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Merril Lynch, Prudential, and U S West and others have accomplished with e-learning.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!!!.......2003-12-13
This book is a must!!! It is an essential approach for understanding eLearning beyond the myriad of applications and placing it as part of a wider framework.
Knowledge Management = Learning Organization 2K.......2001-11-16
Marc Rosenberg is the Peter Senge of Knowledge Management. He builds on the key aspects that Senge acknowledges as key competitive aspects of organizations that need to learn, adapt, and stay solvent. He starts from identifying the difference between instruction vs information and the fact that so many times organizations get caught up in the "who" and the "how" instead of the "what" and the "why." For any trainer this book was interesting from the standpoint of how he defines different levels of knowledge. There are some key graphics and useful charts that help one grasp the complexity of e-learning. I started reading and thought it would be more about on-line learning, but he really took it much broader quickly. On-line learning is only a drop in the bucket of uses for the intranet. As much as we have out there he points out that there is much more to be saturated. Technology is a useful modality that can complement and enhance existing training. There was no threat to the training industry in his book. Training is still essential--but it needs to accomidate the information age and be much more timely, flexible, relevant. The one criticism I have is the fact that he doesn't address the fact that some people still need to have the classroom experience. There is the framework that you can increase aquisition of information, but if some of the psychological aspects of employee needs are not met--you get a drop in productivity, employee satisfaction and employee retention. There is still a lot to debate but he makes a compeling case regarding e-learning and knowledge management.
Packed With Knowledge!.......2001-09-20
Author Marc Rosenberg provides one of the first books devoted to strategies for developing organization-wide, online learning. He goes beyond the obvious technological challenges of Web-based training to explain that technology and content are meaningless without a culture of learning. But creating this culture means confronting dramatic strategic, organizational and political issues. In this roadmap for building and sustaining a learning culture, Rosenberg offers an essential balance between the structure of e-learning (design and technology issues) and its implementation (acceptance and support issues). His book is an impassioned wake-up call to all executives who are concerned about the future of their organizations. To begin building your company’s culture of learning, ... arm yourself with this practical, yet philosophical, manual — a weapon for professionals on the front lines of the revolution in workspace learning.
good overview and introduction to elearning.......2001-06-29
The author brings a good overview and sense of sincere understanding to the elearning space. The book does any excellent job of arming the internal champion of elearning with the data required to show the executive team the importance, value and return on investment.
E-Learning Review.......2001-04-13
This book walks the reader through all aspects of elearning, from the human side of learning theory to the technical side of capability development and deployment. This was an excellent starter book that covers all the bases when it comes to the subject of elearning. The index clearly presents all of the content so the book may also be used as a quick reference guide where the reader can focus only on those areas of interest.
Book Description
Praise for the First Edition of Virtual Teams
"If you want to see where organizational communications are going in the future, heed what these pioneers have written today." -Howard Rheingold, author, The Virtual Community, and founder, Electric Mind
"Lipnack and Stamps have written an important book for the twenty-first-century corporation." -Regis McKenna, The McKenna Group, author, Relationship Marketing
"This book provides a long overdue perspective on how to apply the discipline of real teams in the fast-moving, increasingly dispersed information age of the future." -Jon R. Katzenbach, author, The Wisdom of Teams
"For those who want to lead the movement, catch up with it, or simply know where it is going, this book is packed with useful information and interesting stories." -Dee W. Hock, founder and chairman emeritus, VISA
"Virtual Teams provides valuable insights into global teamwork and management through network technologies now available to all companies, large or small." -Jim Lynch, director, corporate quality, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Customer Reviews:
Useful, but some fluff.......2003-09-28
I purchased this book because I was intrigued. In much of the work I do I am a member of "virtual" teams. That is, I often am some distance apart from the people I am working with.
I found the book to be a slow read, with nuggets of information separated by deserts of fluff. The first half of the book is filled with vague ramblings about how the information age has changed the way that teams work and with case studies that illustrate how the forming of virtual teams has helped various companies solve difficult problems.
In the second half, the book begins to pick up. In a chapter entitled "Teaming with People" the authors discuss team dynamics, including essential roles with a team, how teams form and which aspects of team dynamics are especially subject to the stresses of distance communication.
The authors suggest that the beginning and closing phases of most projects are the most stressful on team members and that extra effort be exerted at the beginning phase of the project to bring the core project team members together, even if they are geographically separated. This, say the authors, will help build interpersonal relationships that can hold the team together in times of stress.
There are several optimum team sizes. 3 to 5 is the size of a core team, 5 to 25 the size of a "team family" and 25 to 200 the size of a "team camp". In the authors' opinion, any team larger than 5 people will naturally divide into sub-teams.
The authors also point out the value of rewarding teams. Making teams compete, or making them completely independent of one another has little value for the company. Cooperative goals can encourage and motivate all of the teams, while competition can demoralize them.
Finally, the authors talk about starting up teams and provide a checklist of some elements such as a customer and a management sponsor which are essential to any team's success.
Overall, I found the book to have some good information on forming and maintaining teams, and what to do when those teams are not located in the same physical location. There is some fluff, I feel, and the book could easily be half its current length without sacrificing much.
Aphoristic.......2001-10-01
I spent many hours with Lipnack & Stamps' Virtual Teams. Lipnack and Stamps are team consultants, and this book is one of their business cards. It's strong on axioms, moderate on bibliographic references, filled with trenchant observations derived from their consulting experiences, and written in a hurried style that reads like a draft or a condensed version of a larger book, despite its 300 pages. The authors provide dozens of taxonomies, some of which are useful and thought provoking, but most not deriving from research data. I obtained one item referenced in the bibliography, a middling-quality correlational study, but noticed the authors were quite creative in their interpretation of its results. Once you get past the aphoristic writing style ("Connected, linked, matrixed. We are the future now. . . Before we know it, 10-year-olds will be running the world. Perhaps they already are. . . The new virtual organizations are at once very old and very new, very small and very large . . . ") you'll find yourself reading many interesting nuggets of information combined with useful advice on how to build and manage a virtual team. I appreciated the fact that Lipnack and Stamps avoided treating the virtual team as a panacea or as a solution to team problems. Their cool approach to the formidable problems faced by distributed groups adroitly avoids the hype in which other authors engage. I also appreciated their extended discussions in the areas where virtual teams suffer the most, including trust and communication across time zones. Leadership got slight treatment, but perhaps for good reason-the DNA of effective leadership in general has yet to be cracked, and is a largely unexplored phenomenon in virtual teams.
Highly Recommended!.......2001-07-11
Globalization can create as many problems as opportunities. One big problem is figuring out how to unite people worldwide to work on projects for your company. In an age that lacked a worldwide communications net, the answer would probably be quite depressing. However, as authors Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps make clear, the modern Internet makes it quite possible for workers all over the world to collaborate. The physical location of your firm’s various experts is no longer a barrier to effective team building, be they in Dublin, Bangalore, Las Vegas or Bangkok. In fact, the authors claim that companies that fail to create effective teams across cyberspace will be left in history’s dustbin. This might be overstating the case, but we [...] recommend this book for its candor about exactly how challenging it is to create virtual teams. Still interested? If so, this book serves as an excellent primer of both theory and practice.
"Teamwork" Re-defined for New Realities.......2001-04-06
The authors are convinced that, eventually, "virtual teams will become the natural way to work, nothing special. Virtual teams and networks -- effective, value-based, swiftly reconfiguring, cost-sensitive, and decentralized -- will profoundly reshape our shared world. As members of many virtual groups, we will contribute to these ephemeral webs of relationships that together weave our future." That day is already here for many people and I agree that virtual working relationships will soon be the rule rather than the exception. The authors correctly note that technology extends capabilities "but organizing to do things together is only human. The most profound change of the new millennium is in the way we're organized." Moreover, as more people connect online, "we increase our capacity for both independence and interdependence. Competition and cooperation both thrive in our new culture." However, there are perils to avoid because whatever goes wrong with in-the-same place teams can also go wrong with virtual teams -- only worse and, worse yet, faster and at a much greater cost.
The authors organize their excellent material within 14 chapters whose individual titles indicate each chapter's perspective on virtual teams: Why, Networks, Teams, Trust, Place, Time, Purpose, people, Links, Launch, Navigate, Theory, Think, and Future. I agree that a virtual team "is a group of people who work interdependently with a shared purpose across space, time, and organization boundaries." Nonetheless, I still have some quibbles about the authors' sequence of subject matter (not with the content itself) and am still convinced that cooperation between and among members of virtual teams is even more difficult than it is between and among those within physical boundaries. Moreover, my own rather extensive experience with all manner of corporate clients suggests that the most formidable barriers are between two ears. If you have some serious human barriers in your own organization, I urge you to check out O'Dell and Grayson's immensely thoughtful and practical book, If Only We Knew What We Know.
But please keep in mind that even if O'Dell, Grayson, Lipnack, and Stamps were retained to create virtual teams for your organization, unless and until everyone else involved buys into the enterprise, the results would be abysmal. Hence the importance of several points which Lipnack and Stamps make in the final chapter, notably the absolutely essential need for trust. "A presumption of trust enables a successful strategy of collaboration [enables everyone involved] to be better innovators, competitors, and survivors....If purpose is the glue, trust is the grease." I agree.
Of course, no single volume such as this can provide all the right answers but Lipnack and Stamps raise most (if not all) of the most important questions. Their answers seem sensible and practical. Of course, decision-makers must decide what the nature, extent, and duration of a virtual relationship should be in their organization at any given time. The authors do provide an excellent source of information and insight which can help virtually (pun intended) any organization increase cooperation and collaboration across boundaries through the effective use of various technologies. Especially, in this age of accelerating globalization, most organizations need all the help they can get.
Practical Ideas for Boundary-Crossing Teams.......2000-10-15
The very nature of teams has changed in most organizations. This change is not rooted in the use of technology but rather in organizational changes that require teams that cross all kinds of boundaries: organizational, temporal, geographic, functional, cultural. Virtual Teams focuses on the fundamental issues that challenge members, leaders, and stakeholders in these boundary-crossing teams rather than simply on the technology that connects them. A major strength of the book is the wealth of stories about how key ideas have been applied in both public and private sector organizations. This book offers practical ideas you can apply to any team - whether it is co-located or spread across the world. - Lisa Kimball, Executive Producer, Group Jazz
Book Description
Techniques to optimize content learning by focusing on three phases: Preparing, Helping, and Integrate.
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing!!!.......2001-10-11
This book narrowly focuses its content to help students who have special needs and in so doing, makes an inappropriate assumption that only these students need help with reading textbooks. This is not the case. All students benefit from teaching methods directed at effective use of a textbook. The book does share a number of techniques for helping students better read and make sense of textbooks. While some of the examples are interesting, these are taken from books by experts which are far better prepared for helping students with reading. Textbooks are only one reference in a good educational setting. However, the author inappropriately spends much time addressing textbook layout as a major piece ignoring the control and expertise that is possessed by the teacher. I was quite dissappointed at the position in which this seemed to place teachers. I was also disappointed by the fact that although this is the fourth edition of the book, it still has many errors.
Customer Reviews:
Outdated with too much redundancy.......2000-08-02
This book was a frustrating experience. Partly this was due to it being some seven years old. The concepts of organisational development have gone forward a great deal since 1993. In addition, a major part of the text and even issues consist of direct quotes of other writers, some of them outdated even by 1993 standards. There is a lot of redundancy, and not nearly all of it can be justified by pedagogical reasons. For example, there is practically only one image (that takes a whole page to present six text boxes) in the book but it is repeated several times with only minor revisions. There is much extraneous text and the whole layout is very loose. This is outlined by the fact that every other point presented is according to Dubois either extremely critical or vitally important.
The stated idea of the book is to apply systems theory to performance improvement, but in practice Dubois suggests that organisations should think, what kind of competency they actually want to train or educate their employees for ... and design their performance improvement interventions accordingly. While this is a worthy issue, Dubois would have been able to squeeze his points to some 150 pages had he really tried. A major part of the extra pages go to justifying a prospective new fad, Strategic Systems Model (SSM), a prime example of an artificial TLA (three letter acronym), if you ask me. The point of SSM is to understand that things influence each other. I admit that this simple truth has often been forgotten in many organisations.
The most important thing that makes this book feel somewhat outdated is the fact that on several occasions Dubois focuses on training of management instead of the whole work force of an organisation. In my opinion, such division of labour and related training and education, has become more and more artificial.
The most useful chapters of the book focus on analysis of competence and competency requirements of an organisation. And some of the rest might be applicable on a more traditional organisation, not touched by the 1990's.
A "must" reading study for executives and HR professionals........2000-04-06
"Several factors, some of which are not under the control of HRD managers and staff, influence the potential effectiveness and efficiency of organization-based HRD. However, if its managers care enough, the HRD function can gain and maintain firm control of its performance improvement curricula, of how those curricula are translated into instructional programs, and of how its clients perceive the contributions of HRD to organization effectiveness or profitability. This book help you learn how to design and deliver effective and efficient performance improvement programs that enhance employees' job competence in ways that contribute to the achievement of an organization's strategic goals or objectives (from the Introduction)."
In this context, Dubois invites you to :
* "think systems" by learning some basic principles of systems theory and observing how they are applied to organization training or education.
* learn how to apply a Strategic Systems Model to create, implement, and maintain effective and efficient competency-based training or education systems in organizations.
* learn how to gain broad-based support within an organization for the training and/or education function(s) by taking a competency-based, systems approach to performance improvement.
* learn how to construct custom competency or performance models or menus for employee job performance.
* learn how to create a competency-based training or education curriculum system.
* learn how to create and implement organization or work unit-based curriculum systems which support the provision and maintenance of continuous-progress, competency-based training or education opportunities for employees.
* learn how to create the raw materials needed for competency-based instruction.
* learn how to monitor, evaluate, and maintain the performance of competency-based training and education systems.
* learn about the experiences and the results achieved by three large organizations which have created and implemented exemplary competency-based performance improvement systems.
I highly recommend this pioneering study to all executives and HR professionals.
Book Description
For your lean transformation to be successful, your IT system must support it! To enhance and sustain its lean journey, a company must implement information systems that fully support and enhance the lean initiative.
In Easier, Simpler, Faster: Systems Strategy for Lean IT, Jean Cunningham and Duane Jones introduce a case study of an actual lean implementation involving an IT system of a mid-size manufacturer, highlighting the IT issues that they faced during their lean transformation.
This compelling book fully explains:
What your company should do in regard to information systems as it implements lean. The changes that will be required in the information system to make it a partner with, rather than a barrier to, your company becoming a lean manufacturer and ultimately a lean enterprise. The opportunities that will arise for the information systems team to eliminate waste and apply lean principles in its own operations. This book will provide you with a broader vision as well as a path to what a lean system environment will look like for your company.
Customer Reviews:
Finally.......2007-04-25
Why did it take so long to get a book out about lean and IT? I'm not sure, but for a first effort, this is a great start. It doesn't have all the answers but it's got a great deal of experience and learning built into it based on the experiences of Lantech, a great lean story in its own right. Jean Cunningham, a co-author on this book, was also co-author of Real Numbers, which I believe is still the most useful and long-term thinking book on lean accounting. I expect that many books will follow on lean and IT, but they will likely be useful if they try to build on the excellent foundation provided by Easier, Simpler, Faster.
Book Description
Six Sigma has become a widely recognized strategic tool to improve business performance and profitability. Many books cover basic Six Sigma concepts, but none detail the most critical element of its improvement methodology: performance measurements.
Without a strong grasp of performance metrics, a company can have no clear, quantitative indication of its quality improvement. The
* Provides numerical methods for evaluating a corporation's Six Sigma success (or lack thereof)
* Written by an author with twelve years teaching experience at Motorola University
* Builds on the recognized Business Scorecard approach
Customer Reviews:
The Best Six Sigma Book I've Read.......2006-02-01
I am writing to congratulate you for your outstanding work on the book you have written about the Six Sigma Business Scorecard. I have spent the past week reading it, and I've realized what a fantastic tool it is.
I am a Six Sigma Intern, and I work at Recofarma, a Concentrate Plant of the Coca Cola Company, located in Manaus, Amazonas - Brazil. I was trying to create a Massive Communication Plan for Six Sigma within the company and one of my ideas was to create a Scorecard for Six Sigma, then I looked for related material at Amazon.com and your book appeared on the top of the list. It surely was a great investment.
CEO'S DREAM BOOK FOR MANAGING BUSINESS PROCESSES.......2005-03-19
I have read a few hundred "non-fictional" books over the years for my MBA, for quality, etc, but I have to tell you that this book about the use of balanced scorecards is the best business related book that I have ever read, and I feel that every CEO should completely absorb it to utilize its "pertinent" applications that are applicable to their business processes, thus institutionalizing the process metrics' continual improvement concepts of ISO/TS 16949:2002 and ISO 9001 in all types of firms, including those that are not automotive suppliers!- Bill Cooper, Global Quality Systems Senior Manager, Lear Corporation
A Fresh Look at Contructing the Business Scorecard.......2004-01-06
Finally, a pragmatic approach to developing a Business Scorecard that captures the profitability proposition through periodic measurement of critical performance. The critical thinking used to construct and evaluate each element of the hierachical measurement structure provides a keen insight into the contribution value of each functional area of the business. The concise step-by-step approach in building the overal Business Performance Index provides the guidance necessary for immediate implementation by small or large enterprizes.
Best business book since "The Goal".......2003-12-05
Praveen, I just have to buy you a cup of coffee or a drink one day. I am just finishing your book, "Six Sigma Business Scorecard " and have to say that I haven't been this riveted to a business book since "The Goal". Books like this for me have been far and few between.
Connects the six sigma dots with your own business sense.......2003-12-02
This book connected the dots between my undergrad, mba, six sigma training and 25 years of business sense. Your first reaction might be; why haven't I been tracking and measuring the critical links to growth/profitability more closely? Once I started the book, I couldn't put it down; it was like therapy for the business mind. It breaks through all the mystery and jargon of TQM, ISO 9000 and six sigma, in simple business terms.
Book Description
While several books are available that provide a general overview of centrifugal compressor aerodynamic technology, this book is unique in that it fully describes a working design and analysis system with all of the interacting procedures, design guidelines, and decision processes required. This book describes the author's own centrifugal compressor aerodynamic design and analysis system, and the strategy he uses while applying it. He provides a description sufficiently complete that both new and experienced compressor aerodynamicists will fully understand the methods used. This includes the basic thermodynamic and fluid dynamic principles, empirical models, and key numerical methods, which form the basis of these design and analysis methods.
This book provides a comprehensive aerodynamic design and analysis system for centrifugal compressors that has produced significant performance improvements in recent years. It uses practical and efficient methodology and requires minimal resources for its implementation. A personal computer of modest capability is adequate for implementing and using all of the procedures described in this book.
Customer Reviews:
Centrifugal Compressors: A Strategy for Aerodynamic Design and Analysis.......2007-06-24
While several books are available that provide a general overview of centrifugal compressor aerodynamic technology, this book is unique in that it fully describes a working design and analysis system with all of the interacting procedures, design guidelines, and decision processes required.
This book describes the author's own centrifugal compressor aerodynamic design and analysis system, and the strategy he uses while applying it. He provides a description sufficiently complete that both new and experienced compressor aerodynamicists will fully understand the methods used. This includes the basic thermodynamic and fluid dynamic principles, empirical models, and key numerical methods, which form the basis of these design and analysis methods.
This book provides a comprehensive aerodynamic design and analysis system for centrifugal compressors that has produced significant performance improvements in recent years. It uses practical and efficient methodology and requires minimal resources for its implementation. A personal computer of modest capability is adequate for implementing and using all of the procedures described in this book
More Correlations than Physics.......2006-03-15
I've appreciated this book especially in the part where the design process is described from scratch. However I would have preferred a different approach based on pyisics more than on correlations. A good textbook in any case. I suggest it to designers or companies having no database based on past experience: it's a good staring point.
Book Description
Chapters on strategy, practice, and technology demonstrate how to achieve immediate lasting results by encouraging curiosity and learning at all levels of the organization. Profiles of organizations (including General Motors, Home Depot, and WD-40 Company) using learning-focused approaches, accompany leading-edge research into how and why people best work together when learning as they work. This book is intended for business leaders and educators seeking innovative approaches to cultural transformation, with learning at the center of their corporate strategy.
Customer Reviews:
A Good Read!.......2004-11-04
This collection of essays would make the perfect gift for that friend who loves nothing more than to curl up with a human resources manual. The fruit of a colloquium held at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration in 2002, it brings together a wide range of contributors, spanning the spectrum from A to P - from academics who write about learning to practitioners who implement learning programs in corporations. The quality of the essays is uneven. Some of them are so chock-full of jargon that they could only make sense to a knowledge management consultant. Others are clear enough to be practical, at least in the hands of an insider. While the theoretical and abstract dominate the discussion, a couple of real-life case studies by actual executives bring the book down to earth. We recommend this compendium to practitioners in its field. They will particularly love the stimulating reflections of an Australian-born CEO who unabashedly professes his admiration for the great white shark and expresses the fond wish that his employees would approach learning in the spirit of great whites in a feeding frenzy.
Books:
- Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era)
- Courage: The Backbone of Leadership
- Crafting and Executing Strategy : The Quest for Competitive Advantage - Concepts and Cases (Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases)
- Crafting and Executing Strategy : The Quest for Competitive Advantage - Concepts and Cases (Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases)
- Crafting and Executing Strategy : The Quest for Competitive Advantage - Concepts and Cases (Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases)
- Critical Chain : A Business Novel
- Customer Relationship Management: A Strategic Imperative in the World of E-Business
- Data Analysis and Decision Making with Microsoft Excel (with InfoTrac and CD-ROM)
- Data Analysis and Decision Making with Microsoft Excel (with InfoTrac and CD-ROM)
- Data Analysis and Decision Making with Microsoft Excel (with InfoTrac and CD-ROM)
Books Index
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General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Managing Business Process Flows: Principles of Operations Management w/ Student CD (2nd Edition)
Economics with Infotrac: Principles And Policy
Marketing Strategy: A Decision Focused Approach (McGraw-Hill/Irwin Series in Marketing)
Marketing Management (12th Edition) (Marketing Management)
Leveraging The New Infrastructure
