All in book review
My review of Making Work Visible by Dominica DeGrandis. This is another entry in the books about Kanban and the value behind making work visible. In DeGrandis formulation, the focus is on removing the five "time thieves" she identifies early on.
Marshall Goldsmith's "Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be" is a great, quick read. I couldn't help but think of "wear the world as a loose garment" as I thought further about the book.
"The Incredible Transformation of Gregory Todd" by AJ Sheppard is an interesting take on the business novel with the guru character played by a young upstart, rather than a grizzled veteran or external consultant. There are a lot of good nuggets, but I missed an overall picture of how the transformation was accomplished.
"Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box" by The Arbinger Institute was a good and challenging read. I found it engaging with connections to ideas from Theory of Constraints that I have been exploring and using in my work. I also finished the book on Yom Kippur - a day of reflections - so I was thinking about my own assumptions around how I operate in the world.
Another good, fast read of a "standby" book on Theory of Constraints, technology sales and thinking about real business problems. One of the most lasting elements from this book is a way to think about technology in light of improving an organization: the questions for technology.
Major Account Sales Strategy by Neil Rackham is a follow-on to his classic SPIN Selling, taking that approach and applying to bigger projects that require more and more effort to close the sale. It fits a lot with how I have been seeing the world lately.
I finished "Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less - and Achieve Than You Ever Imagined" by Scott Sonenshein a few weeks ago, and have had the ideas rolling around in my head since then. I really like the overall premise of the book: lean towards Stretching instead of Chasing. I found that it nicely connects to the ideas of Theory of Constraints and process improvement in general.
I came across "Guest Blog: Finding Science and Success with Lean Principles in R&D" by Norbert Majerus of Goodyear on the Factory Physics website, and it describes the Factory Physics ideas as applied in new product development, and I thought it was a pretty good summary. This is also a lot of what we do with Theory of Constraints concepts applied in product development (and project management) arenas too.
April K. Mills' "Everyone is a Change Agent: A Guide to the Change Agent Essentials" is a distillation of several change management approaches into clear and enjoyable approach to change.
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss was recommended by a couple colleagues. This is a great book on negotiation (and a bunch of related topics). Voss and Raz start each topic with a life-and-death hostage negotiation and then delve into the ideas behind the topic and where these apply in the less dire scenarios people face every day. The authors use Voss' own experiences in the FBI as the lead international kidnapping negotiator, his research and studies into what makes negotiations work (or not), and his teaching and consulting work. These elements are combined in a fairly engaging style: starting each chapter with a hostage situation made me want to keep reading to find out what happened, ... and learn a lot along the way.
Unlocking Innovation Productivity (Proven Strategies that Have Transformed Organizations for Profitable and Predictable New Product Growth Worldwide) by Mike Dalton is a guide to the challenges of product innovation and how to overcome them. He provides seven cumulative strategies to improve innovation, all based on Critical Chain Project Management and the underlying Theory of Constraints.
Quality, Involvement, Flow: The Systemic Organization by Domenico Lepore, Angela Montgomery and Giovanni Siepe. It's a good read for people interested in management and creating ever-flourishing organizations.
Breakthrough Project Management from Ian Heptinstall and Robert Bolton is a brief guide to getting significantly improved project performance through combining two management approaches: One is Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) and the other is collaborative contracting. For me the material on CCPM is a confirmation of what I have been doing for many years. And the material on Project Alliancing is new, and yet it rings bells for ensuring successful projects of any type.
Advertising is not a topic I normally worry about, but somehow the topic of "Seducing Strangers: How to Get People to Buy What You're Selling" by Josh Weltman goes beyond just about advertising. I like to think that this topic can be thought of beyond purely advertising into other areas where one might need to get people to "buy."
Two useful, easy to consume versions of The Goal are available... One a book and the other a one-page comic.
The larger Theory of Constraints community has been a great source of business novels over the past year. My latest find is The Human Constraint by Angela Montgomery. The story was compelling, and I thought the approach to talking about the formal process was very light-handed with just enough to make me curious to find more.
It's a short book, meant to be a quick read and guide to start thinking about thinking. Or maybe, more accurately, to get people doing something differently about thinking. The tone is light, but insistent - change the way you think to create fantastic new solutions.
Clarke Ching's "Rolling Rocks Downhill" is a great business novel, primarily about TOC and Agile. I like how it combines a number of perspectives and shows how real value can be obtained in surprisingly short time horizons. That said, it helps when there is outside pressure.
Kevin Fox's book, Aligned & Engaged, talks about creating effective teamwork in an organization. He provides 29 practices that will help any leader create more and more alignment and engagement in order to improve the bottom line.
Gary Klein's decision-making research is centered around the idea of intuition - what he calls "recognition primed decisions." Intuition is a key element of decision-making. It's not that analysis is wrong, but analysis alone is often insufficient to make good decisions. And how to develop intuition? Develop expertise through experience and guided learning situation.
