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In this intriguing business novel, which illustrates state-of-the-art economic theory, Alex Rogo is a UniCo plant manager whose factory and marriage are failing. To revitalize the plant, he follows piecemeal advice from an elusive former college professor who teaches, for example, that reduction in the efficiency of some plant operations may make the entire operation more productive. Alex's attempts to find the path to profitability and to engage his employees in the struggle involve the listener; and thankfully the authors' economic models.
More than ever, the effective management of technology is critical for business competitiveness. For decades, technology leaders have struggled to balance agility, reliability, and security. The consequences of failure have never been greater - whether it's the healthcare.gov debacle, cardholder data breaches, or missing the boat with Big Data in the cloud. And yet, high performers using DevOps principles, such as Google, Amazon, and Netflix, are routinely and reliably deploying code into production hundreds, or even thousands, of times per day.
Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, has been tasked with taking on a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project is massively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill must fix the mess in 90 days, or else Bill’s entire department will be outsourced. With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of the Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined.
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.
Using the unique business-novel format, It's Not Luck continues the story of The Goal protagonist Alex Rogo as he navigates a new set of challenges facing the now over-diversified and under-profitable UniCo, where he has risen to the rank of division manager.
Do you want to become an expert in Lean? Get this audiobook and follow my step-by-step explanations! Seven books in one: Lean Startup; Six Sigma; Lean Analytics; Lean Enterprise; Kanban; Scrum; and Agile Project Management.
In this intriguing business novel, which illustrates state-of-the-art economic theory, Alex Rogo is a UniCo plant manager whose factory and marriage are failing. To revitalize the plant, he follows piecemeal advice from an elusive former college professor who teaches, for example, that reduction in the efficiency of some plant operations may make the entire operation more productive. Alex's attempts to find the path to profitability and to engage his employees in the struggle involve the listener; and thankfully the authors' economic models.
More than ever, the effective management of technology is critical for business competitiveness. For decades, technology leaders have struggled to balance agility, reliability, and security. The consequences of failure have never been greater - whether it's the healthcare.gov debacle, cardholder data breaches, or missing the boat with Big Data in the cloud. And yet, high performers using DevOps principles, such as Google, Amazon, and Netflix, are routinely and reliably deploying code into production hundreds, or even thousands, of times per day.
Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, has been tasked with taking on a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project is massively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill must fix the mess in 90 days, or else Bill’s entire department will be outsourced. With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of the Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined.
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.
Using the unique business-novel format, It's Not Luck continues the story of The Goal protagonist Alex Rogo as he navigates a new set of challenges facing the now over-diversified and under-profitable UniCo, where he has risen to the rank of division manager.
Do you want to become an expert in Lean? Get this audiobook and follow my step-by-step explanations! Seven books in one: Lean Startup; Six Sigma; Lean Analytics; Lean Enterprise; Kanban; Scrum; and Agile Project Management.
The definitive account of the Scrum methodology from its cocreator and the CEO of Scrum, Inc., Jeff Sutherland. Scrum is the revolutionary approach to project management and team building that has helped to transform everything from software companies to the US military to health care in major American hospitals. In this major new book, its originator, Jeff Sutherland, explains precisely and step by step how it operates - and how it can be made to work for anyone, anywhere.
In The Startup Way, Eric Ries shares his insights, stories and best practices, delivering a critical toolkit to solve all business challenges. Today every company needs to get faster and smarter. Listen to The Startup Way and discover how to embrace change, survive and thrive.
The missing link to long-term Lean success! Despite the fact that companies worldwide have adopted Lean production, none has sustained the same levels of excellence as Toyota. Why? Leadership. In The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership, Jeffrey Liker and Gary L. Convis, a former executive V.P. and managing officer of Toyota, help executives and senior managers get employees to refocus their efforts - from simply performing their singular function to continuously improving in collaboration across the organization.
In keeping with the parable style, Patrick Lencioni begins by telling the fable of a woman who, as CEO of a struggling Silicon Valley firm, took control of a dysfunctional executive committee and helped its members succeed as a team. Story time over, Lencioni offers explicit instructions for overcoming the human behavioral tendencies that he says corrupt teams. Succinct yet sympathetic, this guide will be a boon for those struggling with the inherent difficulties of leading a group.
Faced with a software project of epic proportions? Tired of over-committing and under-delivering? Enter the dojo of the agile samurai, where agile expert Jonathan Rasmusson shows you how to kick-start, execute, and deliver your agile projects. Combining cutting-edge tools with classic agile practices, The Agile Samurai gives you everything you need to deliver something of value every week and make rolling your software into production a non-event.
Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day. How should you be focusing your efforts? What will your idea look like in real life? How do you start? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you've got the right solution? Now there's a surefire way to answer these important questions: the sprint.
UCLA psychologist and organizational consultant Dr. Robert Maurer provides a simple and proven effective technique for making major changes with minimal disruption. Applying the operational concept of kaizen - small, continual improvements - to common management challenges, managers can drive major improvements with a series of well-planned techniques for boosting quality, innovation, sales, and morale.
The basics of being a ScrumMaster are fairly straightforward: At face value, all a ScrumMaster needs to do is facilitate the Scrum process and remove impediments. But being a great ScrumMaster, one who truly embodies the principles of servant-leadership and helps move a team to the high performance levels possible with Scrum, is much harder and much more elusive. In this audiobook, Geoff shares a collection of stories and practical guidance, drawn from over 10 years of coaching numerous Scrum teams that will guide you on your path to greatness.
Is your team agile and self-organizing? What is your role as a leader? Team leadership is the missing link that connects all the buzzwords you hear these days to the real world where actual people have to learn, implement, and mainly, believe and push for this stuff to happen. This audiobook is meant for software team leaders, architects, and anyone with a leadership role in the software business. Hear advice from real team leaders, consultants, and everyday gurus of management.
David Marquet, an experienced Navy officer, was used to giving orders. Marquet acted like any other captain until, one day, he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. Marquet realized he was leading in a culture of followers, and they were all in danger unless they fundamentally changed the way they did things. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control.
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
Since it was first introduced in the multi-million-copy best seller The Goal, Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC) has emerged as one of the most flexible and effective approaches to management and problem solving in the corporate world.
An impossible deadline. A runaway project. And then you get the 5:30 a.m. phone call… what could possibly be wrong?
Rolling Rocks Downhill is a fast, fun and often funny read. It's a business novel, just like Eli Goldratt's classic The Goal, where you sit on the characters' shoulders, watching them fight to save their jobs and their baby - a large software-intensive project, called FPP, that has been running late since day 1, but now, suddenly, needs to launch on an impossibly early date, or else. You feel their pain, and their joy, as they battle problem after problem until, slowly, torturously, they rediscover the few - but fundamental - principles underlying successful commercial software development.
Sometimes you're a step ahead. Sometimes a step behind. Sometimes it feels like you're sitting in the room with them…
Fantastic addition to 'The goal'.. provides a live account of project fragmentation with customer at the heart of everything!
Good story to listen: hang in there the beginning might seems technical but everything unfolded after a couple of chapter.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
The parable was interesting and we get quite a good idea of how changes were implemented. I think I slightly preferred The Phoenix Project, but this is defo worth a listen too.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I have listened to both this book and the phoenix project, I found this one less inspiring and informative even as the story underlining is basically the same and relatively get you a good intro to lean and agile methods for DevOps
1 of 3 people found this review helpful
Content is a refreshing story telling view of agile. Without getting too dull with the academic style.
Only wish could choose a different narrator as the person sounds a whining guy without a back bone. For 20 mins ok but several hours It is too painful. Best heard on double speed.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful
It's comforting to hear there is a way out. Even dealing with the executives' impression of the teams' capability level; it's comforting to hear this happens elsewhere.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
Would you listen to Rolling Rocks Downhill again? Why?
Absolutely! This book was a great story about a company that is so similar to the one I'm working that is undergoing an agile transition.
What did you like best about this story?
It's agile but doesn't scream agile at you along with Clarke's sense of humor and love for bacon is wonderful. The story was told in a way that allows me in my agile transition to take a different look at how everything is working, from the scrum teams to the executives within the organization.
Have you listened to any of Paul Kearney’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have not listened to any other of Paul's performances. He was good an being an American I appreciate the UK accent!
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The ending, how everything pulled together in the big moment with the CEO.
Any additional comments?
Clarke is an amazing author and his book is a great resource for understanding what and how agile works in a real world setting of an organization (which is oddly close to one that I work in!).
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
If you could sum up Rolling Rocks Downhill in three words, what would they be?
Fantastic agile novel.
Who was your favorite character and why?
I loved the lady who was technically Steve's boss. Confident and fearless.
What does Paul Kearney bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Paul has a great voice, he made the story more captivating.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Great story! Great information that will surely help me with my first agile-ish project that has a very short time frame!
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Fictional case study of a project deployment in action: I wasn't crazy about the narrator's voice but I did pick up a few ideas to apply to my own work. Worth the listen
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
I liked the story-telling nature of the book. It is a novel about how to change to an agile mindset from a waterfall mindset. The main character learns the do's and dont's from a coach, which turns out to be a great way of getting some theory into a novel. The characters are realistic, somewhat stereotyped, but I think the stereotyping is actually beneficial to the book. The clear personalities helped me to transfer the setting to my own working environment.
The only complaint I have is that I think parts of the book remain too shallow for its audience. For example when the theory of constraints is introduced, it hardly gets more in depth than what intuition will teach you in the first place (tackle bottlenecks first).
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
i have told others about the book and the audible program. it was a wonderful story.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
What a great story of how Agile principles/strategies can improve projects. One of my new favorites. The narrator was MUCH better than many other in the same genre.
The Phoenix Project and The Goal explain the topics covered in this book in more depth and more relevant ways.
This book is smart, witty, exceptionally helpful and really easy to listen to. Highly recommended!