Rolling Rocks Downhill

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.

The world's best manufacturers have known the secret for decades: Every workplace, big or small, has one resource that is slower than the rest. It’s called the bottleneck. Find it, speed it up, and your entire workplace speeds up. The problem is that although this secret is well known inside manufacturing, it's been hidden from the rest of us, deep inside complicated manufacturing texts and sophisticated computer algorithms. Until now, that is. Clarke Ching, author of Rolling Rocks Downhill, has spent the last 20 years adapting and simplifying manufacturing's techniques so that everyone can use them, no matter where they work.

In Project to Product, value stream network pioneer and technology business leader Dr. Mik Kersten introduces the Flow Framework - a new way of seeing, measuring, and managing software delivery. The Flow Framework will enable your company's evolution from project-oriented dinosaur to product-centric innovator that thrives in the age of software. If you're driving your organization's transformation at any level, this is the audiobook for you.  

Agile, Lean, and DevOps approaches are radical game changers, providing a fundamentally different way to think about how IT fits into the enterprise, how IT leaders lead, and how IT can harness technology to accomplish the objectives of the enterprise. But honest and open conversations are not taking place between management and Agile delivery teams.

Gene Kim and John Willis present this nine-part series that includes an oral history of the DevOps movement, as well as discussion around pivotal figures and philosophies that DevOps draws upon, from Goldratt to Deming; from Lean to Safety Culture to Learning Organizations.The audiobook is a great way for listeners to take an even deeper dive into topics relevant to DevOps and leading technology organizations.

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.

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.

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.

 How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years we've been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn't matter - that it can't provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance - and what drives it - using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research, making the information accessible for listeners to apply in their own organizations. 

In this timely book, IT time management expert Dominica DeGrandis reveals the real crime of the century - time theft, one of the most costly factors impacting enterprises in their day-to-day operations. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

An unstoppable business revolution is under way - and it is Agile. Companies that embrace Agile Management learn to connect everyone and everything...all the time. They can deliver instant, intimate, frictionless value on a large scale.