Todd Williams

Todd Williams

{jcomments off}
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Add To Cart

Author:Daniel H. Pink
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Released: April 2011
Type: Softcover
Pages: 288
ISBN:978-0201835953

This book is currently under review, more details will be added when available

Drive is a must read for anyone that has to motivate people to do anything. As a project manager, part of your job is inspiring people to work on or support your project. You would be foolish not to read this book and follow its advice.

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money —the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home —is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Primal Teams: Harnessing the Power of Emotions to Fuel Extraordinary Performance

Add To Cart

Author:Jackie Barretta
Publisher: AMACOM
Released: October 2014
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 240
ISBN:978-0201835953

This book is currently under review, more details will be added when available

Teams are the center piece of any project. Without a team you will most likely fail at meeting any criteria for a successful project. Jackie, a personal friend of mine, has written a great book that will open your mind on a different approach to teams.

Tuesday, 14 July 2015 10:52

Lean Six Sigma For Service

Lean Six Sigma For Service

Add To Cart

Author:Michael George
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Released: July 2003
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 300
ISBN:978-0201835953

If you are trying to implement a lean philosophy in a service industry (or just your projects), this book is a great resource. It describes what is needs and how to implement it. As a "desk resource" it at times repeats itself; however, that is great for reading sections at a time. There are a lot of tools that can be used by project managers to lean out their methodology.

Bring the advantages of Lean Six Sigma improvement out of manufacturing and into your services organization.

The Seven Arts of Change: Leading Business Transformation That Lasts

Add To Cart

Author:David Shaner
Publisher: Union Square Press
Released: November 2010
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 184
ISBN:978-0201835953

This book is currently under review, more details will be added when available

In my opinion, as a project manager, you cannot read too many books on handling change. Each gives you a different perspective on how to effectively deliver a project whose product is valuable. This is a lesser known book, but has a great perspective.

Many businesses try to change, but few succeed. At best, a few buzzwords and new reports become part of the company's structure. At worst, programs crash and burn, and the members of the organization become irreparably disillusioned with the revolving door of new-mission statements. According to David Shaner-a business consultant with a 100% success rate of change at companies including Duracell, Frito-Lay, Caesars Palace and Gillette-the problem is that those changes don't address either individuals or the corporate culture. They're only on the surface.

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

Add To Cart

Author:Roger Fisher, William L. Ury
Publisher: Penguin Books
Released: May 2011
Type: Softcover
Pages: 240
ISBN:978-0201835953

One of the primary tasks of a project manager is to negotiate—negotiate scope, negotiate for resources, negotiate for money, negotiate end dates, etc.—there is almost nothing that a project manager has as a give. Even in your personal life, negotiation skills are essential for dealing with everything from your kids' bedtime, to the price of your next car. Understanding the art and science of negotiation is critical. This book, especially in conjunction with one of our classes, is a great way to get you down the road to improving you negotiation skills. Don't be fooled though, negotiation takes practice.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals

Add To Cart

Author:Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling
Publisher: Free Press
Released: April 24, 2012
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 352
ISBN:978-0201835953

This is a non-project management book that discusses how to achieve results in the execution of a plan. The four disciplines are great change management tools that get results and keep people focused. Where it is valuable to a project manager is in its education on how to keep people focused on a goal. It can you used to help your team on short term progress or on driving your project's customer to focus on what they need to achieve success. If you plan to make the move from project management to any other operational mode--even to the PMO--this book gives a number of good tools.

On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families

Add To Cart

Author: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Publisher: Scribner
Released: Reprint edition August 12, 2014
Type: Softcover
Pages: 304
ISBN: 978-0201835953

As change management is critical to the success of a project, you should have an understanding of both individual and organizational change management processes. Kubler-Ross wrote On Death and Dying as a result of analyzing people are they went through massive life-change. The result was a paradigm shift in how people looked at change. Although the key to project success is organizational change management, we often have to deal with change at the individual level, too. This is the book that is the foundation for most theories on individual change management.

Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes

Add To Cart

Author:Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Released: February 2004
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 454
ISBN:978-0201835953

Projects build capabilities to meet corporate goals. If you are a CEO, you need to make sure your employees and vendors know what those goals are and how they fit in to the plan. If you are a project manager, you need to know the bounds of you project. If you are anywhere in between, you need to understand how all the pieces fit together and keep it all aligned.

Monday, 13 July 2015 15:13

Rescue the Problem Project

Rescue the Problem Project: A Complete Guide to Identifying, Preventing, and Recovering from Project Failure

Add To Cart

Author: Todd C. Williams
Publisher: AMACOM
Released: March 20, 2011
Pages: 277
Type: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0201835953
Type: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0814439418

Amazon #1 Bestseller in Business and Technical Project Management!

Back from the brink... the first fail-safe recovery plan for turning around troubled projects and keeping the problems from reoccurring.

When budgets are dwindling, deadlines passing, and tempers flaring, the usual response is to browbeat the project team and point fingers of blame. Not helpful. For these situations, what is needed is an objective process for accurately assessing what is wrong and a clear plan of action for fixing the problem.

In Rescue the Problem Project, Todd Williams, President of eCameron, describes how projects go wrong and what to do to fix them. It focuses first on people, then process, and finally technology. By doing this it helps you find the root cause of the failure and helps you prevent it from happening again.

Monday, 13 July 2015 14:26

Strategies for Project Sponsorship

Strategies for Project Sponsorship

Add To Cart

Author:Vicki James,
Ron Rosenhead,
Peter Taylor
Publisher: Management Concepts Press
Released: May 22, 2013
Type: Softcover
Pages: 204
ISBN:978-1567264067

The project sponsor is critical to project success, yet it is a role that is often assigned to a member of the organization with little knowledge or training in project management practices. This creates challenges not only for the sponsor but for the project manager. The organization suffers too if key members of the project team are not fully utilized, as valuable resources are wasted. In Strategies for Project Sponsorship, the authors address this challenge from all three vantage points that of the project manager, the project sponsor, and the organization. Based on their practical experience and solid research, they offer practical methods that project manager s can use to optimize the participation of the sponsor. They also offer clear and straightforward guidance for project sponsors on how to properly execute their duties and contribute to project success. Executives will gain valuable perspective on the organization s projects and key players. From defining the roles and responsibilities of the project sponsor to suggesting specific practices that maximize the working relationship between the sponsor and project manager, this book is the ultimate guide. Examples from real-world sponsor experiences, as well as tips, techniques, and tools, enhance its applicability and practicality. This book should be given to every newly assigned project sponsor, read and referred to by every project manager, and on the desk of every organizational executive as a reference.

Page 8 of 32