Today we are speaking with Rich Maltzman, PMP, co-author of several books on Project Management, including the Cleveland Award-winning Green Project Management, and most recently, Bridging the PM Competency Gap, co-written with Loredana Abramo, PMP. The two co-authors offer assistance in PM competence building via their consultancy Continuous Learning Environment (CLE Advisors). Loredana Abramo, PMP® […]
Premise:
The premise of “An Attitude of Excellence”, written by Dr. Willie Jolley is that excellence is the hallmark or touchstone for all high-performing organizations. Dr. Willie Jolley has delivered the content of this book to organizations such as Verizon Communication, Dell, Marriott, Walmart, and most notably Ford Motor Company. This book provides a new framework that he has developed to help organizations achieve two main objectives:
1) To enable organizations to create a culture of excellence.
2) For individuals to have a personal framework for doing their best personally and professionally.
Premise:
The premise of “Time Tactics of Very Successful People”, is that we all have 24 hours in a day and that successful people and unsuccessful people all receive the same amount of time every day. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is how they utilize the 24 hours a day they have been given in a way that produces results and creates value. Time management is a skill that you must master to be successful; however, no one can actually manage time because time will march on whether we focus on it or not. What we can manage is our activities in a discipline and consistent manner that over time will deliver the outputs and outcomes we desire and enable us to accomplish more in a week than most people accomplish all year.
What I learned:
The premise of "Enterprise Programme Management" is to provide guidelines, best practices and new techniques to enhance an organization’s credibility in leading multiple projects as a single body of work. Program Management requires the integration of delivering milestones, products, solutions and critical capabilities. The book advocates building a core capability around program management and linking strategy to the overall program and managing an organization’s limited resources across the program life cycle. The enterprise program management approach requires organizations to focus on managing components such as risk management, benefits management, benefits realization, allocation of resources and sourcing strategies suppliers. These items are critical to the success of all programs that requires the synchronization of multiple projects using limited resources to deliver future capabilities across the company.
Premise:
The premise of "Translating Strategy Into Action" is that understanding one's organizations strategic objectives and cascading those objectives throughout the organization into departmental and individual action plans can be a challenging task as the demand for limited resources continues to increase. Translating strategy must be communicated up and down the organization from the board room to the mail room as well as across the value chain to partners and suppliers. Contained in this book are practical tools and techniques for the translation and execution of an organization's strategic objectives into actions that produce measurable results. Topics covered in the book focus on the principles of:
Premise:
Charles Reade said it best in his most quoted maxim, “Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.” The premise of "Habits of the Mind" is that you are what you think about. All of your thoughts shape and create whom you are, they mold you into the person you have become and whom you will be in the future. What we think shapes and determines our character and the outcome of our life.
Premise:
"Strategic Project Portfolio Management" fills a gap in the literature of project, program and portfolio management books by providing a comprehensive approach to managing IT investments based on Simon Moore’s experience as a Financial Portfolio Manager for Putman Investments and as a Charter Financial Analyst. The book is targeted at an executive audience, with the goal of enabling them to understand how project portfolio management empowers organizations to better map project investments to the overall strategy and goals of the organization.
The premise of the book is that portfolio management is key to enabling an organization to execute by improving the proposal submission and project ideation process. Investment Portfolio Workflow is a key component of portfolio management and should be at the center of an organization’s project portfolio management capability design. Many organizations approach project selection in an ad hoc manner, but high performing organizations achieve results by utilizing portfolio management to select the right projects based on data driven modeling that optimizes the cost of accomplishing their strategic initiatives.
Premise:
The premise of "IT Governance" is that top-performing organizations have a systematic decision-making framework that enables them to achieve greater bottom-line results to their business goals, value and growth over their competition. Organizations that have implemented an IT governance framework have better clarity around their strategy and the part that IT plays in the implementation of those strategies. They also have better processes for more efficient and effective change management procedures and organizational accountability for tracking project benefits.
The book "IT Governance" has been a valuable resource in my personal growth as an IT Governance practitioner and portfolio management consultant. Having led IT Governance boards for a number of years at a large international law firm, I’ve found the processes and procedures outlined in the book extremely valuable.
Premise:
"IT Portfolio Management Step-by-Step" is a must-have for portfolio management practitioners. The book is grouped into four parts: an overview and background of what’s included in the material, the foundational elements of portfolio management, building a step-by-step plan and implementation guide, and PPM best practices. In the pages of this book, you will find information on the best practice approach for aligning, rationalizing, prioritizing, selecting, optimizing, tracking, monitoring and managing your organization's IT portfolio investments. The book also covers the three primary areas of IT portfolio management which are the development of processes and frameworks, the implications of tools for data collection, costs, risks, benefits, requirement analysis, and business drivers alignment. You will also discover information on corporate investments and a common taxonomy and governance approach for communicating principles, policies, and guidelines to enable a consistent cadence for your portfolio process.
What I learned:
The need for IT Portfolio Management can be understood against the backdrop of the following statistics: