2008 Archives - Page 3 of 6

Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done

Why do businesses consistently fail to execute their competitive strategies? Because leaders don’t identify and invest in the full range of projects and programs required to align the organization with its strategy. Moreover, even when strategy makers do break their plans down into doable chunks, they seldom work with project leaders to prioritize strategic investments and assure that needed resources are applied in priority order. And they often neglect to revise the strategic portfolio to fit the demands of a dynamic environment, or to stay connected to strategic projects through completion, as new products, services, skills and capabilities are transferred into operations. In Executing Your Strategy, Mark Morgan, Raymond Levitt, and William Malek present six imperatives that enable you to do the right strategic projects–and do those projects right. And it is no accident that the six imperatives combine to create the acronym INVEST: Ideation: Clarify and communicate Purpose, Identity and Long Range Intention; Nature: Develop alignment between Strategy, Structure and Culture based on Ideation; Vision: Create clear Goals and Metrics aligned to Strategy and guided by Ideation; Engagement: Do the right projects based on the Strategy through Portfolio management; Synthesis: Do Projects and Programs right, in alignment with Portfolio; Transition: Move the Project and Program outputs into Operations where benefit is realized. Full of intriguing company examples and practical advice, this crucial new resource shows you how to make strategy happen in your organization

Real Enterprise Architecture: Beyond IT to the Whole Enterprise

Enterprise-architecture is often described as part of IT, but its real scope is much wider – the structure of everything the enterprise is and does. This book introduces a new approach to tackle this broader role for whole-of-enterprise architecture, using a systematic, iterative process for architecture development. Topics include how to bridge the business/IT divide; how to link architecture with business strategy; and how to improve balance between manual, machine and IT-based processes.

Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises

Dismantle the overwhelming complexity in your IT projects with strategies and real-world examples from a leading expert on enterprise architecture. This guide describes best practices for creating an efficient IT organization that consistently delivers on time, on budget, and in line with business needs. IT systems have become too complex – and too expensive. Complexity can create delays, cost overruns, and outcomes that do not meet business requirements. The resulting losses can impact your entire company. This guide demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, complex problems demand simple solutions. The author believes that 50 percent of the complexity of a typical IT project can and should be eliminated – and he shows you how to do it. Youâ€™ll learn a model for understanding complexity, the three tenets of complexity control, and how to apply specific techniques such as checking architectures for validity. Find out how the authorâ€™s methodology could have saved a real-world IT project that went off track, and ways to implement his solutions in a variety of situations.

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide

Web 2.0 makes headlines, but how does it make money? This concise guide explains what’s different about Web 2.0 and how those differences can improve your company’s bottom line. Whether you’re an executive plotting the next move, a small business owner looking to expand, or an entrepreneur planning a startup, “Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide” illustrates through real-life examples how businesses, large and small, are creating new opportunities on today’s Web. This book is about strategy. Rather than focus on the technology, the examples concentrate on its effect. You will learn that creating a Web 2.0 business, or integrating Web 2.0 strategies with your existing business, means creating places online where people like to come together to share what they think, see, and do. When people come together over the Web, the result can be much more than the sum of the parts. The customers themselves help build the site, as old-fashioned ‘word of mouth’ becomes hypergrowth.”Web 2.0 : A Strategy Guide” demonstrates the power of this new paradigm by examining how: Flickr, a classic user-driven business, created value for itself by helping users create their own value; Google made money with a model based on free search, and changed the rules for doing business on the Web-opening opportunities you can take advantage of; social network effects can support a business-ever wonder how FaceBook grew so quickly?; and, businesses like Amazon tap into the Web as a source of indirect revenue, using creative new approaches to monetize the investments they’ve made in the Web. Written by Amy Shuen, an authority on Silicon Valley business models and innovation economics, “Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide” explains how to transform your business by looking at specific practices for integrating Web 2.0 with what you do. If you’re executing business strategy and want to know how the Web is changing business, this book is for you.

Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: The Failure of the Reform Regime…. and a Manifesto for a Better Way

With the UK’s public sector in crisis, John Seddon’s fiercely outspoken new book is already causing a stir. Wrong-headed, ill thought-out reform from a succession of monetarist governments has led to unwieldy systems of mass production that do little for the people they are supposed to serve. Hospitals, local authorities, schools, housing associations, taxation and benefits offices: all are victims of a dysfunctional regime created by a government-enforced culture of deliverology that puts targets and red tape before people. In Systems Thinking in the Public Sector, John Seddon argues powerfully for the government to forget sticking plasters like CRM and citizen empowerment and says don’t tweak the system. Ditch it. Systems Thinking in the Public Sector gives example after example of exactly how the system fails from housing benefits and care for the elderly to call centres like Consumer Direct. Drawing on Seddon’s extensive experience working as a consultant with UK public sector managers, this is a fiercely uncompromising, yet rigorous manifesto for change.