Leading The Project Revolution

People play a vital part in the success of projects, initiatives and organisations, yet traditional project management sources offer limited guidance and insights that extend beyond technical roles and prescriptions. Leading the Project Revolution delves into the dynamics of people, teams and organisations exploring their impact on leadership, strategy, success and achievement. The book offers a progressive agenda for improving project practice, enabling the dialogue to advance from the typical coverage of static toolsets towards an understanding of flexible mindsets. Flexibility, agility and resilience are addressed as the social, cultural and complexity dimensions of leadership, strategy, organisations and project execution are examined and practical insights are synthesised into pragmatic models and frameworks. The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on teams, leadership, corporate culture, human behaviour, organisational dynamics, psychology, complexity, strategy, execution, innovation, social media and decision sourcing.

Imagine a world in which most projects - personal, social, corporate, organizational and governmental - are successfully accomplished. That is the purpose and the reason for writing this book. There is work to be done. Only a select few projects deliver their purpose, meet their expected goals, achieve sustainable benefits, satisfy most stakeholders, meet their deadlines and stay within their original financial budget. So what is the secret? What can we learn from the thousands of failed projects? And how can we develop a framework or tool that guarantees, or at least significantly increases the chance of, project success? In fact, every aspect of our lives is becoming a set of projects. The speed of change witnessed in the past decade has radically affected the way we organize and manage our companies and work. Many of the traditional activities in organizations will soon be carried out by automation and robots. In this new landscape, projects are becoming an essential model to create value. In short, we are witnessing the rise of the project economy. Leading projects thinker Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez explains the tremendous consequences that this unnoticed disruption is having on our lives and the reasons behind it. He also looks at how leading companies, governments, schools, and universities have already embraced projects as the way to deliver on their strategy and ambitions. Ultimately, this book explains how individuals and companies can develop the competencies required to transform and thrive in the new digital and project-driven economy.

As tech giants and startups disrupt every market, those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the 21st century, just as the masters of mass production defined the landscape in the 20th. Unfortunately, business and technology leaders are woefully ill-equipped to solve the problems posed by digital transformation. At the current rate of disruption, half of S&P 500 companies will be replaced in the next ten years. A new approach is needed. 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 book for you.

The Phoenix Project wowed over a half-million readers. Now comes the Wall Street Journal Bestselling Wall Street Journal bestselling The Unicorn Project! “The Unicorn Project is amazing, and I loved it 100 times more than The Phoenix Project…”—FERNANDO CORNAGO, Senior Director Platform Engineering, Adidas “Gene Kim does a masterful job of showing how … the efforts of many create lasting business advantages for all.”—DR. STEVEN SPEAR, author of The High-Velocity Edge, Sr. Lecturer at MIT, and principal of HVE LLC. “The Unicorn Project is so clever, so good, so crazy enlightening!”––CORNELIA DAVIS, Vice President Of Technology at Pivotal Software, Inc., Author of Cloud Native Patterns This highly anticipated follow-up to the bestselling title The Phoenix Project takes another look at Parts Unlimited, this time from the perspective of software development. In The Unicorn Project, we follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect, as she is exiled to the Phoenix Project, to the horror of her friends and colleagues, as punishment for contributing to a payroll outage. She tries to survive in what feels like a heartless and uncaring bureaucracy and to work within a system where no one can get anything done without endless committees, paperwork, and approvals. One day, she is approached by a ragtag bunch of misfits who say they want to overthrow the existing order, to liberate developers, to bring joy back to technology work, and to enable the business to win in a time of digital disruption. To her surprise, she finds herself drawn ever further into this movement, eventually becoming one of the leaders of the Rebellion, which puts her in the crosshairs of some familiar and very dangerous enemies. The Age of Software is here, and another mass extinction event looms—this is a story about rebel developers and business leaders working together, racing against time to innovate, survive, and thrive in a time of unprecedented uncertainty...and opportunity. “The Unicorn Project provides insanely useful insights on how to improve your technology business.”—DOMINICA DEGRANDIS, author of Making Work Visible and Director of Digital Transformation at Tasktop ——— “My goal in writing The Unicorn Project was to explore and reveal the necessary but invisible structures required to make developers (and all engineers) productive, and reveal the devastating effects of technical debt and complexity. I hope this book can create common ground for technology and business leaders to leave the past behind, and co-create a better future together.”—Gene Kim, November 2019

Advisor of Leadership at Google and former vice president of leadership at LinkedIn claims that the biggest driver of motivation is the chance to serve a larger purpose beyond our careers and ourselves, rather than salary, benefits, bonuses, or other material incentives; companies that are able to successfully focus their people, their teams, and their culture around meaning outperform their competition. Fred Kofman's approach to leadership has little to do with the standard practices taught in business school and traditional books. Bringing together economics and business theory, communications and conflict resolution, family counseling and mindfulness mediation, Kofman argues in The Meaning Revolution that our most deep-seated, unspoken, and universal anxiety stems from our fear that our life is being wasted--that the end of life will overtake us when our song is still unsung. Material incentives--salary and benefits--account for perhaps 15 percent of employees' motivation at work. The other 85 percent is driven by a need to belong, a feeling that what we do day in and day out makes a difference, that how we spend our time on earth serves a larger purpose beyond just ourselves. Kofman claims that transcendental leaders, wherever they are in the hierarchy, are able to put aside their self-interests and help others to feel connected with others on a team or in an organization on a great mission and part of an ennobling purpose. He argues that every organization involved in work that is nonviolent and non addictive has what he calls an "immortality project" at its core. And the challenge for leaders is to identify and expand on that core, to inspire all stakeholders to take part.

The one primer you need to launch, lead, and sponsor successful projects. We're now living in the project economy. The number of projects initiated in all sectors has skyrocketed, and project management skills have become essential for every leader and manager. Still, project failure rates remain extremely high. Why? Leaders oversee too many projects and have too little visibility into them. Project managers struggle to translate their hands-on, technical knowledge up to senior management. The result? Worthy projects are starved of time and resources and fail to deliver benefits, while too much investment goes into the wrong projects. To compete in the project economy, you need to close this gap. The HBR Project Management Handbook shows you how. In this comprehensive guide, project management expert Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez presents a new and simple framework that will increase any project's likelihood of success. Packed with case studies from many industries worldwide, it will teach you how to manage your organization's projects, strategic programs, and agile initiatives more effectively and push the best ones ahead to completion. Timeless yet forward-looking, this book will help you win in the project-driven world. In the HBR Project Management Handbook you'll find: Everything you need to know about project management in practical, nontechnical language A definitive taxonomy of project types, from product launches to digital transformations to megaprojects A road map for becoming an effective project leader and executive sponsor A new, simple, and universal project framework, the Project Canvas, that breaks down any project into essential building blocks that can be easily understood by all project stakeholders Original concepts and exclusive case studies from public- and private-sector organizations worldwide You'll learn: A common language for project managers and executives to run successful projects across your organization When to use agile, traditional, or hybrid methods in your projects The twelve principles of successful projects, including purpose, agility, and a focus on outcomes Techniques for selecting and advancing the best projects and managing a strategic and balanced project portfolio How today's projects will help address some of the most pressing global trends, including automation, sustainability, diversity, and crisis management Why project management needed to be reinvented and what the future holds HBR Handbooks provide ambitious professionals with the frameworks, advice, and tools they need to excel in their careers. With step-by-step guidance, time-honed best practices, and real-life stories, each comprehensive volume helps you to stand out from the pack—whatever your role.

Software is becoming more and more important across a broad range of industries, yet most technology executives struggle to deliver software improvements their businesses require. Leading-edge companies like Amazon and Google are applying DevOps and Agile principles to deliver large software projects faster than anyone thought possible. But most executives don't understand how to transform their current legacy systems and processes to scale these principles across their organizations. Leading the Transformation is executive guide, providing a clear framework for improving development and delivery. Instead of the traditional Agile and DevOps approaches that focus on improving the effectiveness of teams, this book targets the coordination of work across teams in large organizations—an improvement that executives are uniquely positioned to lead.

In an era where sustainability is no longer optional, "Green PMO - Leading the Sustainable Project Revolution" is an essential guide for project managers. This book isn't just timely; it's a call to arms, one I've been passionate about for years, as echoed in my Harvard Business Review articles. It emphasizes project managers' critical role in embedding sustainability into the very fabric of their organizations. Eman Deabil, whose idea sparked the creation of this book, deserves special recognition. With tenacity and insight, she gathered a group of thinkers and doers who shared a common goal: to redefine project management with a green lens. Eman's hard work in curating the content and her drive to initiate the Green PMO model are testaments to her dedication to sustainable change. Her effort to bring this book to fruition, acting as a nexus for global collaboration, shows what can be achieved when conviction meets collaboration. Looking into the core of the book, two themes stand out prominently. Firstly, the book tackles the operational side of sustainability in project management. Chapters like "PMOs Driving Sustainable Value" and "The Integration of ESG to Address the Challenges and Potential Impacts of Digital Transformation" provide a deep dive into how PMOs can build sustainability into their projects from the ground up. They discuss the practicalities of aligning project initiatives with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria and offer frameworks for integrating these into day-to-day project execution. Secondly, the book is open to the bigger picture, addressing the strategic role of project management in driving sustainability. In chapters such as "Strategic Conscious Leadership: How Project Intelligence Shapes the Future of the PMO" and "Agile and Green: Adapting Agile Methodologies for Sustainable Project Management," we see a broader view of how project management methodologies like Agile can be adapted for sustainability goals. These sections don't just provide insights-they serve as actionable roadmaps for project managers looking to steer their projects toward a more sustainable and ethical direction. "Green PMO - Leading the Sustainable Project Revolution" is a comprehensive resource for those ready to lead their projects and organizations to a sustainable future. It's a privilege to endorse Eman Deabil's exceptional work and the collective wisdom of the contributors. This book is a pivotal step in our ongoing journey toward sustainability, empowering project managers to become agents of meaningful change.

***Over a half-million sold! And available now, the Wall Street Journal Bestselling sequel The Unicorn Project*** “Every person involved in a failed IT project should be forced to read this book.”—TIM O'REILLY, Founder & CEO of O'Reilly Media “The Phoenix Project is a must read for business and IT executives who are struggling with the growing complexity of IT.”—JIM WHITEHURST, President and CEO, Red Hat, Inc. Five years after this sleeper hit took on the world of IT and flipped it on it's head, the 5th Anniversary Edition of The Phoenix Project continues to guide IT in the DevOps revolution. In this newly updated and expanded edition of the bestselling The Phoenix Project, co-author Gene Kim includes a new afterword and a deeper delve into the Three Ways as described in The DevOps Handbook. 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 ninety 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 a manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited. In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they'll never view IT the same way again. “This book is a gripping read that captures brilliantly the dilemmas that face companies which depend on IT, and offers real-world solutions.”—JEZ HUMBLE, Co-author of Continuous Delivery, Lean Enterprise, Accelerate, and The DevOps Handbook

Imagine if we were using the same medical techniques today that were used during the Industrial Revolution, including the practice of bloodletting using leeches. Medicine has come a long way since then. So why do organizations and corporations cling to management techniques that are just as obsolete as the bleed-and-leech model? In a global workpla