Generate faster, better results—using less capital and fewer resources! Toyota, Alcoa, Pratt & Whitney, and the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Power Program operate in vastly different worlds, but they have one thing in common. Each of these organizations generates constant, almost automatic operational self-improvements at rates faster, durations longer, and breadths wider than any of its competitors. Excellence in operational management is the single element separating industry leaders from all others. The High-Velocity Edge is a blueprint for fueling innovation and improvement at both the management and process level in your own company. It’s not magic, it’s not luck. It’s something that that can be taught, cultivated, practiced, and effectively applied to an organization. Spears explains how to: Build a system of “dynamic discovery” that reveals operational problems and weaknesses Attack and solve problems at the time and in the place where they occur, converting weaknesses into strengths Disseminate knowledge gained from solving local problems throughout the company as a whole Create managers invested in the process of continual innovation Apply the lessons of The High-Velocity Edge, and you will enjoy profitability, quality, efficiency, reliability, and agility unmatched by any of your rivals.

Spear’s reputation as a thought leader is recognized by elite media, publications, and conferences including Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Boston Globe, Bloomberg Business Radio, the Shingo Prize, and the Association for Manufacturing Excellence The pioneering insights in Chasing the Rabbit are based on original thinking in the tradition of Jim Collins, C.K. Prahalad, Clayton Christensen, and Michael Porter. Spear is one of the most astute business thinkers and prolific writers to emerge in the recent past; his Harvard Business Review articles are among its most popular reprints. Spear is a four-time Shingo Prize winner and a winner of the McKinsey Award Includes examples from global market leaders including Toyota, Vanguard, Southwest Airlines, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Alcoa

The success of app stores has put dollar signs in the eyes of many app developers. Aside from the potential payoff in terms of app sales, high profile acquisitions of app developers continue to make headlines. If a single photo sharing app can go from zero downloads to millions of downloads, and eventually a billion dollar payday, so can yours. If a single drawing game app can go from zero downloads to a $200 million dollar payday, so can yours. This book is a powerful resource that will help your app become famous, sell impressively, and succeed through fame.

Generate Better, Faster Results— Using Less Capital and Fewer Resources! “[The High-Velocity Edge] contains ideas that form the basis for structured continuous learning and improvement in every aspect of our lives. While this book is tailored to business leaders, it should be read by high school seniors, college students, and those already in the workforce. With the broad societal application of these ideas, we can achieve levels of accomplishment not even imagined by most people.” The Honorable Paul H. O’Neill, former CEO and Chairman, Alcoa, and Former Secretary of the Treasury “Some firms outperform competitors in many ways at once—cost, speed, innovation, service. How? Steve Spear opened my eyes to the secret of systemizing innovation: taking it from the occasional, unpredictable ‘stroke of genius’ to something you and your people do month-in, month-out to outdistance rivals.” Scott D. Cook, founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit, Inc. “Steven Spear connects a deep study of systems with practical management insights and does it better than any organizational scholar I know. [This] is a profoundly important book that will challenge and inspire executives in all industries to think more clearly about the technical and social foundations of organizational excellence.” Donald M. Berwick, M.D., M.P.P., President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement About the Book How can some companies perform so well that their industry counterparts are competitors in name only? Although they operate in the same industry, serve the same market, and even use the same suppliers, these extraordinary, high-velocity organizations consistently outperform all the competition—and, more importantly, continually widen their leads. In The High-Velocity Edge, the reissued edition of five-time Shingo Prize winner Steven J. Spear’s critically acclaimed book Chasing the Rabbit, Spear describes what sets market-dominating companies apart and provides a detailed framework you can leverage to surge to the lead in your own industry. Spear examines the internal operations of dominant organizations across a wide spectrum of industries, from technology to design and from manufacturing to health care. While he investigates several great operational triumphs, like top-tier teaching hospitals’ fantastic improvements in quality of care, Pratt & Whitney’s competitive gains in jet engine design, and the U.S. Navy’s breakthroughs in inventing and applying nuclear propulsion, The High-Velocity Edge is not just about the adoration of success. It also takes a critical look at some of the operational missteps that have humbled even the most reputable and respected of companies and organizations. The decades-long prominence of Toyota, for example, is contrasted with the many factors leading to the automaker’s sweeping 2010 product recalls. Taken together, these multiple perspectives and in-depth case studies show how to: Build a system of “dynamic discovery” designed to reveal operational problems and weaknesses as they arise Attack and solve problems when and where they occur, converting weaknesses into strengths Disseminate knowledge gained from solving local problems throughout the company as a whole Create managers invested in developing everyone’s capacity to continually innovate and improve Whatever kind of company you operate— from technology to fi nance to healthcare— mastery of these four key capabilities will put you on the fast track to operational excellence, where you will generate faster, better results—using less capital and fewer resources. Apply the lessons of Steven J. Spear and gain a high-velocity edge over every competitor in your industry.

Beyond Six Sigma and Lean! Design your processes to facilitate real business growth, in both healthy and unhealthy economies Design for Operational Excellence defines why companies embark upon continuous improvement—and the true answer is not to improve efficiency, quality, or eliminate waste! The reason is to achieve Operational Excellence. Duggan, an established authority on OpEx, provides the design criteria and guidelines that enable you to grow your business organically by refocusing management’s attention from running the business to growing the business. Founded on eight key principles, this groundbreaking system facilitates the continuous flow of value into any operation—from customer service to sales to manufacturing. Kevin J. Duggan is a renowned speaker, executive mentor, and educator in applying advanced lean techniques to achieve Operational Excellence and the author of two books on the subject: Creating Mixed Model Value Streams and The Office That Grows Your Business—Achieving Operational Excellence in Your Business Processes. As the Founder of the Institute for Operational Excellence, the leading educational center on Operational Excellence, and Duggan Associates, an international training and advisory firm, Kevin has assisted many major corporations worldwide, including United Technologies Corporation, Caterpillar, Pratt & Whitney, Singapore Airlines, IDEX Corporation, GKN and Parker Hannifin. A recognized expert on Operational Excellence, Kevin is a frequent keynote speaker, master of ceremonies, and panelist at international conferences, and has appeared on CNN and the Fox Business Network.

This Element deals with the know-how and show-how to accomplish high velocity business operations. The basis of these operations is real-time data and low latency processing. Relevant applications are pervasive due to the emerging technologies of IoT, 5G, AI and data analytics. This Element explores theories and methods of configuring, formulating and implementing high velocity business operations with properly designed and developed platforms and processes. Current mobile transformation is enabling the unwiring of businesses, de-territorializing them, and creating more opportunities for these operations. High velocity business processes increase throughput and efficiency, offering first-mover advantage. They also provide location-independence due to use of mobile platforms and devices (smartphones, tablets and wearables). This Element present mobility as a critical attribute of high velocity business operations, taking advantage of world-wide resources and expertise with well-designed mobile platforms and their data.

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU WANT TO BECOME A WORLD-CLASS HEADHUNTER If you want to make significant improvements in your recruitment results and become a member of the top, world headhunters, follow this unorthodox LinkedIn recruitment guide. So-called 'social recruitment' is an inevitable trend in today's recruitment business, and LinkedIn is simply the main part of it. This book reveals many shortcuts and tricks everybody was afraid to unleash, including: How to uncover any full LinkedIn profile view without upgrading to premium How to override the limit of LinkedIn invitations How to search through LinkedIn groups you cannot join How to use search engines to scan LinkedIn for candidates How to automate candidate sourcing How to track the steps of your competition on LinkedIn No matter if you are a recruiter, headhunter, HR personnel, entrepreneur or startupreneur, this book will help you to: Dramatically increase the efficiency of your recruitment activities Skyrocket the volume of reachable candidates Significantly cut costs of hiring new employees ""People as Merchandise, with its no-nonsense pragmatic approach, is an indispensable tool for today's recruitment professionals and entrepreneurs."" -- Barbara Corcoran, founder of The Corcoran Group, author, and investor on ABC's "Shark Tank" ""Josef's book excels where others fail. I highly recommend it to any HR and staffing professional."" -- Horst Gallo, Director HR at IBM ""People as Merchadise is not another vague guide, rather a piece of art among recruitment manuals. Definitely a no-brainer for all recruiters."" -- Jeanne E. Branthover, Managing Director at Boyden and the World's Most Influential Headhunter by BusinessWeek Learn more at: www.PeopleAsMerchandise.com

Management Information Systems provides comprehensive and integrative coverage of essential new technologies, information system applications, and their impact on business models and managerial decision-making in an exciting and interactive manner. The twelfth edition focuses on the major changes that have been made in information technology over the past two years, and includes new opening, closing, and Interactive Session cases.

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