If your company’s goal is to become fast, responsive, and agile, more efficiency is not the answer--you need more slack. Why is it that today’s superefficient organizations are ailing? Tom DeMarco, a leading management consultant to both Fortune 500 and up-and-coming companies, reveals a counterintuitive principle that explains why efficiency efforts can slow a company down. That principle is the value of slack, the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. Implementing slack could be as simple as adding an assistant to a department and letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photocopier and more time making key decisions, or it could mean designing workloads that allow people room to think, innovate, and reinvent themselves. It means embracing risk, eliminating fear, and knowing when to go slow. Slack allows for change, fosters creativity, promotes quality, and, above all, produces growth. With an approach that works for new- and old-economy companies alike, this revolutionary handbook debunks commonly held assumptions about real-world management, and gives you and your company a brand-new model for achieving and maintaining true effectiveness.

Fly along with Elecopter as she soars above the savannah, patrolling the skies with her fire-hose nose at the ready. The other animals are safe and sound with Elecopter on the scene—Elecopter is a hero for all! Preschoolers are in for a treat in this chant-along companion to Monkey Truck.

You get so much more done when you Slack! Ever wondered what it would be like to be less overwhelmed, more efficient, and much more engaged at work? A way you can make all that happen is, of course, to Slack. Actually, it’s to use Slack, the business communications platform that’s revolutionized how groups work together. This comprehensive guide shows how—as well as why—there are now millions of users of this flexible, fun, and intuitive workspace tool. Presented in a clear, easy-to-follow style, Slack For Dummies takes you from the basics of getting started with the service all the way through how to get your teams Slacking together for all they’re worth. You’ll also find case studies showing how Slack increases productivity and how to replicate that in your organization, as well as tips on getting buy-in from the boss. Introduce Slack to your workflow Understand roles and features Analyze user data Keep your Slacking secure So, take a peek inside and discover how you can cut the slack using Slack—and clue your teams in on how there is actually a way to Slack off for improved results!

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick! • A work-from-home comedy where WFH meets WTF. • "An absurd, hilarious romp through the haunted house of late-stage capitalism." —Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House Told entirely through clever and captivating Slack messages, this irresistible, relatable satire of both virtual work and contemporary life is The Office for a new world. Gerald, a mid-level employee of a New York–based public relations firm has been uploaded into the company’s internal Slack channels—at least his consciousness has. His colleagues assume it’s an elaborate gag to exploit the new work-from home policy, but now that Gerald’s productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from ... wherever he says he is. Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists his co-worker Pradeep to help him escape, and to find out what happened to his body. But the longer Gerald stays in the void, the more alluring and absurd his reality becomes. Meanwhile, Gerald’s colleagues have PR catastrophes of their own to handle in the real world. Their biggest client, a high-end dog food company, is in the midst of recalling a bad batch of food that’s allegedly poisoning Pomeranians nationwide. And their CEO suspects someone is sabotaging his office furniture. And if Gerald gets to work from home all the time, why can’t everyone? Is true love possible between two people, when one is just a line of text in an app? And what in the hell does the :dusty-stick: emoji mean? In a time when office paranoia and politics have followed us home, Calvin Kasulke is here to capture the surprising, absurd, and fully-relatable factors attacking our collective sanity ... and give us hope that we can still find a human connection.

The financial crisis exposed unsavory results of interactions between low- and moderate-income households and alternative and mainstream financial institutions: overleveraged incomes, high cost for financial services, and lack of access to useful financial products that can cushion against economic instability. It revealed a financial services system that is not well designed to serve these households, leaving them without financial slack. Pivotal analysis, focusing on metropolitan Detroit's low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, examines household decision making processes, behaviors, and attitudes toward a full range of financial transactions during the subprime lending boom. The author advocates helping families seek financial stability in three primary ways: enhancing individuals' financial capability, using technology to promote access to financial products and services that meet their needs, and establishing strong protections for consumers.

Monkey Truck comes racing to the rescue anytime there is trouble in the jungle.

Now in its 5th Edition, Operations Strategy continues to provide a comprehensive understanding of the interaction between operational resources and market requirements. Companies such as Apple and Google have transformed their prospects through the way they manage their operations resources strategically, turning their operations capabilities into a formidable asset. The ideas and examples in this book illustrate how operations strategy can develop these capabilities by building on concepts from strategic management, operations management, marketing and HRM. This is the ideal text for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.

This handbook provides an essential guide to the world of industrial design. Within its pages, it explores what constitutes successful design, how it works and how product design creates a market for itself. It also delves into the multifarious role of product designers, as new technology and materials present new possibilities for both form and function. What is Product Design? proves itself to be such essential reading through the many areas that it covers. These include issues of longevity and life cycles, concept generation, prototyping and product placement. What is Product Design? is not just an in-depth exploration of successful design, it is also a stunning, diverse portfolio of cutting-edge work from designers and studios throughout the globe. Like the other titles in the Essential Design Handbooks series, this will be necessary reading for all graphic designers, professional and student alike.

To most companies, efficiency means profits and growth. But what if your “efficient” company—the one with the reduced headcount and the “stretch” goals—is actually slowing down and losing money? What if your employees are burning out doing the work of two or more people, leaving them no time for planning, prioritizing, or even lunch? What if you’re losing employees faster than you can hire them? What if your superefficient company is suddenly falling behind? Tom DeMarco, a leading management consultant to both Fortune 500 and up-and-coming companies, has discovered a counterintuitive principle that explains why efficiency improvement can sometimes make a company slow. If your real organizational goal is to become fast (responsive and agile), then he proposes that what you need is not more efficiency, but more slack. What is “slack”? Slack is the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. It could be something as simple as adding an assistant to a department, letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photo copier and more time making key decisions. Slack could also appear in the way a company treats employees: instead of loading them up with overwork, a company designed with slack allows its people room to breathe, increase effectiveness, and reinvent themselves. In thirty—three short chapters filled with creative learning tools and charts, you and your company can learn how to: ∑make sense of the Efficiency/Flexibility quandary ∑run directly toward risk instead of away from it ∑strengthen the creative role of middle management ∑make change and growth work together for even greater profits A innovative approach that works for new- and old-economy companies alike, this revolutionary handbook will debunk commonly held assumptions about real-world management, and give you and your company a brand-new model for achieving and maintaining true effectiveness—and a healthier bottom line.