Author: Michael K. Levine
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9781439803912
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
This business parable reviews two different systems development projects. One project was an abject, expensive failure, while the other succeeded in creating a major new revenue stream, bringing in new customers. By reviewing the tales of these two systems, readers will develop a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to the leadership and action steps required to reinvent a company’s procedures to get in step with the times. CEO Evan Nogelmeyer discovers to his dismay that in today’s business world, technology is not just for technologists. But does he discover this soon enough and once he does, does he have the tools and the business savvy he needs to stave off disaster? Evan and his team are all well-intentioned, successful business leaders with advanced degrees and backgrounds in marketing and business. But, without technical backgrounds, do they have what it takes to manage the technology overhaul so critical to the very survival of their company and the future of their own careers? A Tale of Two Systems: Lean and Agile Software Development for Business Leaders reviews two fictional systems development projects: Cremins United and Troubled Real Estate Information Management, both launched at the imaginary Cremins Corporation. Cremins is a venerable printing company that must transform itself to survive in the Internet age. One project proves to be an abject and expensive failure, while the other succeeds in creating a major new revenue stream and solving important customer needs. Contrasting the methods employed in a traditional, process-centric 'waterfall' approach, with a lean and agile-inspired approach, this book provides business leaders with a tangible understanding of why lean thinking is so well-suited to contemporary environments requiring flexibility, speed, and the input of specialized knowledge. At the conclusion of the two tales, author Michael Levine articulates a series of conclusions and principles based on Lean Product Development, Agile, and his 25 years of experience in business systems development. While the tales told and the companies and employees that inhabit them are pure fiction, the lessons to be learned are very real and very applicable in today’s highly competitive market, where victory goes time and time again to the lean and the agile.
Author: Rene Reitsma
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781955101134
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
This text is meant as a case study and companion text to many Systems Analysis & Design textbooks used in undergraduate Management Information Systems (MIS), Business Information Systems (BIS) and Computer Information Systems (CIS) programs. The US counts about 1,300 (undergraduate + graduate) such programs (Mandiwalla et al., 2016). These texts typically contain short descriptions of technologies which give students some sense of what these technologies are used for, but do not provide much context or reflection on why these technologies might or might not be applied and what such applications actually amount to in real life. As a consequence, students, having worked their way through these textbooks and associated courses will have had little exposure to the reasoning which must take place when making choices between these technologies and to what goes into combining them into working and successful system architectures. It is our hope that this Tale of Two Systems (pun very much intended) will help mitigate this problem a little.
Author: Michael K. Levine
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 146651681X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327
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Book Description
There are many books that seek to explain Lean and Agile software that offer theory, techniques, and examples. Michael Levine’s first book, A Tale of Two Systems, is one of the best, synthesizing Lean manufacturing and product development with agile software concepts in an engaging business novel. However, there has been precious little practical guidance for those seeking to change existing organizations to become Lean and Agile, until now. Mr. Levine has followed the successful approach of A Tale of Two Systems, telling two simultaneous intertwined and contrasting stories, to bring organizational transformation to life. Mary O’Connell and James "Wes" Wesleyan, recently engaged to be married, share a commitment to Lean and Agile Software. They have recently become leaders in two very different companies – one, stuck in a slow-moving, unresponsive, process-driven quagmire of a software culture; the other, struggling through the chaos of a sales-driven, process-less swirl. Together with their wise mentor, Neville Roberts, they identify two approaches to making needed changes: Drive People (a top-down approach focused on processes and tools), and People Driven (an enablement approach focused on people and organizations). Mary and Wes evaluate their situations and choose approaches that best fit for them, and the transformations commence. A Tale of Two Transformations differs from many information technology books by grappling with all the complexities of our organizations: the people, the politics, the financials, the processes – in short, the culture from which our Lean and Agile journeys must begin. The change model presented in the flow of the stories is generally applicable, and can help anyone thinking about how to improve their organization.
Author: Linda Wong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315498006
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
As the richest cities in the world's most populous nation, Hong Kong and Shanghai have recently experienced dynamic growth spurred by more and better-managed capital. These cities also have social problems whose solutions will cost money. Their urban populations are aging. Health finance at the level these "First World" cities demand threatens to consume a large portion of the municipal budgets. Eldercare and social security are now less well covered by traditional Chinese families. Education has become more complex and public tuition, where it occurs, brings with it official plans for schools. Immigrants have flocked to Shanghai from inland China, and Hong Kong's border has become a protector of the former colony's high productivity jobs. Housing problems also have deeply affected both cities, albeit in somewhat different ways. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the similarities and differences between social policies in the two cities. Each chapter covers a different issue: health finance, housing, education, labor, poverty and social security, eldercare, and migration and competitiveness. The contributors explore pertinent developments in each city and analyze the similarities and differences between the two cities' approaches to social policies. They focus on policy reform and the interface between social policy and its environment. One main theme throughout the book is the extent to which spending for capital accumulation is in conflict with spending for social policies.
Author: Richard S. Dunn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674735366
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 553
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Book Description
Richard Dunn reconstructs the lives of three generations of slaves on a sugar estate in Jamaica and a plantation in Virginia, to understand the starkly different forms slavery took. Deadly work regimens and rampant disease among Jamaican slaves contrast with population expansion in Virginia leading to the selling of slaves and breakup of families.
Author: Supritha Rajan
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472904329
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 363
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Book Description
No questions are more pressing today than the ethical dimensions of global capitalism in relation to an unevenly secularized modernity. A Tale of Two Capitalisms offers a timely response to these questions by reexamining the intellectual history of capitalist economics during the nineteenth century. Rajan’s ambitious book traces the neglected relationships between nineteenth-century political economy, anthropology, and literature in order to demonstrate how these discourses buttress a dominant narrative of self-interested capitalism that obscures a submerged narrative within political economy. This submerged narrative discloses political economy’s role in burgeoning theories of religion, as well as its underlying ethos of reciprocity, communality, and just distribution. Drawing on an impressive range of literary, anthropological, and economic writings from the eighteenth through the twenty-first century, Rajan offers an inventive, interdisciplinary account of why this second narrative of capitalism has so long escaped our notice. The book presents an unprecedented genealogy of key anthropological and economic concepts, demonstrating how notions of sacrifice, the sacred, ritual, totemism, and magic remained conceptually intertwined with capitalist theories of value and exchange in both sociological and literary discourses. Rajan supplies an original framework for discussing the ethical ideals that continue to inform contemporary global capitalism and its fraught relationship to the secular. Its revisionary argument brings new insight into the history of capitalist thought and modernity that will engage scholars across a variety of disciplines.
Author: Stephen Mikesell
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
ISBN: 0874174678
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
A Tale of Two Bridges is a history of two versions of the San Francisco—Oakland Bay Bridge: the original bridge built in 1936 and a replacement for the eastern half of the bridge finished in 2013. The 1936 bridge revolutionized transportation in the Bay Area and profoundly influenced settlement patterns in the region. It was also a remarkable feat of engineering. In the 1950s the American Society of Civil Engineers adopted a list of the “Seven Engineering Wonders” of the United States. The 1936 structure was the only bridge on the list, besting even the more famous Golden Gate Bridge. One of its greatest achievements was that it was built on time (in less than three years) and came in under budget. Mikesell explores in fascinating detail how the bridge was designed by a collection of the best-known engineers in the country as well as the heroic story of its construction by largely unskilled laborers from California, joined by highly skilled steel workers. By contrast, the East Span replacement, which was planned between 1989 and 1998, and built between 1998 and 2013, fell victim to cost overruns in the billions of dollars, was a decade behind schedule, and suffered from structural problems that has made it a perpetual maintenance nightmare. This is narrative history in its purest form. Mikesell excels at explaining highly technical engineering issues in language that can be understood and appreciated by general readers. Here is the story of two very important bridges, which provides a fair but uncompromising analysis of why one bridge succeeded and the other did not.
Author: Anthony R Wells
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682471217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
A Tale of Two Navies is an analysis of the unique relationship between the United States Navy and the Royal Navy from 1960 to present. This loosely chronological study examines the histories, strategies, operations, technology, and intelligence activities of both navies. The special intelligence relationship is highlighted by unique knowledge and insights into the workings of U.S. and British intelligence. Bringing his extensive experience in both navies to bear, Anthony Wells provides a revealing look at the importance of naval thinking — how it impacts not only every level of naval activity, but also national defense as a whole. A Tale of Two Navies probes selective key themes and offers a discourse between the author and readers. Throughout, Wells challenges his reader to consider how the U.S. and the U.K. can best collaborate to advance their common strategic interests. This insightful look at the “special relationship” is especially relevant given emerging and increasing threats from China, Russia, and radical Islamist terror organizations.
Author: Vicki Kuyper
Publisher: BroadStreet Publishing Group LLC
ISBN: 142455053X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Aging is a gift—a privilege best enjoyed with open arms and a grateful heart. Meet Kitty and Mardel, also affectionately known as St. Katherine and the Dragon Lady. Through a good dose of humor and some hard-earned insight, A Tale of Two Biddies tells the entertaining story of the two women who inspired this book. One was kind, tender-hearted, and humble; the other was critical, pessimistic, self-centered, and sharp-tongued. As these women aged and their inhibitions fell away, the true character of their hearts became increasingly evident to those around them. For better and for worse. In this book Vicki Kuyper explores the issues women face as they age and encourages them to make the most of the latter seasons of their lives. We can’t control the aging process, but we can choose how we’ll face each day, ultimately shaping our hearts and who we become. We grow old in the blink of an eye. Growing up takes considerably longer. That means there’s no better time than right now to reevaluate our habits, our faith, and our future. We can choose what draws us closer to God and closer to being the amazing women God created us to be. That’s life at its finest.
Author: Lucien Gilles Benguigui
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9811219117
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
The thought experiment proposed by Langevin in 1911, known under the popular names, 'Clock Paradox' or 'Twin Paradox', is the most surprising result of the theory of Relativity: A twin who travels to a star at nearly the velocity of light comes back to Earth and finds his twin brother much older. In over a century, several thousands of published articles debated both in favor of and against this result. Unique to the physics of Relativity, this baffling phenomenon is analyzed as a main goal of this book.Among an incredible number of solutions, is there one of simplicity and clarity which may be accepted unanimously by all of the physics community? The answer is yes and this solution, which has its origin in Einstein himself, is developed in the framework of the Special Theory of Relativity. In detailing this solution, it is shown that the essential ingredient to understand the theory is the acceleration of the twins. All the models which do not include acceleration are incompatible with the original idea of Langevin. If one considers this phenomenon, several questions come to mind. Why did physicists debate excessively on the paradox and struggle to reach an agreement? Why was there resistance to integrate acceleration into their studies? Why is the solution developed in this book known only by a minority of scientists?Written for physicists, historians and philosophers of science, this book seeks to answer these questions based on (1) the psychological difficulty to accept the theoretical results, and (2) the fact that scientific knowledge is not uniformly distributed among scientists.
