Download or read book Finding Problems to Fit the Solutions Twenty Years of Aid to the Sahel written by Naudet Jean-David and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2000-08-07 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After ten years of "aid fatigue", here is a lucid, constructive book that sheds new light on the problems, and makes proposals for reform that are both thoughtful and innovative.

Download or read book The Secret Product Manager Handbook written by Nils Davis and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Product management isn't about you and it isn't about your product. It's about solving problems for your customers, creating a solution, and taking it to market." When I started in product management, I had a lot of questions, like "What is product management?" It's a common question still, but most people don't have a good answer. After all these years, the same questions keep coming up. I see them on forums, I hear them when I talk to new and experienced product managers, and I still do not see them being answered well or usefully. So I wrote this book, with the answers to the questions I always had. You'll learn: The real reason people choose to buy a product - it's not about how "good" the product is! How to get the very best from your developers. The 5-word phrase that can accelerate sales and marketing. The best ways to talk to executives and customers about what you're building. Among other critical information, you'll find a powerful framework for thinking about product management - and even for talking to your Mom about what you do. The framework provides an infrastructure for most of The Secret Product Manager Handbook. I provide a concrete and explicit explanation of why product management is so important for businesses, including a calculation of the true business value of product management. And the book is full of specific techniques and practices for transforming your product management career. What People Are Saying "Nuggets of product management wisdom and ideas you'll want to hang on your monitor. The book is like having a conversation with a mentor." (Ken Hanson, Growth Product Manager) The summary of product management - identify market problems, guide the creation of solutions, and take the solutions to market - is powerful. As a former engineer, it's especially important to be reminded of the third point" (Frank Licea, Product Manager) "The intro is one of the clearest and smartest explanations of the value a product manager should bring to the table I've ever read." (Luca Candela, VP of Product Management)

Download or read book Innovation as Usual written by Paddy Miller and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turn team members into innovators Most organizations approach innovation as if it were a sideline activity. Every so often employees are sent to “Brainstorm Island”: an off-site replete with trendy lectures, creative workshops, and overenthusiastic facilitators. But once they return, it’s back to business as usual. Innovation experts Paddy Miller and Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg suggest a better approach. They recommend that leaders at all levels become “innovation architects,” creating an ecosystem in which people engage in key innovation behaviors as part of their daily work. In short, this book is about getting to a state of “innovation as usual,” where regular employees—in jobs like finance, marketing, sales, or operations—make innovation happen in a way that’s both systemic and sustainable. Instead of organizing brainstorming sessions, idea jams, and off-sites that rarely result in success, leaders should guide their people in what the authors call the “5 + 1 keystone behaviors” of innovation: focus, connect, tweak, select, stealthstorm, (and the + 1) persist: • Focus beats freedom: Direct people to look only for ideas that matter to the business • Insight comes from the outside: Urge people to connect to new worlds • First ideas are flawed: Challenge people to tweak and reframe their initial ideas • Most ideas are bad ideas: Guide people to select the best ideas and discard the rest • Stealthstorming rules: Help people navigate the politics of innovation • Creativity is a choice: Motivate everyone to persist in the five keystone behaviors Using examples from a wide range of companies such as Pfizer, Index Ventures, Lonza, Go Travel, Prehype, DSM, and others, Innovation as Usual lights the way toward embedding creativity in the DNA of the workplace. So cancel that off-site. Instead, read Innovation as Usual—and put innovation at the core of your business.

Download or read book The Mom Test written by Rob Fitzpatrick and published by Robfitz Ltd. This book was released on 2013-10-09 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mom Test is a quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak. They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a little . As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it and it's worth doing right . Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both Customer Development and Lean Startup. We all know we're supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it's easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better.

Download or read book The Lean Product Playbook written by Dan Olsen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-05-21 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The missing manual on how to apply Lean Startup to build products that customers love The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice. The Lean Startup movement has contributed new and valuable ideas about product development and has generated lots of excitement. However, many companies have yet to successfully adopt Lean thinking. Despite their enthusiasm and familiarity with the high-level concepts, many teams run into challenges trying to adopt Lean because they feel like they lack specific guidance on what exactly they should be doing. If you are interested in Lean Startup principles and want to apply them to develop winning products, this book is for you. This book describes the Lean Product Process: a repeatable, easy-to-follow methodology for iterating your way to product-market fit. It walks you through how to: Determine your target customers Identify underserved customer needs Create a winning product strategy Decide on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Design your MVP prototype Test your MVP with customers Iterate rapidly to achieve product-market fit This book was written by entrepreneur and Lean product expert Dan Olsen whose experience spans product management, UX design, coding, analytics, and marketing across a variety of products. As a hands-on consultant, he refined and applied the advice in this book as he helped many companies improve their product process and build great products. His clients include Facebook, Box, Hightail, Epocrates, and Medallia. Entrepreneurs, executives, product managers, designers, developers, marketers, analysts and anyone who is passionate about building great products will find The Lean Product Playbook an indispensable, hands-on resource.

Download or read book Why Startups Fail written by Tom Eisenmann and published by Currency. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

Download or read book All In Startup written by Diana Kander and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-06-30 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If Owen Chase can't find a way to turn his company around in the next nine days, he'll be forced to shut it down and lay off all of his employees. He has incurred substantial debt and his marriage is on shaky ground. Through pure happenstance, Owen finds himself pondering this problem while advancing steadily as a contestant at the World Series of Poker. His Las Vegas path quickly introduces him to Samantha, a beautiful and mysterious mentor with a revolutionary approach to entrepreneurship. Sam is a fountain of knowledge that may save his company, but her sexual advances might prove too much for Owen's struggling marriage. All In Startup is more than just a novel about eschewing temptation and fighting to save a company. It is a lifeline for entrepreneurs who are thinking about launching a new idea or for those who have already started but can't seem to generate the traction they were expecting. Entrepreneurs who achieve success in the new economy do so using a new "scientific method" of innovation. All In Startup demonstrates why four counterintuitive principles separate successful entrepreneurs from the wanna-preneurs who bounce from idea to idea, unable to generate real revenue. You will likely get only one opportunity in your life to go "all in" in on an idea: to quit your job, talk your spouse into letting you drain the savings account, and follow your dream. All In Startup will prepare you for that "all in" moment and make sure that you push your chips into the middle only when the odds are in your favor. This book holds the keys to significantly de-risking your idea so that your success appears almost lucky. Join Owen and Sam for this one-of-a-kind journey that will set you on the right path for when it's your turn to put everything on the line.

Download or read book The Open Innovation Marketplace written by Alpheus Bingham and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2011-03-25 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many technical obstacles to effective innovation no longer exist: today, companies possess global networks that can connect with knowledge from virtually any source. Today’s challenge is to collaboratively transform that knowledge into higher-value innovation. Their book introduces groundbreaking strategies and models for consistently achieving this goal. Authors Alpheus Bingham and Dwayne Spradlin draw on their own experience building InnoCentive, the pioneering global platform for open innovation (a.k.a. "crowdsourcing"). Writing for business executives, R&D leaders, and innovation strategists, Bingham and Spradlin demonstrate how to dramatically increase the flow of high-value ideas and innovative solutions both within enterprises and beyond their boundaries. They show: Why open innovation works so well. How to use open innovation to become more agile and entrepreneurial. How to access Idea Markets more quickly, and get more value from them. How to overcome new forms of "Not Invented Here" syndrome. How to implement cultural, organizational, and management changes that lead to greater innovation. New trends in open innovation–and the opportunities they present. The authors present many new open innovation case studies, from P&G and Eli Lilly to NASA and the City of Chicago.

Download or read book Problem Solving Strategies written by Arthur Engel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-01-19 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique collection of competition problems from over twenty major national and international mathematical competitions for high school students. Written for trainers and participants of contests of all levels up to the highest level, this will appeal to high school teachers conducting a mathematics club who need a range of simple to complex problems and to those instructors wishing to pose a "problem of the week", thus bringing a creative atmosphere into the classrooms. Equally, this is a must-have for individuals interested in solving difficult and challenging problems. Each chapter starts with typical examples illustrating the central concepts and is followed by a number of carefully selected problems and their solutions. Most of the solutions are complete, but some merely point to the road leading to the final solution. In addition to being a valuable resource of mathematical problems and solution strategies, this is the most complete training book on the market.

Download or read book Fit for Growth written by Vinay Couto and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical approach to business transformation Fit for Growth* is a unique approach to business transformation that explicitly connects growth strategy with cost management and organization restructuring. Drawing on 70-plus years of strategy consulting experience and in-depth research, the experts at PwC’s Strategy& lay out a winning framework that helps CEOs and senior executives transform their organizations for sustainable, profitable growth. This approach gives structure to strategy while promoting lasting change. Examples from Strategy&’s hundreds of clients illustrate successful transformation on the ground, and illuminate how senior and middle managers are able to take ownership and even thrive during difficult periods of transition. Throughout the Fit for Growth process, the focus is on maintaining consistent high-value performance while enabling fundamental change. Strategy& has helped major clients around the globe achieve significant and sustained results with its research-backed approach to restructuring and cost reduction. This book provides practical guidance for leveraging that expertise to make the choices that allow companies to: Achieve growth while reducing costs Manage transformation and transition productively Create lasting competitive advantage Deliver reliable, high-value performance Sustainable success is founded on efficiency and high performance. Companies are always looking to do more with less, but their efforts often work against them in the long run. Total business transformation requires total buy-in, and it entails a series of decisions that must not be made lightly. The Fit for Growth approach provides a clear strategy and practical framework for growth-oriented change, with expert guidance on getting it right. *Fit for Growth is a registered service mark of PwC Strategy& Inc. in the United States

Download or read book What s Your Problem written by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The author makes a compelling case that we often start solving a problem before thinking deeply about whether we are solving the right problem. If you want the superpower of solving better problems, read this book." -- Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google Are you solving the right problems? Have you or your colleagues ever worked hard on something, only to find out you were focusing on the wrong problem entirely? Most people have. In a survey, 85 percent of companies said they often struggle to solve the right problems. The consequences are severe: Leaders fight the wrong strategic battles. Teams spend their energy on low-impact work. Startups build products that nobody wants. Organizations implement "solutions" that somehow make things worse, not better. Everywhere you look, the waste is staggering. As Peter Drucker pointed out, there's nothing more dangerous than the right answer to the wrong question. There is a way to do better. The key is reframing, a crucial, underutilized skill that you can master with the help of this book. Using real-world stories and unforgettable examples like "the slow elevator problem," author Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg offers a simple, three-step method - Frame, Reframe, Move Forward - that anyone can use to start solving the right problems. Reframing is not difficult to learn. It can be used on everyday challenges and on the biggest, trickiest problems you face. In this visually engaging, deeply researched book, you’ll learn from leaders at large companies, from entrepreneurs, consultants, nonprofit leaders, and many other breakthrough thinkers. It's time for everyone to stop barking up the wrong trees. Teach yourself and your team to reframe, and growth and success will follow.

Download or read book Sprint written by Jake Knapp and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES and WALL STREET JOURNAL bestseller 'A must read for entrepreneurs of all stripes' - Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup From three partners at Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough business problems, proven at more than 100 companies. What’s the most important place to focus your effort? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution? What will your idea look like in real life? How do you start? Now there’s a surefire way to answer these important questions: the sprint. Designer Jake Knapp created the five-day process at Google, where sprints were used on everything from Google Search to Google X. He joined Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky at Google Ventures, and together they have completed more than one hundred sprints with companies in mobile, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and more. A practical guide to answering critical business questions, Sprint is a book for teams of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to nonprofits. It’s for anyone with a big opportunity, problem, or idea who needs to get answers today.

Download or read book Drawdown written by Paul Hawken and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • New York Times bestseller • The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world “At this point in time, the Drawdown book is exactly what is needed; a credible, conservative solution-by-solution narrative that we can do it. Reading it is an effective inoculation against the widespread perception of doom that humanity cannot and will not solve the climate crisis. Reported by-effects include increased determination and a sense of grounded hope.” —Per Espen Stoknes, Author, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming “There’s been no real way for ordinary people to get an understanding of what they can do and what impact it can have. There remains no single, comprehensive, reliable compendium of carbon-reduction solutions across sectors. At least until now. . . . The public is hungry for this kind of practical wisdom.” —David Roberts, Vox “This is the ideal environmental sciences textbook—only it is too interesting and inspiring to be called a textbook.” —Peter Kareiva, Director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.

Download or read book Thinking in Problems written by Alexander A. Roytvarf and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-01-04 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise, self-contained textbook gives an in-depth look at problem-solving from a mathematician’s point-of-view. Each chapter builds off the previous one, while introducing a variety of methods that could be used when approaching any given problem. Creative thinking is the key to solving mathematical problems, and this book outlines the tools necessary to improve the reader’s technique. The text is divided into twelve chapters, each providing corresponding hints, explanations, and finalization of solutions for the problems in the given chapter. For the reader’s convenience, each exercise is marked with the required background level. This book implements a variety of strategies that can be used to solve mathematical problems in fields such as analysis, calculus, linear and multilinear algebra and combinatorics. It includes applications to mathematical physics, geometry, and other branches of mathematics. Also provided within the text are real-life problems in engineering and technology. Thinking in Problems is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the classroom or as a self-study guide. Prerequisites include linear algebra and analysis.

Download or read book Think Like a Programmer written by V. Anton Spraul and published by No Starch Press. This book was released on 2012-08-12 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real challenge of programming isn't learning a language's syntax—it's learning to creatively solve problems so you can build something great. In this one-of-a-kind text, author V. Anton Spraul breaks down the ways that programmers solve problems and teaches you what other introductory books often ignore: how to Think Like a Programmer. Each chapter tackles a single programming concept, like classes, pointers, and recursion, and open-ended exercises throughout challenge you to apply your knowledge. You'll also learn how to: –Split problems into discrete components to make them easier to solve –Make the most of code reuse with functions, classes, and libraries –Pick the perfect data structure for a particular job –Master more advanced programming tools like recursion and dynamic memory –Organize your thoughts and develop strategies to tackle particular types of problems Although the book's examples are written in C++, the creative problem-solving concepts they illustrate go beyond any particular language; in fact, they often reach outside the realm of computer science. As the most skillful programmers know, writing great code is a creative art—and the first step in creating your masterpiece is learning to Think Like a Programmer.

Download or read book The Human Centered Brand written by Nela Dunato and published by . This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Promote your business with clarity, ease, and authenticity. The Human Centered Brand is a practical branding guide for service based businesses and creatives, that helps you grow meaningful relationships with your clients and your audience. If you're a writer, marketing consultant, creative agency owner, lawyer, illustrator, designer, developer, psychotherapist, personal trainer, dentist, painter, musician, bookkeeper, or other type of service business owner, the methods described in this book will assist you in expressing yourself naturally and creating a resonant, remarkable, and sustainable brand. Read this book to learn: Why conventional branding approaches don't work for service based businesses. How to identify your core values and use them in your business and marketing decisions. Different ways you can make your business unique among all the competition. How to express yourself verbally through your website, emails, articles, videos, talks, podcasts... What makes your "ideal clients" truly ideal, and how to connect with real people who appreciate you as you are. How to craft an effective tagline. What are the most important elements of a visual brand identity, and how to use them to design your own brand. How to craft an exceptional client experience and impress your clients with your professionalism. How your brand relates to your business model, pricing, company culture, fashion style, and social impact. Whether you're a complete beginner or have lots of experience with marketing and design, you'll get new insights about your own brand, and fresh ideas you'll want to implement right away. The companion workbook, checklists, templates, and other bonuses ensure that you not only learn new information, but create a custom brand strategy on your own. Learn more at humancenteredbrand.com

Download or read book The Stanford Mathematics Problem Book written by George Polya and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on Stanford University's well-known competitive exam, this excellent mathematics workbook offers students at both high school and college levels a complete set of problems, hints, and solutions. 1974 edition.