November 2007 Entries
Wanting to have a better understanding of Theory of Constraints thinking, I decided to go back and read this novel that Goldratt wrote in the early 80's. The novel is about a production plant manager who is facing a crisis in his career. His plant is going to be shut down in 3 months if he and his team can't show better results. While Goldratt does introduce a "personal" story to go along with the business story, this is a novel you wouldn't want to read just for the "story". Like most busin
This book is a bit of a classic and in fact I found out recently that it was reprinted again in 2001. I read the 1975 version that the local university had in their library and while the book is over 30 years old, it still has a tremendous amount of value with regard to the thought processes that go into information systems. What follows is going to be less of a book review and more of a collection of random notes that I took as I read the book.
Before I was hired on at my current company, the entire organization did a group study and review of Crucial Conversations. After hearing my boss and others talk about the book, I decided to give it a read and fortunately he had an extra copy for me. The book covers a lot of very practical advice for dealing with conversational situations that frankly we all find ourselves in almost daily. While it tries to cover a broad span of conversations (home life, work life, social life) I found it to