Вчера начался снежный шторм. Выпало примерно 20 см снега. Вчера звонила тётя Наташа. Она собиралась пойти к зубному выдёргивать зуб мудрости. Рассказывала что температура в Новокузнецке ниже 20°, холодно.

Business Acumen for Project Managers

1.25 PDUs Learning objectives: Identify the role of business acumen in the PMI Talent Triangle. Recognize that projects are how businesses implement changes. Explore the characteristics of a SMART goal. List several business benefits of good customer service. Identify common financial documents. Review common financial analysis methods. Recall the three common approaches to continuous process improvement. Identify the differences between strategic, tactical, and operational goals.

Boom!

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

ISBN: 978-1-59448-884-9

242 pages

Aug  - Sep 2025

Approx. 10.5 hours

Part 1 – A New Operating System

Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of Motivation 2.0

• Motivation 1.0: survival-based.
• Motivation 2.0: rewards and punishments.
• Both work for simple tasks, but fail with complex, creative, knowledge-based work.

Chapter 2: Seven Reasons Carrots and Sticks (Often) Don’t Work

• External rewards can:
• Crush intrinsic motivation
• Diminish performance
• Crush creativity
• Crowd out good behavior
• Encourage cheating, shortcuts, unethical acts
• Become addictive
• Foster short-term thinking

Chapter 2a: …and the Special Circumstances When They Do

• External rewards can work for simple, routine tasks with clear rules.
• Best used as “if–then” rewards for algorithmic tasks.
• For creative work, unexpected praise or feedback (“now that” rewards) can help without undermining intrinsic drive.

Chapter 3: Type I and Type X

Part 2 – The Three Elements

Chapter 4: Autonomy

• People want control over their:
• Task (what they do)
• Time (when they do it)
• Technique (how they do it)
• Team (who they do it with)
• Companies like Atlassian (innovation days) show autonomy boosts creativity and engagement.

Chapter 5: Mastery

• Motivation thrives when work hits the sweet spot: not too easy, not too hard (the “Goldilocks effect”).
• Mastery is a mindset: growth and improvement matter more than perfection.
• Requires grit and persistence—progress is endless.

Chapter 6: Purpose

• People are motivated when they see their work as meaningful and part of something larger.
• Businesses with a clear mission outperform those focused only on profit.
• Profit maximization -> insufficient; Purpose maximization -> sustainable success.

Part 3 – The Type I  Toolkit

• Type I for Individuals
• Type I for Organizations

Organizations and individuals who embrace these principles unlock higher performance, creativity, and satisfaction.

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780307887894

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

336 pages.

Approx. 12 hours, August-September 2025

The book presents a framework for building startups (or new products within companies) more efficiently by focusing on validated learning, rapid experimentation, and iterative product development rather than long, rigid business plans.

Key Principles

Start Small with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Instead of perfecting a product before launch, release the simplest version that solves a core problem.

The MVP tests key assumptions with real customers as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Build–Measure–Learn Cycle

Build: Create the MVP or experiment.

Measure: Collect data on how customers actually behave.

Learn: Decide whether to pivot (change direction) or persevere (improve on the same path).

Validated Learning

Progress is measured by how much is learned about customers’ real needs, not by vanity metrics (downloads, likes, etc.).

Experiments should be designed to confirm or reject business hypotheses.

Pivot or Persevere

A pivot is a structured course correction—changing product, strategy, or target market based on evidence.

If evidence shows growth and customer adoption, continue improving (persevere).

Innovation Accounting

A system for measuring true progress in a startup by focusing on actionable metrics (like customer retention, lifetime value) instead of surface-level numbers.

Continuous Deployment & Small Batches

Release updates frequently to test assumptions in small, low-risk steps.

This allows quicker feedback and prevents wasted effort.

Lean Thinking

Adapted from lean manufacturing: eliminate waste, focus only on what creates value for the customer, and continuously improve.

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

ISBN 978-0-88427-178-9

408 pages

Easy reading on the theory of constraints application.

Approx. 10 hours. July 2025

"The Goal" by Eliyahu M. Goldratt is a business novel that introduces the Theory of Constraints (TOC) through the story of a plant manager named Alex Rogo, who must save his struggling manufacturing plant from closure within 90 days.

Key Concepts:

The Goal: The true objective of a business is to make money.

Three Key Metrics:

Throughput – the rate at which the system generates money through sales.

Inventory – all the money invested in purchasing things the system intends to sell.

Operational Expense – all the money the system spends to turn inventory into throughput.

Bottlenecks/Constraints: Every system has at least one limiting factor. Improving performance requires identifying and elevating that constraint.

Five Focusing Steps (TOC):

Identify the system's constraint(s).

Exploit the constraint.

Subordinate everything else to the constraint.

Elevate the constraint.

If the constraint has been broken, go back to step 1.

Outcome:

By applying these principles, Alex and his team streamline operations, improve delivery times, and save the plant. He is promoted, and the story ends with Alex applying the same logic to improve other parts of the business.

Огород

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