Management-Business – Page 4 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Practitioner’s Guide to Program Management

By Scott J. Pearson | July 31, 2024July 31, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Most businesspeople are familiar with the role of project managers. They ensure that projects become executed with quality, on time, and on budget. Not as many are familiar with the role of a program manager. As Irene Didinsky describes in this book, this role organizes a collection of projects to ensure that the organization benefits from them. The Project Management Institute, which publishes this book, supports certifications in both project management (PMP) and program management…

Managing IT Projects: How to Pragmatically Deliver Projects for External Customers

By Scott J. Pearson | July 19, 2024July 28, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Business projects involving information technology require their own set of required skills. The product is electronic, not physical, but the implementation is very abstract and technical. Planning and monitoring the work itself pose their own set of risks. Further, because everyone uses software, many think that designing software does not require special expertise, so projects become improperly designed from the start. Project management education does not routinely cover this niche of practical problems, but in…

Indie Management-Business Software-Technology

Intellectual Property: A Handbook for Startups

By Scott J. Pearson | June 27, 2024June 27, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

New businesses, especially in technology, are often driven by new inventions. Thus, they require an inordinate amount of attention to intellectual property (IP) issues. However, being a new business, these companies are often the ones least able to afford the advice of an IP expert or a patent attorney. Groups that identify a stated IP strategy are shown to be much more likely to attract investors’ interest. So IP is more about getting a business’…

Indie Management-Business Software-Technology

Intellectual Property Law: A Practical Guide to Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks & Trade Secrets

By Scott J. Pearson | June 21, 2024June 21, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Intellectual property rights serve as a bedrock of a society that encourages innovation and economic advance. They protect inventors’ rights to protect their name and earn a financial profit from their work. Without copyrights, patents, and trademarks, businesses would fall prey to shady business tactics to discredit their efforts. Many of us are interested in understanding the legal frameworks around intellectual property, but lack the time and money to seek formal education in these topics.…

Management-Business

Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen

By Scott J. Pearson | June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

American business culture is built around heroes that “save the day.” Perhaps bigger heroes, however, are those unheralded ones who quietly prevent problems from happening in the first place. To do so does not just require seeing a problem and a solution; it requires identifying the root cause and a solution to that root cause. It demands going “upstream” to deal with the issues that cause downstream issues. Dan Heath contends that few organizations and…

Leadership Management-Business

Managing Creative People: Lessons in Leadership for the Ideas Economy

By Scott J. Pearson | June 9, 2024September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

As Gordon Torr shares, creativity is a driving force of modern economies and of civilization. While productivity remains important, only innovation can give a company or a society a let up on the other. Unfortunately, few people are highly creative – a trait that requires both talent and nurturing. Managing talent in a way that leads to productive results is its own challenge with its own nuance. Torr shares some thoughts that can advance good…

Leadership Management-Business

Managing Conflict with Your Boss

By Scott J. Pearson | June 7, 2024September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

This short, 30-page guide orients readers towards healthily managing conflict with someone in authority over you. Such conflicts can appear daunting, even overwhelming. The authors teach the basics of conflict management while balancing the precarious nature of being someone’s direct report. The teaching aims not to win the argument but to continue to go forward productively. Personally, I found it helpful that the book provided specific ways that conflict with a boss can arise. For…

Biography-Memoir Leadership Religion-Philosophy

Reading Through Rachel Held Evans’ Last Book Published in Her Lifetime

By Scott J. Pearson | June 3, 2024September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Setting: The 1925 Scopes Trial in East Tennessee Ninety-nine years ago in 1925, the famous Scopes trial occurred in Dayton, Tennessee, in the state’s eastern part, halfway between Chattanooga and Knoxville. The state legislature had recently made it illegal to teach human evolution in public schools. The rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s genetic mechanism for evolution had brought these concepts to the front of the American mind. At the ACLU’s encouragement, one teacher John Scopes deliberately…

Leadership Software-Technology

The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Navigating Senior, Tech Lead & Staff Engineer Positions at Tech Companies & Startups

By Scott J. Pearson | June 1, 2024September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Writing software promises a career full of intellectual challenges, never-ending learning, and collaborative projects. Yet sometimes, the career path can seem arduous and hidden, especially for those not on the management track. How can engineers lead when they’re not managing a team? In this book, Gergely Orosz shows how engineers can establish a career, progress to senior level and tech lead, and then move onto principal or staff engineering roles. None of these roles involves…

Management-Business

Managing Your Boss

By Scott J. Pearson | May 29, 2024May 29, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

“Managing up” has become a part of work culture over the past 20-or-so years, but that scenario hasn’t always been the case. This article, originally published in Harvard Business Review (HBR) in 1993 and 2005, represents some of the first voices to discuss this topic at length. Thus, the HBR Press has compiled this article into a brief book for sale. Had I known of its prior distribution, I would not have purchased the book…