Results 261 to 264 of 264 | « previous
- How big things get done : the surprising factors that determine the fate of every project, from home renovations to space exploration and everything in between / by Flyvbjerg, Bent,author.; Gardner, Dan,1968-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant reality. Think of how the Empire State Building went from sketch to the jewel of the New York skyline in twenty-one months; how Amazon started in a garage and became a global retail giant in five years; how, when coronavirus broke out in the city of Wuhan, the Chinese goverment built a 1,500-room hospital in under a week. These grand visions make for inspiring stories. But even for endeavors of far smaller and more modest scales, turning a vision into a plan and a plan into reality isn't easy. Whether it's delivering a key report to a client, organizing a big event, implementing a department-wide process, launching a small business, inventing a product, or renovating a home, many of our everyday projects are in fact complex feats of planning and coordination. Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life's work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, dubbed "the world's leading megaproject expert" by KPMG. In Big Plans, he identifies the errors in judgement and decision-making that lead projects to fail, and offers research-based strategies for avoiding common pitfalls. For example: Think slow, act fast: It may seem obvious that we should spend less time planning and more time executing, but in practice this is exceedingly difficult. Plan backwards: Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there. Eliminate the unpredictable: when a project gets derailed, we often cite "unforeseen problems." However, most problems can be foreseen, through a method called reference-class forecasting. Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House to the making of Pixar's first film, Big Plans reveals how to get any ambitious project done: on time and on budget"--- Subjects: Project management; Project management;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
-
unAPI
- Lucky loser : how Donald Trump squandered his father's fortune and created the illusion of success / by Buettner, Russ,author.; Craig, Susanne,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 457-500) and index."Soon after announcing his first campaign for the US presidency, Donald J. Trump [said] ... that life 'has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me.' Building on a narrative he had been telling for decades, he spun a hardscrabble fable of how he parlayed a small loan from his father into a multi-billion-dollar business and real estate empire. This feat, he argued, made him singularly qualified to lead the country. Except: None of it was true. Born to a rich father who made him the beneficiary of his own highly lucrative investments, Trump received the equivalent of more than $500 million today via means that required no business expertise whatsoever. Drawing on over twenty years' worth of Trump's confidential tax information -- including the tax returns he tried to conceal -- alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump's financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again. For decades, he squanders his fortunes on money-losing businesses, only to be saved yet again by financial serendipity. He tacks his name above the door of every building, while taking out huge loans he'll never repay. He obsesses over appearances, while ignoring threats to the bottom line and mounting costly lawsuits against city officials. He tarnishes the value of his name by allowing anyone with a big enough check to use it, and cheats the television producer who not only rescues him from bankruptcy but casts him as a business savant -- the public image that will carry him to the White House"--- Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump family.; Trump Organization (New York, N.Y.); Businesspeople; Corporations; Fathers and sons; Presidents; Presidents; Wealth;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
-
unAPI
- Paper trails : from the backwoods to the front page : a life in stories / by MacGregor, Roy,1948-author.;
"One of Canada's greatest journalists shares a half century of the stories behind the stories. From his vantage point harnessed to a tree overlooking the town of Huntsville (he tended to wander), a very young Roy MacGregor got in the habit of watching people--what they did, who they talked to, where they went. He has been getting to know his fellow Canadians and telling us all about them ever since. From his early days in the pages of Maclean's, to stints at the Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, National Post and most famously from his perch on page two of the Globe and Mail, MacGregor was one of the country's must-read journalists. While news media were leaning increasingly right or left, he always leaned north, his curiosity trained by the deep woods and cold lakes of Algonquin Park to share stories from Canada's farthest reaches, even as he worked in the newsrooms of its southern capitols. From Parliament to the backyard rink, subarctic shores to prairie expanses, MacGregor shaped the way Canadians saw and thought about themselves--never entirely untethered from the land and its history. When MacGregor was still a young editor at Maclean's, the 21-year-old chief of the Waskaganish (aka Rupert's House) Crees, Billy Diamond, found in Roy a willing listener as the chief was appealing desperately to newsrooms across Ottawa, trying to bring attention to the tainted-water emergency in his community. Where other journalists had shrugged off Diamond's appeals, MacGregor got on a tiny plane into northern Quebec. From there began a long friendship that would one day lead MacGregor to a Winnipeg secret location with Elijah Harper and his advisors, a host of the most influential Indigenous leaders in Canada, as the Manitoba MPP contemplated the Charlottetown Accord and a vote that could shatter what seemed at the time the country's last chance to save Confederation. This was the sort of exclusive access to vital Canadian stories that Roy MacGregor always seemed to secure. And as his ardent fans will discover, the observant small-town boy turned pre-eminent journalist put his rare vantage point to exceptional use. Filled with reminiscences of an age when Canadian newsrooms were populated by outsized characters, outright rogues and passionate practitioners, the unputdownable Paper Trails is a must-read account of a life lived in stories."--- Subjects: Biographies.; MacGregor, Roy, 1948-; MacGregor, Roy, 1948-; Journalists;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
-
unAPI
- Dirty laundry : a novel / by Bose, Disha,author.;
"A twisty, domestic suspense debut about a clique of mothers that shatters when one of their own is murdered, bringing chaos to their curated idyll. She was the perfect wife, with the perfect life. You would kill to have it ... Ciara Murphy has it all - a loving husband, well-behaved children, and a beautiful home. Her circle of friends in their small Irish village go to her for tips about mothering, style, and influencer success - a picture perfect life is easy money on Instagram. But behind the filters, reality is less polished. Enter Mishti Gupta: Ciara's best friend. Ciara welcomed Mishti into her inner circle for being ... unlike the other mothers in the group. But discontent in a marriage arranged for her through her parents back in Calcutta, Mishti now raises her young daughter in a country that is too cold among the children of her new friends who look nothing like her. Mishti just wants what Ciara has - the ease with which she moves through the world - and in that sense, she might be exactly like the other mothers. And there's earth mother Lauren Doyle, born, bred, and the butt of jokes in their village. With her disheveled partner and children who run naked in the yard, they're now mostly a happy lot, and unsurprisingly ostracized for being the singular dysfunction to Ciara's immaculate world. When Lauren finds an unlikely ally in Mishti, she decides that her days of ridicule are over. Then Ciara is found murdered, a bloody, mangled thing against the pristine backdrop of her own home, and the house of cards she'd worked so hard to build comes crumbling down. Everyone looks like they have something to gain from Ciara's death, but if you don't want the blame, it's the perfect time to air your enemies' dirty laundry. In this dazzling debut novel, Bose revolutionizes age-old ideas of love and deceit. What ensues is the delicious unspooling of a group of women desperate to preserve themselves"--- Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Friendship; Mothers; Murder; Secrecy;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
-
unAPI
Results 261 to 264 of 264 | « previous