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Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise
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What Are Others Saying About This Book?
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New Book Review Analyzes the Multi-faceted Nature of Churchill's Role as a Project Manager Stacy Goff, a Vice-President of the American Society for the Advancement of Project Management, and President of PMExperts, a project management training and consulting company, recently posted a glowing review of this book on the asapm.org web site. |
[This] is Mark Kozak-Holland's second book in his compelling Lessons
from History series. Throughout this book, lessons from 1940s Britain
are applied to today's competitive business environment, with surprisingly
relevant results. As a result, the book makes for a
fascinating read and includes business
recommendations that are backed up by its exhaustively detailed case study
of multiple British organizations working to achieve a common goal.
John Broughton
Chief Executive Officer
Nation Exchange
As this book clearly shows, the notion of an Adaptive Enterprise is
not a new concept. Perhaps it's a new term, but the ability of gifted
individuals to respond to changing conditions with out-of-the-box thinking
and innovative approaches to lead enterprises to solve hard problems has
always been a hallmark of brilliance. Churchill wasn't the only brilliant
mind working on the problems posed by global warfare and material shortage
in World War II and he made mistakes along the way, as evidenced by his
decision to send British battleships to be sunk by Japanese airplanes
in the Pacific and the less than perfect defense of Singapore, but the
important thing is that Churchill learned from both triumphs and mistakes
and adapted his tactics along the way to eventual success.
Tony Redmond
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, HP Services
Author of 10 books on enterprise messaging
Churchill successfully led England during one of its most tumultuous
periods in its history, and he did it by taking a pragmatic and agile
approach. Successful leaders take time to understand the scope of the
challenges that they face and the environment that they're operating in.
Churchill's secret to success was to work incrementally, deploy, assess,
and then adapt his strategy to the new situation. Sixty years later Churchill
can still save the day.
Scott W. Ambler
Software Process Consultant
Author of Agile Modeling and The Enterprise Unified Process
Insightful, informative, and entertaining; well-known historical events
and decisions are shown to be excellent examples of best practices in
action, even before the advent of the modern IT enterprise. Mark Kozak-Holland’s
sharp analysis demonstrates that the
business challenges of today are universal, as are the strategies for
addressing them. A highly-relevant and captivating
read.
Vivienne Suen
Program Chair, Toronto SPIN
If you are looking for clear directions for
breathing new agility into your organization, and enjoy history, this
is the perfect instruction manual. By drawing his examples
from the Britain's legendary wartime leader, Mark Kozak-Holland not only
brings the theoretical concepts to life but also provides compelling evidence
of the timeless nature of the principles he espouses.
Hugh Woodward
Editor, PMForum.org and PM World Today
Winston Churchill, after leaving the majority of his tools of war
on the beaches of Dunkirk, was placed in an unsettling position. On the
other side of the English Channel was an enemy waging war using new battle
tactics and poised to attack. Churchill was forced to decide between a
war of attrition, like his predecessors fought, or a war of innovation
and resourcefulness. He surmised waging a war of attrition was hopeless
due to insufficient resources. To defeat his enemy would require unprecedented
control and direction of his limited resources through accurate and timely
information. Churchill needed to improvise, adapt and overcome to defeat
his enemy. Mark Kozak-Holland takes you on the journey of Winston Churchill
and how adaptive thinking is and was achievable. The modern IT warrior
is being bombarded with messages and needs to be able to decipher the
signal from the noise. This book does just this. If
you are looking to lead and succeed in the adaptive marketplace then this
book is a must read.
Tim Lalonde
Director, Information Technology
Manitoulin Transport
Kozak-Holland provides a detailed breakdown of the types of infrastructure
and processes required to transform an organization into an Adaptive Enterprise.
His positioning of the adaptive enterprise model alongside the implementation
of these same ideas in WWII era Britain - which we have empircal evidence
to suggest actually worked - delivers a killer
punch.
Ken Barker
Director, Information Technology
CB Richard Ellis Management Services
How an organization applies the adaptive enterprise model is crucial
to its success and survivability. Using the experiences that faced Churchill
in the darkest days of World War II, this book put the whole process in
historical perspective. For those who want to champion adaptive enterprise
within their organization as well as those that would challenge approach,
this book provides a comprehensive documented historical example that
has actually worked and its not just about methodology followed by recommendations.
Even if you are interested in just the Churchill and Britain's dark days,
this book is a worthwhile read.
Edward Snowden
PMO Leader for a public sector board
In “Churchill’s Adaptive Enterprise” author Mark Kozak-Holland provides
you with a detailed plan how to change your organization into an adaptive
one, responding to threats and opportunities that it might face. Other
books cover the same subject, with lists (bullet- and check-), and page
after page of tips and tricks you “should” implement. After you have closed
such a book, if you even manage to get to the end, you immediately forget
what you have just read -- not with this 300+
page masterpiece from Kozak-Holland. He takes the reader on
a tour to the UK just before the start of the Second World War. Winston
Churchill is preparing for war against Germany, and he has to transform
his country fast to a lean adapative machine to face the immenent threat.
Streamlining the supply chain, turning information into intellegence,
creating a organization responsive to changing situations. He has to create
a real Adaptive Enterprise. This fascinating story
grasps your attention and imagination right from the start.
The author has structured this lesson of history like a project lifecycle
model, making it easy to create a link between Churchill endeavors and
information on how to build an adaptive enterprise through the stages
of a project. Mark Kozak-Holland makes you want
to read the whole story, and because of the vivid topic, these
lessons will stick in your brain!
Bas de Baar
Editor SoftwareProjects.org
"Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise: Lessons for Business Today"
covers it all, in the right order.
This book is essential reading for professionals
that see the wider picture of business transformation, and the long term
application of technology solutions. Using Churchill’s war effort provides
a brilliantly effective grounding
for Mark’s customer centric orientation and follows through with practical
leadership methods for the delivery of the solutions. Reading
this was like reading the blueprint for successful enterprise transformation.
Richard Blasko
CTO & Senior VP Operations
Mobile Computing Corporation
This "Back to Our Future" book does a stellar
job of mining the project intelligence from Lessons Learned. It cites
not just common practice, not just best practice, but First Practice of
methods underlying today's most successful projects. Those methods include
portfolio prioritization and management, and adaptive enterprise elements
such as portals, content management methods, real-time modeling, advanced
architectures, supply chain management, and secure use of business intelligence.
The analogy of PM, Prime Minister as Program or Project Manager, together
with a fascinating blend of retrospective and perspective makes this book
appealing and revealing to both our historic
interests and our current-day challenges. Mark Kozak-Holland
provides a facile and virtually complete Systems Engineering methodology
to guide us through his comprehensive and historic case study as we learn
the lessons of the past, so we may not be doomed to repeat them.
Stacy Goff, PMP
Vice President
American Society for the Advancement of Project Management
(www.asapm.org)
"Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise: Lessons for Business Today" aptly
parallels the story of a fascinating historical period with modern business
strategems. Everyone running a project with an IT component will appreciate
both Churchill's challenges and the solutions and methodology that create
successful projects today. With business and projects today looking at
limited capabilities and capacity, "Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise: Lessons
for Business Today" traces a sound methodology to get from problem-definition
through to successful deployment. Using today's technology and information
management - information portals through to project lifecycles - "Churchill's
Adaptive Enterprise: Lessons for Business Today" makes
a strong case for properly aligning Business and IT in our organisations
today. Using Churchill's toughest months, the book demonstrates
that even the most difficult situations can be won through agile responses
and adaptive management.
Dennie Theodore
Intranet Manager
Corporate and Public Affairs (CAPA)
TD Bank
This is one of the most unique approaches
to agile management I’ve ever encountered. Mark Kozak-Holland
weaves a solid understanding of agile software development techniques
with detailed examples taken from the activities of Churchill and Britain
during WWII. Guaranteed to appeal to the history
buff as well as to anyone looking to get a solid introduction to agile
principles.
Donna Fitzgerald
Knowth Consulting
Organisations today face change at an unprecedented rate. To compete,
and in some cases survive, businesses must find ways to react to new conditions
in an effective and efficient manner and they must develop the agility
and flexibility to adapt to new conditions faster than ever before. In
“Churchill’s Adaptive Enterprise” Mark Kozak-Holland presents a real-life
example of how an organisation was able to develop a true adaptive environment
with limited resources and against tremendous timelines. By analysing
Churchill's war efforts, the author is able to point out significant lessons-learned
and truly demonstrate how an organisation with limited resources can still
compete against a much larger and better-prepared foe.
This is a must-read for anyone who is truly interested in understanding
how an adaptive enterprise should work.
Michael Panagis
Practice Principal, Enterprise Applications Systems
Hewlett-Packard (Canada)
© 2005
Multi-Media Publications Inc.
