Ciara Heavin – författare

The data-driven, global business environment requires increasingly sophisticated decision support, analytics and business intelligence. Also, changing technologies including mobile devices and cloud computing have created new opportunities for computerized decision support and an increasing need for technology support of business decision making. Contemporary managers must know much more about information technology solutions and especially computerized decision support, data science and analytics. This book is targeted to busy managers and MBA students who want to grasp the basics of computerized decision support. Some of the topics covered include: What is a decision support system? What is “big data” and how is it useful? What is business intelligence? How can predictive analytics support decision making? What is the impact of decision support on decision making? And how can managers identify opportunities for innovative analytics and decision support? Overall the book addresses 70 major questions relevant to decision support.

Digital disruption is accelerating. Implementing a successful digital transformation strategy requires that senior managers make trade-off decisions to reinvent a business. Equally important all decision makers must learn to ask the right questions, use data and computer support in decision making, and increase their knowledge and skills. Creating a data-centric culture and rewarding data-based decision making leads to successful digital transformation. Join the digital journey.This book is targeted at managers, especially middle-level managers who are trying to come to grips with using data-based decision making in a transforming organization. The authors explore a number of broad questions including: How can managers become data-based decision makers? How can digital transformation become part of an organizational strategy? What new skills do managers need to implement digital transformation? How will we know an organization has been successfully transformed?

Digital disruption and transformation of industries and organizations has created a need for more agile attitudes, behaviors, and culture. Becoming more agile is important for individuals, teams, and organizations for three major reasons: 1) the requirements for faster, more responsive execution requires a reduction in bureaucratic processes, 2) changing technology environments reward more customer-focused processes, and 3) rapid internal collaboration and communication that is coordinated using technology is both possible and a requirement.One way to explain Agile is with a ""dance"" metaphor. Traditional processes are often a slow bureaucratic dance, like a classic waltz. Slow dancing is an important skill to know, but most of us would not want to do that dance all of the time. Today individuals, teams and organizations should perform and practice a wide variety of dances in appropriate contexts to be successful. Agile processes have various rhythms, rituals, and styles. We all need to learn new dances and we need to dance faster much of the time. Also, we need to be able to change dances in an elegant and seamless way. Despite the heightened interest, many people misunderstand or fail to understand becoming agile and applying agile methods and principles. For what types of projects should we use an Agile process? When is a structured development life cycle approach more appropriate? Some agile project approaches are appropriate for many types of projects and a mix of agile approaches coupled with some traditional approaches can make organizations more agile. Some managers and organizations strive for a contingent or a hybrid approach - a mix of agile and more traditional processes. This book is aimed at students, IT practitioners, and managers who seek answers to these questions and want to better understand agile.