Making It Happen

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There has possibly never been a more daring business figure in Canada’s history than Ted Rogers. Hailed by some as a visionary with an incomparable insight, and equally loathed by others as a ruthless opportunist, Ted Rogers relentlessly conquered his rivals in three industries – radio, cable television and cellular telephony. High Wire Act is an unprecedented, in-depth analysis into how Ted Rogers, driven by the psychological need to restore his family's name, leveraged his stake in a small Toronto FM radio station and propelled it into a media and telecommunications behemoth worth over $23 billion. The many topics covered in the book include details on Rogers’… Unmatched ability to foresee the convergence of cable and telephony before anyone else did Insatiable appetite for debt and risk taking, and how he bet his company three times to carry out his vision Shrewd political and regulatory maneuvers that always kept him one step ahead of his competitors and political adversaries such as Bell and the Aspers Opportunistic acquisition of the Toronto Blue Jays High Wire Act is a fascinating and one-of-a-kind look into one of Canada’s most audacious and visionary business figures of the past fifty years. Every Canadian business reader will be enthralled by this enduring success story of Canada’s only true telecommunications mogul.

Автор

Kyle Mackenzie

#Бизнес-книги #Зарубежная литература #Зарубежная деловая литература #Менеджмент

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All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights herein may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical – without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Cancopy, 6 Adelaide Street East, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 1H6.

Care has been taken to trace ownership of copyright material contained in this text. The publisher’s will gladly receive any information that will enable them to rectify any reference or credit line in subsequent editions.

John Wiley & Sons Canada Limited

6045 Freemont Blvd.

Mississauga, Ontario

L5R 4J3

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Kyle, Mackenzie, 1966-

Making it happen: a non-technical guide to project management eISBN: 978-0-470-73993-8

1. Industrial project management. I. Title.

HD69.P75K.4’04 C98-931280-1

Production Credits

Cover & text design: JAQ, RGD

Printer: Tri-Graphic Printing

Preface

This book has two things to offer you as a reader.

The first is a unique and superior approach to the discipline of project management. Much is known about projects (and vastly more is written), but not much is widely understood. The ideas presented here were refined over many years by individuals who have spent their careers in the field, making the concepts of the management sciences work. This useful approach was not developed without cost and frustration, and there is a great deal contained here that you will find nowhere else.

The second is the manner in which the ideas are conveyed. Learning should always be an adventure, although sometimes it is not. If you’ve ever stumbled through a dry textbook, struggling to make important information stick in your brain, you’ll appreciate the alternative approach taken by this book. Without the excitement generated by discovery, it is very hard to retain, let alone implement, new ideas.

Making learning interesting has been one of the greatest challenges of my job. My colleagues and I have developed a number of techniques for doing this, and in the course of our work, experienced a great deal of success in improving how companies operate. In early 1993, I decided to take the approach that became the following story. This is not another attempt to make a simple subject complex, nor to make a complex subject seem simple. It is a demonstration of how simple it really is.

If you choose this book to assist you in your learning adventure, you will follow the “real life” journey of discovery of a person not unlike yourself, and see the application of new and powerful ideas to the discipline of making things happen.

Mackenzie Kyle

MNP

Calgary, Alberta

September 2008

Part One

Genesis

Sink or Swim

“So you see, we’ll need a work breakdown structure almost immediately,” he said.

“I see,” I said. I didn’t.

“Ralph is also asking for earned value cost analysis, and he wants you to keep the scope flexible, understand?” he asked me.

“I understand,” I said. I didn’t.

“And he wants self-empowered work teams running the show on this one,” he continued.

“Got it,” I said, pretending to take notes. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“And the whole thing has to be part of our new Total Quality Management initiative,” he said.

I groaned. This was the last straw. Now was the time to get off this boat. “I’m not sure you have the right person for the job, Stu.”

I could tell by the way he looked at me that this was not what he wanted to hear. I prepared myself for his response, praying my lack of enthusiasm would get me bounced off the project team.

I didn’t hold out much hope. Stu Barnes is the vice-president of Operations at Hyler Recreation Systems Inc., and my boss. Me, I’m Will Campbell, and I’m in charge of Hyler’s Information Systems, or IS, group. Stu and I had worked together for almost three years by the time we had this conversation, and we knew each other pretty well. Although Stu looked and talked like a Marine Drill Sergeant (which is exactly what he used to be), he is the best boss I have ever had. While this was a good thing most of the time, it also meant that Stu was used to me whining.

“Look, Will,” he started in, “you know how I feel about all this stuff, but Ralph is the boss, and we all know that Ralph has his sights set on much bigger things than Hyler. If that means riding the crest of whatever wave comes rolling in from head office, that is exactly what he’ll do. And that means that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

Ralph Borsellino is the president of Hyler Recreation and at 34, the youngest president ever. The top brass at Mantec, our parent company, was very impressed with Ralph, and word was that he was on his way up in the organization.

Inwardly, I groaned again. Stu was right. If Ralph wanted it, that is the way it would be.

The Company

The meeting had not started out badly. “So what we have here,” Stu had been telling me, “is a major opportunity to complement our existing product line, and you know how they love that kind of thing at head office in Denver. Not only will it create new customers, but if our experience is anything like what they’ve seen in Europe, it will lead to more sales of our existing products further down the line.”

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