Bob Lewis

Follow to get new release updates and improved recommendations

About Bob Lewis

Since the 1996 launch of his "Survival Guide" column in InfoWorld, Robert Lewis has been in the forefront of a guerilla consulting movement that rejects the orthodoxy of "running IT as a business" that has "internal customers." Instead, he advocates integrating IT into the enterprise, where it actively collaborates to improve how the business functions.

The award-winning author of 12 books and more than 1,700 articles, Mr. Lewis is one of the most respected advisers and commentators in the IT industry. He has held a wide variety of executive, management, and staff positions in information technology, manufacturing, product development, and business planning ... he was a practitioner before becoming an author and adviser, one source of his reputation for providing a unique blend of vision and pragmatism.

In 2001, Mr. Lewis founded IT Catalysts, a consultancy specializing in business change, IT organizational effectiveness, and IT/business integration.

Gene Kim

James Wood

David H. Maister

Mark Schwartz

Kevin Behr

George Spafford

Are you an author?

Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.

Learn more at Author Central

1 11 1

$7.99

Kindle Edition
$9.99

Kindle Edition
$14.99

Kindle Edition
$9.99

Kindle Edition
$9.99

Kindle Edition
$7.99

Kindle Edition
$24.95

Kindle Edition
$17.51

Paperback
$20.88

Paperback
$8.95

Paperback

Author Updates

Titles By Bob Lewis

All Formats Kindle Edition Audible Audiobook Audio CD See more

Bare Bones Project Management: What you can't not do Apr 1, 2011

by Bob Lewis

( 48 )

$7.99

The subtitle of Bare Bones Project Management is "What you can't not do," and if you're managing a project, that's a perfect description.

Other Formats: Paperback

Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology Jan 23, 2012

by Bob Lewis

( 36 )

$9.99

Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology (aka the KJR Manifesto) radically redefines how IT should operate, in 13 highly practical, straightforward chapters. The KJR Manifesto debunks much of the long-held conventional wisdom ... such as the importance of treating end-users as "internal customers" and the desirability of running IT as a business ... that have encouraged working CIOs to isolate IT from the rest of the enterprise. It provides more sophisticated ways to approach what is usually handled simplistically - subjects like "best practices," process optimization, and metrics. And it demonstrates how human factors deserve more attention than any others for IT leaders ... and for that matter, for all business leaders ... who are serious about wanting to run high-performance organizations.

Other Formats: Paperback

There's No Such Thing as an IT Project: A Handbook for Intentional Business Change Sep 24, 2019

by Bob Lewis, Dave Kaiser

( 11 )

$14.99

Learn how to stop pouring vast sums of money into technology projects that don't have a lasting impact by closing the communication gap between IT and leadership.

Too many businesses miss opportunity after opportunity to design, plan, and achieve intentional business change. Why? Because they charter projects focused on delivering software products: IT projects. But as this groundbreaking book points out, there's no such thing as an IT project—or at least there shouldn't be. It's always about intentional business change, or what's the point?

It's time to stop providing simplistic, one-dimensional, all-you-gotta-do panaceas. When the only constant in business is change, truly useful IT has to help you change instead of build solutions that are obsolete even before they are completed.

IT consultant Bob Lewis, author of the bestselling Bare Bones Project Management, has joined forces with seasoned CIO Dave Kaiser to give you the tools you need. It's a multidimensional, relentlessly practical guide. Condensed to handbook length and seasoned with Lewis's trademark sardonic humor, it's an enjoyable and digestible read as well.

Lewis and Kaiser take you step by step through the process of building a collaboration between IT and the rest of the business that really works. Insisting on intentional business change takes patience, communication, and courage, but it has a huge payoff. More to the point, insist on anything else and every penny you spend will be a wasted dime and a waste of time.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , Audio CD

Leading IT: Still the toughest job in the world, Second edition Sep 18, 2011

by Bob Lewis

( 10 )

$9.99

What do IT leaders (and, really, all business leaders) have to do to build their organizations and move them forward?

The first edition of "Leading IT: The toughest job in the world" gave you specific, proven techniques for all eight tasks of leadership. The Second Edition adds more. A lot more.

If you like metrics, it's nearly twice as long. If you like useful metrics, it isn't just longer - it has twice as much useful, practical advice, covering a broader range of topics than the first edition.

If you prefer specifics to metrics, here are just some of the new topics covered in the second edition:
> The importance of focus and alignment.
> Why leaders have to control their time - and how.
> The Edison Ratio and why it matters (yes, this is a teaser).
> Why employees who can't fail can't succeed.
> Why 'Holding Employees Accountable' is a terrible idea.
> When and how to terminate an employee.
> The role of achievement in employee motivation.
> Why money is a terrible motivator but a terrific communication channel.
> How to measure the size of a team (hint: It isn't the number of members).
> Culture clashes and what to do about them.
> Lots and lots of new guidance on persuasion and facilitation.
> Leadership challenges new to the 21st century.
If you're tired of clichés and inspiring-sounding but empty rhetoric that's devoid of concrete guidance, this is what you're looking for: A relentlessly pragmatic book, designed to help you become a more effective leader.

Other Formats: Paperback

Bare Bones Change Management: What you shouldn't not do Mar 31, 2011

by Bob Lewis

( 15 )

$9.99

Bare Bones Change Management: What you shouldn't not do (BBCM) takes a radically different approach to business change. It's written for you -- the leader of change on the ground. It's your toolkit to anticipate, defuse, and deal with sources of resistance to whatever change you're responsible for leading. BBCM gives you all seven of the critical tools you need when planning a business change: * Stakeholder analysis. Why? Because if you can't anticipate how different stakeholders will react to the proposed change, you can't plan what to do about it. * Involvement plan. Why? Because employees are more likely to resist something you do to them than with them. * Metrics plan. Why? Because if you can't answer the question, "What does success look like?" nobody will be able to help you get there. Including you. * Structure plan. Why? Because the entire organization is designed to reinforce its pre-change way of operating. Unless you reconfigure it to support the new way of working, it will snap back. * Training plan. Why? Because employees had better be confident they can succeed in the new way of doing things, or they'll do everything they can to work the way that makes them feel competent. * Culture change plan. Why? Because the way employees expect each other to respond to different situations has anchored the whole organization in its current way of dealing with everything that happens. * Communications plan. Why? Because uncertainty is behind so much resistance to change. Employees have questions. They need answers, and they'll get them from someone. The two questions are, from whom (you) and how to construct the answers. (Curious? Hey, that's one of the many reasons you need this book.) BBCM was written by Bob Lewis, author of Bare Bones Project Management: What you can't not do.

Other Formats: Paperback , Mass Market Paperback

The Moral Hazard of Lime Daiquiris Dec 6, 2013

by Bob Lewis, Dave Kaiser

( 7 )

$7.99

In Wisconsin Rapids, people expect to die from cholesterol poisoning or some form of cancer, either from smoking too many cigarettes or from breathing the fumes from the local paper plant.

But crushed by an elephant?

It really happened, and one of the author’s fathers found the corpse. This is the true story that inspired Bob Lewis and Dave Kaiser to write about:

>The fanatical priest who accidentally caused the elephant to crush its victim, and then, inspired by the result, went on to become a serial (and highly inventive) killer.
>The detectives … one the self-described “only black person in Wisconsin Rapids,” the other the only Jew … who didn’t realize the priests’ victims were anything more than a series of unusual, accidental deaths until it was nearly too late.
>The sexy nun who coached high school basketball, had an illicit affair with a failed businessman, and ultimately caught the priest in the act.
>A colorful assortment of victims who were killed by (in addition to the elephant): cheese, an explosion, turbines, bowling balls, and a tainted communion wafer.
>A bunch of other Wisconsin Rapids characters who found themselves drawn into the melee.

The town is real. An elephant really did kill someone there. Everything else is satire, “inspired by” a true story but otherwise far better than what actually happened.

By turns dark, brooding, whimsical, dramatic, and sometimes out-and-out hilarious, this entertaining thriller starts with an irresistible premise and finishes with a nail-biting confrontation between an insane cleric and the implacable Sister who won’t rest until he’s brought to justice.

Her justice.

Other Formats: Paperback

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

The Cognitive Enteprise Nov 26, 2015

by Bob Lewis, Scott Lee, Thomas H. Davenport, Peter Fingar

( 5 )

$24.95

The PROCESS, Technology, people model was designed for the industrial age and command-and-control management. This book introduces its 21st century replacement - customers, communities and capabilities - and explains how this new model works in a connect-and-collaborate world. What is a cognitive enterprise? It's a business that's smarter than the smartest people running it. The organization "knows" what its workforce knows; that is, knowledge is shared widely. It's a business that acts with purpose rather than being a space in which executives, managers and staff jockey for position while feeling powerless when trying to accomplish anything important for the enterprise. It's entrepreneurship that scales, and the polar opposite of what most business pundits recommend. And it's one more thing: It's the future. The Cognitive Enterprise gives you the combined expertise, experience and wisdom of popular business commentator Bob Lewis and executive-suite consultant Scott Lee. They want business executives to lead organizations that pay attention to the world around them, evaluate themselves, their changing situations, and the alternatives available to them, and continually adapt. Organizations that, to put a word to it, think.

Other Formats: Paperback

More Information

Are you an author? Visit Author Central to change your photo, edit your biography, and more

Anything else? Provide feedback about this page

Similar authors to follow

About Bob Lewis

Customers Also Bought Items By

Are you an author?

Author Updates

More Information