Agile Practice Guide – First Edition has been developed as a resource to understand, evaluate, and use agile and hybrid agile approaches. This practice guide provides guidance on when, where, and how to apply agile approaches and provides practical tools for practitioners and organizations wanting to increase agility. This practice guide is aligned with other PMI standards, including A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, and was developed as the result of collaboration between the Project Management Institute and the Agile Alliance.
PMBOK® Guide is the go-to resource for project management practitioners. The project management profession has significantly evolved due to emerging technology, new approaches and rapid market changes. Reflecting this evolution, The Standard for Project Management enumerates 12 principles of project management and the PMBOK® Guide ? Seventh Edition is structured around eight project performance domains.This edition is designed to address practitioners' current and future needs and to help them be more proactive, innovative and nimble in enabling desired project outcomes.This edition of the PMBOK® Guide:Reflects the full range of development approaches (predictive, adaptive, hybrid, etc.);Provides an entire section devoted to tailoring the development approach and processes;Includes an expanded list of models, methods, and artifacts;Focuses on not just delivering project outputs but also enabling outcomes; andIntegrates with PMIstandards+™ for information and standards application content based on project type, development approach, and industry sector.
"This is that rarity, a useful book."--Warren BuffettHoward Marks, the chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, is renowned for his insightful assessments of market opportunity and risk. After four decades spent ascending to the top of the investment management profession, he is today sought out by the world's leading value investors, and his client memos brim with insightful commentary and a time-tested, fundamental philosophy. Now for the first time, all readers can benefit from Marks's wisdom, concentrated into a single volume that speaks to both the amateur and seasoned investor.Informed by a lifetime of experience and study, The Most Important Thing explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career. Utilizing passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today's volatile markets, Marks offers a volume that is part memoir, part creed, with a number of broad takeaways. Marks expounds on such concepts as "second-level thinking," the price/value relationship, patient opportunism, and defensive investing. Frankly and honestly assessing his own decisions--and occasional missteps--he provides valuable lessons for critical thinking, risk assessment, and investment strategy. Encouraging investors to be "contrarian," Marks wisely judges market cycles and achieves returns through aggressive yet measured action. Which element is the most essential? Successful investing requires thoughtful attention to many separate aspects, and each of Marks's subjects proves to be the most important thing.
The fifth edition of The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America continues a 25-year tradition of collating Warren Buffett's philosophy in a historic collaboration between Mr. Buffett and Prof. Lawrence Cunningham. As the book Buffett autographs most, its popularity and longevity attest to the widespread appetite for this unique compilation of Mr. Buffett?s thoughts that is at once comprehensive, non-repetitive, and digestible. New and experienced readers alike will gain an invaluable informal education by perusing this classic arrangement of Mr. Buffett's best writings.?Larry Cunningham has done a great job at collating our philosophy.??Warren Buffett"Larry Cunningham takes Buffett's brilliant letters to a still-higher level by organizing them into single-subject chapters. The book begins, moreover, with an excellent introduction by Larry.??Carol Loomis?The book on Buffett?a superb job.??Forbes?Extraordinary?full of wisdom, humor, and common sense.??Money?A classic on value investing and the definitive source on Buffett.??Financial Times
"Graham's ideas inspired the investment community for nearly a century."--Smart Money"Graham's method of investing is as relevant today as it was when he first espoused it during the Roaring Twenties."--Investor's Business DailyBenjamin Graham's revolutionary theories have influenced and inspired investors for nearly 70 years. First published in 1934, his Security Analysis is still considered to be the value investing bible for investors of every ilk. Yet, it is the second edition of that book, published in 1940 and long since out of print, that many experts--including Graham protégé Warren Buffet--consider to be the definitive edition. This facsimile reproduction of that seminal work makes available to investors, once again, the original thinking of "this century's (and perhaps history's) most important thinker on applied portfolio investment."
"A road map for investing that I have now been following for 57 years."--From the Foreword by Warren E. BuffettFirst published in 1934, Security Analysis is one of the most influential financial books ever written. Selling more than one million copies through five editions, it has provided generations of investors with the timeless value investing philosophy and techniques of Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd.As relevant today as when they first appeared nearly 75 years ago, the teachings of Benjamin Graham, ?the father of value investing,? have withstood the test of time across a wide diversity of market conditions, countries, and asset classes.This new sixth edition, based on the classic 1940 version, is enhanced with 200 additional pages of commentary from some of today?s leading Wall Street money managers. These masters of value investing explain why the principles and techniques of Graham and Dodd are still highly relevant even in today?s vastly different markets. The contributor list includes:Seth A. Klarman, president of The Baupost Group, L.L.C. and author of Margin of SafetyJames Grant, founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, general partner of Nippon PartnersJeffrey M. Laderman, twenty-five year veteran of BusinessWeekRoger Lowenstein, author of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist and When America Aged and Outside Director, Sequoia FundHoward S. Marks, CFA, Chairman and Co-Founder, Oaktree Capital Management L.P.J. Ezra Merkin, Managing Partner, Gabriel Capital Group .Bruce Berkowitz, Founder, Fairholme Capital Management.Glenn H. Greenberg, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Chieftain Capital ManagementBruce Greenwald, Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management, Columbia Business SchoolDavid Abrams, Managing Member, Abrams CapitalFeaturing a foreword by Warren E. Buffett (in which he reveals that he has read the 1940 masterwork ?at least four times?), this new edition of Security Analysis will reacquaint you with the foundations of value investing?more relevant than ever in the tumultuous 21st century markets.
A comprehensive value investing framework for the individual investor In a straightforward and accessible manner, The Dhandho Investor lays out the powerful framework of value investing. Written with the intelligent individual investor in mind, this comprehensive guide distills the Dhandho capital allocation framework of the business savvy Patels from India and presents how they can be applied successfully to the stock market. The Dhandho method expands on the groundbreaking principles of value investing expounded by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger. Readers will be introduced to important value investing concepts such as "Heads, I win! Tails, I don't lose that much!," "Few Bets, Big Bets, Infrequent Bets," Abhimanyu's dilemma, and a detailed treatise on using the Kelly Formula to invest in undervalued stocks. Using a light, entertaining style, Pabrai lays out the Dhandho framework in an easy-to-use format. Any investor who adopts the framework is bound to improve on results and soundly beat the markets and most professionals.
From a renowned financial journalist who has written for Time, Fortune, Forbes, and The New Yorker, a fresh and unexpectedly profound book that draws on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with many of the world?s super-investors to demonstrate that the keys for building wealth hold other life lessons as well. Billionaire investors. If we think of them, it?s with a mixture of awe and suspicion. Clearly, they possess a kind of genius?the proverbial Midas Touch. But are the skills they possess transferable? And do they have anything to teach us besides making money? In Richer, Wiser, Happier, William Green draws on interviews that he?s conducted over twenty-five years with many of the world?s greatest investors. As he discovered, their talents extend well beyond the financial realm. The most successful investors are mavericks and iconoclasts who question conventional wisdom and profit vastly from their ability to think more rationally, rigorously, and objectively. They are master game players who consciously maximize their odds of long-term success in markets and life, while also minimizing any risk of catastrophe. They draw powerful insights from many different fields, are remarkably intuitive about trends, practice fanatical discipline, and have developed a high tolerance for pain. As Green explains, the best investors can teach us not only how to become rich, but how to improve the way we think, reach decisions, assess risk, avoid costly errors, build resilience, and turn uncertainty to our advantage. Green ushers us into the lives of more than forty super-investors, visiting them in their offices, homes, and even their places of worship?all to share what they have to teach us. Richer, Wiser, Happier brings together the thinking of many of the greatest investment minds, from Sir John Templeton to Charlie Munger, Jack Bogle to Ed Thorp, Will Danoff to Mohnish Pabrai, Bill Miller to Laura Geritz, Joel Greenblatt to Howard Marks. In explaining how they think and why they win, this landmark book provides gems of insight that will enrich you not only financially but also professionally and personally.
For the first time the complete financial history of Berkshire Hathaway is available under one cover in chronological format. Beginning at the origins of the predecessor companies in the textile industry, the reader can examine the development of the modern-day conglomerate year-by-year and decade-by-decade, watching as the struggling textile company morphs into what it has become today.This comprehensive analysis distils over 10,000 pages of research material, including Buffett?s Chairman?s letters, Berkshire Hathaway annual reports and SEC filings, annual meeting transcripts, subsidiary financials, and more. The analysis of each year is supplemented with Buffett?s own commentary where relevant, and examines all important acquisitions, investments, and other capital allocation decisions. The appendices contain balance sheets, income statements, statements of cash flows, and key ratios dating back to the 1930s, materials brought together for the first time. The structure of the book allows the new student to follow the logic, reasoning, and capital allocation decisions made by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger from the very beginning. Existing Berkshire shareholders and long-time observers will find new information and refreshing analysis, and a convenient reference guide to the decades of financial moves that built the modern-day respected enterprise that is Berkshire Hathaway.
We live in an age of serial asset bubbles and spectacular busts. Economists, policymakers, central bankers and most people in the financial world have been blindsided by these busts, while investors have lost trillions. Economists argue that bubbles can only be spotted after they burst and that market moves are unpredictable. Yet Marathon Asset Management, a London-based investment firm managing over $50 billion of assets has developed a relatively simple method for identifying and potentially avoiding them: follow the money, or rather the trail of investment. Bubbles whether they affect a whole economy or merely a single industry, tend to attract a splurge of capital spending. Excessive investment drives down returns and leads inexorably to a bust. This was the case with both the technology bubble at the turn of the century and the US housing bubble which followed shortly after. More recently, vast sums have been invested in mining and energy. From an investor's perspective, the trick is to avoid investing in sectors, or markets, where investment spending is unduly elevated and competition is fierce, and to put one's money to work where capital expenditure is depressed, competitive conditions are more favourable and, as a result, prospective investment returns are higher. This capital cycle strategy encourages investors to eschew the simple 'growth' and 'value' dichotomy and identify firms that can deliver superior returns either because capital has been taken out of an industry, or because the business has strong barriers to entry (what Warren Buffett refers to as a 'moat'). Some of Marathon's most successful investments have come from obscure, sometimes niche operations whose businesses are protected from the destructive forces of the capital cycle. Capital Returns is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practical implementation of the capital cycle approach to investment. Edited and with an introduction by Edward Chancellor, the book brings together 60 of the most insightful reports written between 2002 and 2014 by Marathon portfolio managers. Capital Returns provides key insights into the capital cycle strategy, all supported with real life examples from global brewers to the semiconductor industry - showing how this approach can be usefully applied to different industry conditions and how, prior to 2008, it helped protect assets from financial catastrophe. This book will be a welcome reference for serious investors who looking to maximise portfolio returns over the long run.
The concept of quality is familiar. People make judgments about it every day. Yet articulating a clear definition of quality is challenging.The best companies often appear to be characterized by an ineffable something, much like that of people who seem graced by a lucky gene. Think about those of your peers who seem a lot like you but somehow always catch a break. They are not obviously smarter, smoother, richer, or better-looking than you, yet they are admitted to their university of choice, get their dream job, and earn considerable wealth. Try to discern what they have that you don't, and you are stumped. Chalk it up to fate or plain dumb luck.Businesses can be similar. For reasons that are not always evident, some end up doing the right things with better results than average. They may not appear to be savvier acquirers, more adept marketers, or bolder pioneers, yet they integrate new businesses better, launch products more successfully, and open new markets with fewer mishaps. Perhaps through some combination of vision, scale, or business philosophy, these companies uncannily come out ahead.In our view, three characteristics indicate quality. These are strong, predictable cash generation; sustainably high returns on capital; and attractive growth opportunities.
Learn the overlooked skill that is essential to Wall Street success Pitch the Perfect Investment combines investment analysis with persuasion and sales to teach you the "soft skill" so crucial to success in the financial markets. Written by the leading authorities in investment pitching, this book shows you how to develop and exploit the essential, career-advancing skill of pitching value-creating ideas to win over clients and investors. You'll gain world-class insight into search strategy, data collection and research, securities analysis, and risk assessment and management to help you uncover the perfect opportunity; you'll then strengthen your critical thinking skills and draw on psychology, argumentation, and informal logic to craft the perfect pitch to showcase your perfect idea. The ability to effectively pitch an investment is essential to securing a job on Wall Street, where it immediately becomes a fundamental part of day-to-day business. This book gives you in-depth training along with access to complete online ancillaries and case studies so you can master the little skill that makes a big difference. It doesn't matter how great your investment ideas are if you can't convince anyone to actually invest. Ideas must come to fruition to be truly great, and this book gives you the tools and understanding you need to get it done. Persuade potential investors, clients, executives, and employers Source, analyze, value, and pitch your ideas for stocks and acquisitions Get hired, make money, expand your company, and win business Craft the perfect investment into the perfect pitch Money managers, analysts, bankers, executives, salespeople, students, and individual investors alike stand to gain massively by employing the techniques discussed here. If you're serious about success and ready to start moving up, Pitch the Perfect Investment shows you how to make it happen.
