Customer Reviews

Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (Theory in Practice)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Okay, let's get the one downer about the book out of the way; it's a second edition of Scott's The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)). Not sure why the name was changed but it might confuse some folks. Okay, it confused me, not sure about anyone else. If you've recently read the first edition then you may want to borrow someone's copy to go over the exercises/discussion at the end of each chapter.

If you haven't read the first edition, you're in for a great time! This isn't a reference book, nor is it a cheat-sheet for passing your PMP. Scott writes as friends chat over coffee. To really "get it" you need that same head game. Find your personal motivation for making things happen, either at work or in your life, and slowly reflect on a single chapter over a hot cup of joe. Even better, find a couple friends who are just as success driven as you and work through the exercises together.

My introversion is so strong that last sentence was almost painful to write, but a deeply reflective level of mental processing is what you need for this book. When you have a chapter in your head you can go over the events of the past week and generally find ways you could have handled something better. Write them down, go implement the ideas, and keep doing that as your success rate grows. Use the exercies as dry-run scenarios and really put some thought into them. Build your experience and expertise in the shadows; when the spotlight is on you'll be ready to make things happen in a big way.

In the field of project management, 'Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management' is one of the finest books I have ever had the chance to peruse. From gathering ideas to managing teams and schedules, everything and anything is in this book that is a MUST BUY for all project managers or group leaders that want to update or learn new techniques for creating widgets in the real world and doing so efficiently and successfully. I think a chapter overview would be helpful to help the reader get an idea of the wonderous content contained within:

01. History of Project Management

I - PLANS

02. Schedules
03. What To Do
04. Vision
05. Ideas and how they come about
06. What do to with your great idea

II - SKILLS

07. Writing good specifications
08. Good decision-making
09. Communication and relationships
10. Process, Email, Meetings - Don't waste people's time
11. When things go wrong

III - MANAGEMENT

12. Leadership & Trust
13. Making things happen
14. Middle-game strategy
15. End-game strategy
16. Power and Politics

I was originally going to Highly Recommend this book but I think it's so fantastic I'm going to up it to HPR. If you are any way related to making progress at your job or possibly even life this can be useful, this book is a must read... NOW.

***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION

For those who gave this book a 5 star rating, I really suggest you think it again. To me, this book is over praised, way too much!! And there are several reasons why I am saying that.

First of all, the majority of the content has been expressed long before; I don't see anything new or groundbreaking. For example the author talked a lot about the importance of communication, trust, relationship, etc. in project management. But isn't that just common sense? Whoever does the project management job should know that pretty well. Not to mention that Agile/Scrum/XP guys have been saying these things for many years and in a much better and enlightened way.

Second, the book is flawed in the topics the authors chose to address. For example risk management is a big topic in project management, while there is only a chapter called "what to do when things go wrong" (which is not risk management exactly) and look at what he said, "calm down ... take responsibility ... do damage control ..." Again, common sense. And let's look at what the author said about the topic of execution, which makes things happen (Or "Getting things done") -- "Priorities Make Things Happen ... Things Happen When You Say No ... ". Well, I don't see any breakthrough ideas. And what I don't get is that, while the author spent so little time in talking about big topics like risk management and execution, he spent several chapters talking about how to deal with ideas, especially the ideas in design phase -- Chapter 5 "Where ideas come from" , Chapter 6 "What to do with ideas once you have them", Chapter 7 "Writing good specifications (i.e. writing the idea down)" and Chapter 8 "How to make good decisions (when facing several ideas)". For the book addressing the whole life cycle of project management, I just don't get the author's logic.

Third, it is very hard for you to read the book from cover to cover because there seems to be a tendency to go off at a tangent from time to time. The information author represented in each chapter actually prevent you from concentrating on the central topics of that chapter.

The exercises introduced in second edition are artificial. The most obvious change introduced in the second edition is the exercises introduced in each chapters. They were said to be "thought-provoking". So let's just check some of them. This is an exercise in the chapter "what to do when things go wrong" -- "One week into development, space aliens attack your office and your entire programming staff is hit with an alien space ray that makes them 50% less talented. You are the only witness to the event, as the ray erased the staff's memory of the event. ... " Seriously, you really believe figuring this question out will help you improve your ability for managing crisis ? Okay let's check another exercise in chapter "writing the good vision", "Research visionaries. Select any two: Gandhi, Malcolm X, Thoreau, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus Christ, or Confucius. What were their visions? How did they develop their ideas? ..." We are not doing philosophy, are we? BTW I actually like the author changing the book title from "the art of project management" to "making things happen". The term "the art of" has been overused, but in its original meaning, I really think it should be only referred to the great books like "the art of computer programming"

I don't mean to be harsh here and I am not saying this book is not good at all. Just seeing there are so many praises like "beg to be read cover to cover" or "great/classic..." makes me believe someone should stand up and raise a different, supposedly objective voice.

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Perhaps only a little off-key since I am not a project manager -- altho my professional life is made much easier by working with some dedicated ones.

I did not read the previous edition as the other reviewers did. In fact, I was not really intending to read this edition straight through. I was going to give it a good skim for those aspects of project management that intersect my own world as a Web application interface developer.

I have to say that Scott Berkun is a real teacher because I found the *whole* book to be relevant to my work -- and it was fun to read in the bargain.

This book is not in color and does not contain lots of fancy images. The illustrating and illuminating is done verbally. For once, this was enough for me because Berkun finds a way to make things both practical and vivid. From the text, it is reasonable to assume that his public talks are worthy events.

This is definitely a book to read for people who may not be project managers but who sincerely want to build their teams by understanding this important role better.

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"Been there, done that, and here's the proof". Not merely anecdotal information, this book leaves you wishing that Scott Berkun worked down the hall from you. Straight to the point, he defines what works, what doesn't, and why. He lays out the real world examples that create the framework to support his teaching. For a book on project management, this is an easy read. Better yet, the information is easily applied to your current project.

I'm a big fan of Scott Berkun's first book, "The Art of Project Management". But he's really outdone himself with "Making Things Happen". I think it's simply one of the best books you can buy on project management. If you've never read any of Scott's books before, you're in for a treat. On the other hand, if, like me, you loved "The Art of Project Management", you definitely want this book. It's not just a simple update; it's a new and improved book that will not disappoint.

Don't let its casual tone and the fact that it's very easy to read fool you -- this is a serious book on the ideas, tools and techniques of project management. The first part of "Making Things Happen" covers planning. But it's not just about building project schedules (although it does have a lot of good information on how schedules work); it gives you incredibly valuable advice about making sure your project starts out with the right vision, and "real life" ideas for planning projects.

It goes on to talk about core project management skills that can help anyone, from project managers to team members. While this book has a focus on software development, people who work on all kinds of projects can benefit from this, especially this section. He teaches you about specifying your work, communicating with people, gathering opinions and gaining consensus, maintaining relationships with people, and dealing with problems. And it gives a lot of real-world advice about how to make sure your projects actually finish as well as they start. This is really important -- a lot of project management books forget that that a PM's job doesn't stop when the plan is finished. A good PM needs to be able to guide a project through to completion, and Scott covers that better than anyone I've seen.

Just so you know, I'm the author of one of the top-selling books on PMP preparation. And I can tell you this: if you are a PMP-certified project manager, you know how important it is to continue to improve your own project management skills. And this book is a great way to do that. You'll learn all about things that you didn't learn for the PMP exam: where great ideas come from, how to build relationships and work more effectively with people in your organization, manage your commitments, and make your projects run better.

If you're looking to be a better project manager, if you're not a project manager but you want your projects to run better, or even if you just want to be a better member of a project team, this book should definitely be on your bookshelf.

I bought the book a couple of years ago, when I devoted a lot of time learning programming languages. While browsing the programming manuals at the bookstore I accidentally came across the book with interesting covers. when I quickly turned over the leaves, I decided to buy it.
This book actually encouraged me to dedicate more time to learn soft skills and focus more towards project management. The book is undoubtedly a useful reading for both programmers and project managers who want to expand their horizons and become better at performing their jobs.

If you're gainfully employed in a corporation and have any responsibility for technology or projects, you need to read this. Berkun has literally written the book on how to get things done by focusing on what all the other talking heads have forgotten about: mastering execution fundamentals. Only when we've mastered the fundamentals can we truly pursue excellence and realize our own individual, team, and organizational potential.

I've probably read this book five times, and I've completely raided the bibliography. Berkun's concepts are universally applicable and easy to absorb. As a bonus, he's an entertaining writer.

If everyone in corporate America read this book and abdided by its guidelines, the cubefarms would be a better place. This guy is the real deal.

This is my #1 business bible. There isn't a close second.

This book's been enjoyable and useful to read. There are some sections which didn't give me a lot of value, and I think some hard trimming to shorten the book's length would have been useful, but overall it's been a positive addition to my bookshelf.

I don't line up 100% with Berkun's approach to project management - he seems to be heavy on loading up on extensive documentation up front, and he's seemingly tepid about specs being a conversation vehicle between stakeholders and developers. I'm adamant that specs need to evolve with the stakeholders, analysts, devs, testers, and other team members being active participants in the process.

Those nits aside, I got great value out of a number of Berkun's chapters, particularly those around leadership and trust, decision making, and recovering when things go wrong. He's also got exercises at the end of each chapter which help get thought-provoking juices flowing. Additionally, there's a lot of small, useful details in this book as well, ranging from writing good e-mails to advice on running meetings.

Overall it's been a good read and I'd happily recommend it.

This is an outstanding book that speaks in a very practical way to the thorny problems that all projects face.

Many project management books are either theoretical or case-study based. Both approaches are valid and valuable, but Scott takes a third approach. He offers up a series of lessons and practice around the various classes of problems project managers run into -- especially people problems. "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" (von Moltke) -- and Scott recognizes that the enemy most often is not entropy or planning software or supply-chain delays. Rather it is the spate of well-meaning folks who populate real-world projects and bring their various agendas into play. He shares useful and practical ideas about "winning over the enemy" where you can and working with and around them when you can't.

The book isn't entirely about people issues, of course, but the title "Making Things Happen" is indicative. How do you, as a project manager, work proactively not to keep your project from failing but rather to drive it to succeed?