Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management [Paperback]

Johanna Rothman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 14, 2007

This book is a reality-based guide for modern projects. You'll learn how to recognize your project's potholes and ruts, and determine the best way to fix problems - without causing more problems.

Your project can't fail. That's a lot of pressure on you, and yet you don't want to buy into any one specific process, methodology, or lifecycle.

Your project is different. It doesn't fit into those neat descriptions.

Manage It! will show you how to beg, borrow, and steal from the best methodologies to fit your particular project. It will help you find what works best for you and not for some mythological project that doesn't even exist.

Before you know it, your project will be on track and headed to a successful conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Johanna Rothman helps leaders solve problems and seize opportunities. She consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. She enables managers, teams, and organizations to become more effective by applying her pragmatic approaches to the issues of project management, risk management, and people management. Johanna publishes The Pragmatic Manager, a monthly email newsletter and podcast, and writes two blogs: Managing Product Development and Hiring Technical People. She is the author of several books: - Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management - Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (with Esther Derby) - Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People - Corrective Action for the Software Industry (with Denise Robitaille).

Product Details

• Paperback: 365 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (June 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978739248
• ISBN-13: 978-0978739249
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #484,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

People often describe me as the "Pragmatic Manager." I help organizational leaders see problems and risks in their product development. I help people identify problems, seize opportunities, and remove impediments. I'm an internationally acclaimed speaker and consultant.

I'm big on action plans, short on theory, grounded in reality. If you can't apply the theory, why bother?

I've has written over 200 articles and papers, maintain three blogs, and am a frequent contributor for numerous magazines. I'm currently writing a monthly management column Stickyminds.com and a bimonthly project management column for projectmanagement.com.

I've written these books:
- Hiring Geeks That Fit
- Manage Your Job Search (only on leanpub right now)
- Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
- Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
- Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (with Esther Derby)
- Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds
- Corrective Action for the Software Industry (with Denise Robitaille)

I write an email newsletter, the Pragmatic Manager and two blogs on jrothman.com, and a personal blog on createadaptablelife.com. I'm also a host and session leader at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference.

I care about projects that work, teams that work, and organizations that work.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best project management book EVER! February 27, 2008

By David Christiansen

Format:Paperback

Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management by Johanna Rothman is the best project management reference I've ever read, and I've seen my share of project management tomes. Here's what I like best about the book: it's not theological. By this I mean Rothman doesn't advocate one "true" way of running projects. She is very careful to be continually cognizant of context when she talks about different approaches you might take. In this sense, she is very situational about prescribing solutions, which I like because it helps a project manager develop what I think is a critical attribute of a good project manager: good judgment.

One of my favorite chapters is Recognizing and Avoiding Schedule Games, which uses comic art and prose to explain and fix schedule games that can occur on projects. Here are a few from the book:
- Bring Me a Rock
- Hope Is Our Most Important Strategy
- Queen of Denial
- Sweep Under the Rug
- 90% Done
and so on, for a total of 16 entertaining schedule games that every project manager eventually needs to face.

Rothman is an entertaining writer with a knack for interesting prose and practical advice. Unlike most PM books I've read, I've not found anything yet where I was inclined to ignore her advice or felt an approach would require too much work and yield too little benefit. She definitely has a propensity toward simple, sustainable approaches to project management, something I sincerely appreciate due to my strong disdain for any approach with substantial overhead.

Another great feature of this book is you can read it out of order, either by opening it randomly or by simply reading the sections that interest you at the moment or that apply to problems you are struggling with.

Buy it.... Try it. It's worth it. Read more ›

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Addition to My Library July 18, 2007

By Kenneth Flowers

Format:Paperback

The best way for me to describe Manage It! is as a survey course in project management for experienced project managers.

You could read this book to get a good flavor for what project managers do, but I don't see it as a first course in becoming a project manager. Experienced project managers typically have grown up with a particular project management method: Waterfall, phase-gate, spiral, agile, Scrum, XP. While Johanna shows a general preference for agile methods, she gives excellent detail on how to work effectively in each method.

Don't skip this book because you think you are too experienced for it. Manage It! is packed with great tips for the most seasoned leader.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pragmatic Indeed... June 22, 2007

By Ronald Pihlgren

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've read a few other project management books, including the excellent The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun, my previous favorite. Berkun spent years as a project manager in one company, Microsoft, and his book is basically the Microsoft approach when it's done excellently.

Rothman is a project management consultant. She has seen many different companies trying many different project management lifecycles. I would guess that in most cases she doesn't get called in unless her customers are having problems. The fact that she's been doing this for years means that her work is valued by her customers.

This difference in experience can be seen comparing this book to Berkun's. Instead of outlining one way to do things, Rothman describes a continuum of project lifecycles from waterfall (what she calls "serial") to agile. She talks about when each is appropriate, things to watch out for in different contexts, and when the odds are against success in each kind of lifecycle.

Other topics that are explored in the book include schedule games and how to avoid them, how to manage meetings, how to integrate testing into your project, and others.

This is a great book. I'll continue to refer to it during my future projects.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must have (and read) for every project manager June 8, 2008

By Ralph Jocham

Format:Paperback

This book is years of experience condensed to its best. It addresses all important aspects of modern project management. It is objective towards many different processes but it clearly makes the point that agile is the best choice in most cases.

While reading this book, it opened my eyes again and again -- Yep, been there, seen that.

I encourage every project manager to read this book from beginning to end; this will put hooks in your mind to come back later and re-read the appropriate chapter when needed. After having read this book, it makes a great reference. I use it to make sure I have not overseen anything when reaching certain life cycle events.

Thanks Johanna, this book was overdue for a long time!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Agile Project Management for Any Lifecycle May 11, 2008

By Steve Berczuk VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Manage It! will help you understand how to manage projects effectively, taking into account the needs of the people working on the project as well as the needs of the business sponsors. In this regard Johanna Rothman follows in the steps of authors like Jerry Weinberg in showing you how to set up a project environment that helps software developers be more effective and thus be better able to deliver value to their customers. This book has lots of pragmatic advice on how to make progress and issues visible, how to plan a project, and most everything else you need to help a project come to a good conclusion. This book is unique in that while it discusses the benefits of agile lifecycles, it shows you how to make progress in a variety of software lifecycles, and how to introduce techniques that will help your team to be more effective even if they don't really "fit" into your defined process.

Buy this book if you want to be a more effective project manager (or technical lead who works with project managers), or if you want to be more agile but are not sure how. What I liked most about this book is the focus on how project management processes can help people be more (or less) effective; an understanding of the primary role of people in a project is key to being more agile.