Customer Reviews

Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams

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

 

 

Recently I had the opportunity to teach Project Management Leadership for the new Masters Program in Project Management at a local college. Unfortunately, the textbook was already selected for me and this book by Burke and Barron was what I had to work with for the semester. I knew I was in for trouble when the first question from a student that came my way in the very first few minutes of class was, "Do you like this book?"
Suffice it to say, it went downhill from there. Here is a short summary of the actual feedback left by the students in the graduate-level class:
* The book is nothing but endless lists with no analysis.
* Highly repetitive content.
* Sexist graphics.
* The textbook was poorly written.
* The book was horrible at best. A class on leadership should include case studies of great leaders.
The book should have had more examples of how to handle situations. The book discussed problems,
and did not present solutions. I wanted the book to spend more time on what to do when a problem arose.
* The text was horrible -- poorly written, not substantive, portions offensive because of gender
and other stereotyping.
* I have to say the PML text is the worst text book I've ever had. It is a checklist book, has no
examples, while some of the females remarked the cartoons are downright offensive. Even though we
used it, I'm sure we can do much better than this on all accounts.

There are many more student comments in this vein but these are representative of the evaluations of the text.
As for my two cents on the rating of this text, I would only add that as a practicing Organizational Development consultant, I was stunned by the 1950s feel of the research and literature that was cited in the book. With the exception of the 3-4 page summary of Daniel Goleman's work on Emotional Intelligence, there is nothing new, noteworthy, or inspiring about the text. The subtitle of the book is "Building Creative Teams" and is an unrealized promise. Caveat Emptor: Buy this book at your own risk. There is only 1 (one) 5 star rating for this text and it is by Steve Barron himself, one of the book's authors!

Thanks to the previous author for the brief review of our book. I fully agree that the "people stuff" is what projects are all about. However, from my experience, very few people involved with projects actually practice the "people stuff".
We have tried to capture some of the less well documented aspects of project management that will (hopefully) be helpful to people new to projects and old hands alike. Indeed, there are some new ideas presented that are the result of our research and development.
Project Management Leadership is not just about team building, but also covers subjects such as Emotional Intelligence, Decision Making and Conflict in project contexts.
Yes, projects need to consider the involvement of people and this book is written to help readers introduce their own ways to develop these needed skills. I hope it helps improve your project success!

I ordered this book in hopes it would arrive by the time I needed it...It didn't arrive until 3 days after my deadline. I'm not sure if it was my fault or theirs but I felt as if I ordered it in time. When I got the book, I no longer needed it so I contacted the seller to return it but it was such a hassle I decided to keep it. At least it was in good condition.

This book spends its time telling project managers how to build teams. Heh, get a grip, that is what project management is all about. Nothing new here.