Customer Reviews

Project Management: The Managerial Process, 4th Edition (Book & CD-ROM)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This wordy book is more heavy on management than on project management because the business professors are understandably not trained in project-specific disciplines. Hence, there is inadequate coverage of how projects are actually managed, particularly costing and key contractual issues. Even on their own terrain, the business relations are mostly asserted without solid research backing (e.g. section on culture, where certain cultures are asserted to be pro-projects, but the causal links are missing). If you are looking to teach students basic PM processes, this book is worth a look as the explanation is clear. But if you are a practitioner, learn from your discipline-specific masters. So I have to knock off 2 stars for inadequate coverage, and impracticality.

The author is too eager to impress you with his knowledge and ability to build confusing and complex sentences. I've found I need to read a chapter several times to get anything out of it. Even after several readings, taking notes, I'm not sure what is going on. The book provides allot of chaff with very few "Deliverables".

Unless you are already an experienced project manager looking for a new angle this one is better left on the shelf.

Too bad there isn't a zero star rating, this book really deserves it...

It seems that many people didn't like this book, but I used it for a class on PM & found it to be pretty good. I had no prior knowledge of the field. I really liked the accompanying Student CD-ROM for study & review of the material. I used the Microsoft Project trial CD-ROM & found that extremely useful also. I would recommend it as introductory material.

The book was fine, used, but certainly serviceable as a textbook. I was pleased that the CD that came with the book new was still there and worked perfectly well. Make sure your instructor says its okay to use this edition - the page numbers are significantly different than the 5th edition, but the price is also significantly less.

This is a good book about project management, but it can be improved. In this day and age project management is done with computer programs. I got an A for the Project Management course, but if I go "into trenches", I will have to tell my boss that I don't have a slightest clue how to use even relatively simple project management computer programs like Microsoft Project.

I'd dedicate a large part of the book to inform students how to use project management computer programs. When you are in the trenches, knowing all the theory about star wars does not help. You have to know how to shoot a lowly rifle.

Then again, this book is not a manual for Microsoft Project. The real problem is that our colleges do not teach real world skills like using computer programs for accounting, project management, etc. After getting your MBA you might have to buy a copy of QuickBooks and learn how to use it.

This book does not include SimProject in case you need it for your class. It took a week of calls to McGraw-Hill to track down a copy, which ended up costing me 50$ after shipping.

Other then simproject its the same exact book as in the campus book stores and for significantly cheaper.

It's well explained. It's not a prescriptive book (receipt).

To those starting out it's a great reference. It's easy to understand and not "wordy". There are many charts and pictures that make some points easier to remember. The case studies make the book more consistent/relevant as you can see how project management, of lack of it, impacts on the aimed result.

The cd is nothing special, I wish there were more things, like the quiz found online (on its website), more exercises. Just a complaint is that there's no solution to the proposed exercises. They could at least sell another book (solution manual). There's a new edition though.

I needed this book for an online class an it was a great price and fully met my needs in the classroom.

Can't get any new ideas or techniques from this book. Very basic
and crude.

The authors make everything way more complicated that it has to be. I have worked side by side with project managers for a large firm and am very famailiar with PM principles and practices and yet I find that this book is extreemly difficult to digest.