The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)) [Paperback]

Scott Berkun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0596007868 | ISBN-13: 978-0596007867 | Edition: 1

The Art of Project Management covers it all--from practical methods for making sure work gets done right and on time, to the mindset that can make you a great leader motivating your team to do their best. Reading this was like reading the blueprint for how the best projects are managed at Microsoft... I wish we always put these lessons into action!" --Joe Belfiore, General Manager, E-home Division, Microsoft Corporation

"Berkun has written a fast paced, jargon-free and witty guide to what he wisely refers to as the 'art' of project management. It's a great introduction to the discipline. Seasoned and new managers will benefit from Berkun's perspectives." --Joe Mirza, Director, CNET Networks (Cnet.com)

"Most books with the words 'project management' in the title are dry tomes. If that's what you are expecting to hear from Berkun's book, you will be pleasantly surprised. Sure, it's about project management. But it's also about creativity, situational problem-solving, and leadership. If you're a team member, project manager, or even a non-technical stakeholder, Scott offers dozens of practical tools and techniques you can use, and questions you can ask, to ensure your projects succeed." --Bill Bliss, Senior VP of product and customer experience, expedia.com

In The Art of Project Management, you'll learn from a veteran manager of software and web development how to plan, manage, and lead projects. This personal account of hard lessons learned over a decade of work in the industry distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice. Inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, this is the book you and your team need to have within arms reach. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.

Topics include:

• How to make things happen
• Making good decisions
• Specifications and requirements
• Ideas and what to do with them
• How not to annoy people
• Leadership and trust
• The truth about making dates
• What to do when things go wrong

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is written in an easy and witty style that makes for an enjoyable cover-to-cover read, although the structure of the book makes it easy to refer to particular sections as required. Whether you are an experienced project manager or making the transition from developer to manager, I thoroughly recommend that you read "The Art of Projects Management" and keep a copy with you at all the times!" - Jenny Smith, The Developers Magazine - Jan/Feb 2007

From the Inside Flap

"...Its strengths are its basis in experience; the inclusion of many illustrative stories; and the thoughtful sections on specs, making good decisions, and politics. ...I think it would be an excellent resource for someone going into project management or trying to make sense of project management."

- Kent Beck, Three Rivers Consulting, Inc. "The Art of Project Management covers it all - from practical methods for making sure work gets done right and on time, to the mindset that can make you a great leader motivating your team to do their best. Reading this was like reading the blueprint for how the best projects are managed at Microsoft. I wish we always put these lessons into action!" - Joe Belfiore, General Manager, E-home Division, Microsoft Corporation "Berkun has written a fast paced, jargon-free and witty guide to what he wisely refers to as the 'art' of project management. It's a great introduction to the discipline. Seasoned and new managers will benefit from Berkun's perspectives." - Joe Mirza, Director, CNET Networks (Cnet.com) "Most books with the words 'project management' in the title are dry tomes. If that's what you are expecting to hear from Berkun's book, you will be pleasantly surprised. Sure, it's about project management. But it's also about creativity, situational problem-solving, and leadership. If you're a team member, project manager, or even a non-technical stakeholder, Scott offers dozens of practical tools and techniques you can use, and questions you can ask, to ensure your projects succeed." - Bill Bliss, Senior VP of product and customer experience, expedia.com "Scott's manifesto on project management is a great balance of practical advice and inspiration, based on keen observations and experiences earned while in the trenches. It's well-researched, very readable, and humorous to boot." - Paolo Malabuyo, Lead Program Manager, Xbox, Microsoft Corporation " This book is useful to anyone involved in ongoing projects, regardless of whether they have an official leadership role. I'm a designer, not a project manager, and I found more practical information on how to get work done in a software company than any other book I've read." - Chad Thornton, Interaction Designer, Google A successful software application is a mixture of programming, designing, scheduling, marketing, testing, some black magic, and a lot of luck. Engineers see it as a technical problem; designers see it as a usability problem; marketers see it as a specifications problem; but nobody sees it as 100% their problem. This book is written for the people who take on the burden of making the whole problem their problem" - Steve Capps, CEO of onedoto.com and Former Apple fellow "How I managed so long without this book baffles the mind." - Richard Stoakley, Group Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation "As a software engineer, the observations in 'The Art of Project Management' resonated deeply with my own experiences. Scott's book gave me a new appreciation for the difficulty and risks, and the tremendous rewards of good project management. This book provides the knowledge and the incentive to become a better project contributor whether you are managing or being managed. Any stakeholder in a software project will benefit from reading this book." - Martin Frankel, Senior Software Engineer, TiVo Inc." Berkun provides valuable insight into how to accomplish projects without subscribing to a specific software engineering strategy. His discussions are supported with examples from projects he personally managed and include numerous citations from other works on philosophy, organizational behavior, and project management. This book should be required reading for anyone involved with development, from a single programmer in a small company to a vice-president of a large corporation. -Samuel Greenfield, Manager of System Development, Sports Illustrated Magazine "Of all the many books on project management, "The art of project management" is by far the most easy to read and entertaining. Scott Berkun's insights, knowledge and sense of humor delivers an exceptional book that no project manager can do without." - Michael Viola, Senior Consultant, IBM

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (April 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596007868
• ISBN-13: 978-0596007867
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #38 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Systems Analysis & Design
  • #79 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Management > Project Management > PMP Exam
  • #80 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Project Management

More About the Author

Scott Berkun (@berkun) is the best selling author of four books, Making Things Happen, The Myths of Innovation, Confessions of a Public Speaker and Mindfire Big Ideas for Curious Minds. His work has appeared in the The Washington Post, The New York Times, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, The Economist, Forbes Magazine, and other media. He has taught creative thinking at the University of Washington and has been a regular commentator on CNBC, MSNBC and National Public Radio. His many popular essays and entertaining lectures can be found for free on his blog at http://www.scottberkun.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 100 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Voice of Experience July 23, 2005

By Benjamin Rossen

Format:Paperback

After many years as project manager in product development, I embarked on two software development projects, a new area for me, and found that some of my management skills were not relevant. After the first project stumbled, I purchased several software project management books and, after working through them in a disciplined way (taking notes on salient points and scaling them on their helpfulness for my work) found this to be the best. It is comprehensive - perhaps a little too wordy at times - and packed with practical advice. The lists of questions which come up regularly in this book can be turned into management check lists. Scott Berkun's points anticipated many of the problems I have since encountered; I am now reading this book for the second time and noticing things that were missed on the first read. As my experience has grown, I have come to recognize the voice of greater experience speaking through this book. Recommended for novices and experienced software project managers.

59 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, useful advice on how to realistically run a project July 21, 2005

By Lars Bergstrom VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Scott does a great job in this book of providing well-organized, practically useful guidance on how to work on and run a project. Even if you're not actually in charge of a project, I'd recommend this as a book to help you understand what should be getting done on it. The three biggest areas he focuses on are how to ensure a project has proper focus and clear priorities, how to run meetings and do feature-level design, and how to handle a project as it moves from start to finish.

The key to proper focus and clear priorities is the tie between the mission, goals, features, and tasks in a project. Scott provides a great framework for tying them together, ensuring they're created, and ensuring the team understands them.

The advice on running meetings and doing feature-level design is the only area that might not work as well for those outside of Microsoft. While I highly identify with it, and think that he's clearly stated the best practices for our environment, your mileage may vary.

Finally, he does a great job of talking about the difference between the start, middle, and end-game. Many people try to use a single process throughout and either overburden the start of the project or allow the end-game to spin wildly out of control. Scott's very clear about how to apply the right level of touch and raise the process bar at safe but necessary increments as a project goes on.

The only negative thing I could find in the book is that some of the proofreading on the figures wasn't up to the same quality as the text. References to figures are sometimes pointing to the wrong one, and occasionally the legends are mislabeled.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book dispenses much needed advice February 2, 2006

By calvinnme HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Perhaps one of the reasons I am still doing engineering work rather than supervising it 26 years after I received my BSEE is that I could never properly wrap myself around exactly what it takes to manage a project. I therefore approached this book with a great deal of trepidation. However, after I began reading it I became pleasantly surprised. Most project management books I've read in the past intersperse advice on project management with software engineering techniques and Tony Robbins style motivational anecdotes. This one sticks to the subject and is well organized. The book is not about any one specific project management methodology, but about fundamental aspects of all projects. The author recounts his own experiences while managing projects at Microsoft to provide insight into the less transparent aspects of project management. The book is divided into three major sections: "Plans," "Skills," and "Management." This organization provides a logical flow overall and allows topics to build on one another. In spite of this logical progression, the chapters are fit for random access, as the author himself recommends. One of my favorite chapters was "Figuring Out What To Do". Here the author outlines three basic perspectives: The business perspective, the technology perspective and the customer perspective. The author states that although the customer perspective is the most important of all three that is the most neglected and is the reason that many projects fail.
The chapter "How Not To Annoy People: Process, Email, and Meeting" was another chapter I really enjoyed. It offers down-to-earth recommendations on dealing with annoying behavior which the author lists in five categories:
When others
1. assume you're an idiot.
2. don't trust you
3. waste your time
4.... manage you without respect
5. make you listen to or read stupid things
Since I've been guilty of being on the giving end as well as the receiving end of some of this behavior, this chapter helped me see some of the trouble I can cause myself as well as how I can effectively deal with it when it comes from others.
However, this book is more than just about how to deal with socially backwards misanthropes such as myself. It dedicates considerable space to creativity, dealing with ideas once you have them, making ideas actionable by using affinity diagrams to consolidate ideas, and employing iterative prototyping.
The third section of the book, which is specifically about management issues, contains chapters such as "Why Leadership Is Based On Trust". In that chapter the author points out that trust is built through commitment but lost through inconsistent behavior. Leaders must develop enough trust that people will bring issues to them during crises instead of hiding them. Trust, then, is at the core of leadership. Part of the reason that people will not trust some leaders is dealt with in the chapter "Power and Politics." Specifically, the author points out that power is misused when people work towards their own self-interest. If that person is a leader, and other people take note of this misuse, trust is lost.
In summary this book has much to say about all phases of project development as well as management. Highly recommended. Read more ›

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Ready reckoner for the softer side of project management August 24, 2006

By Souvik Mitra VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This book is more than 400 pages of good, practical advice for project managers. Since 'art' is always a specific solution, as opposed to the generic formula based science, the value of this book will depend on the extent of experience a person has, the kind of project she is managing (hopefully IT) & the realm of her responsibilities.

It follows a coherent sequence beginning with writing vision statements for the project to end-game strategy that talks about wrapping up the project. In between, there is an ample amount of methodology type content - like how to write good designs, how to make good estimates etc. However, all these methodologies really talk about characteristics & points-to- consider-while-you're-at-it type content. For example, while discussing estimation Berkun talks about the common estimation mistakes & the features of a good estimate but does not discuss any estimation method like PERT.

Berkun is fairly funny as well & the text is replete with example situations from his years at Microsoft. While some readers might mistake this as being exhibitionist, I think a great deal is understood by the way of examples particularly when we're dealing with topics like management & project dynamics.

I must also acknowledge that this by no means a full presentation of all aspects of project management. For example, I did not come across any reference of project audits, & though there is ample discussion on good requirements & great design, I did not notice anything on the process of arriving at a WBS given a design, budgeting & the like. That said I believe that hardly anything on Project Management can hope to be a complete reference simply because of the complexity & ramifications this role can have....

This is a good book to have on your shelf, & you can flip through any chapter depending on your current requirement.

S! Read more ›