97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts [Paperback]

Barbee Davis (Author), Harry Tucker (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0596804164 | ISBN-13: 978-0596804169 | Edition: 1

If the projects you manage don't go as smoothly as you'd like, 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know offers knowledge that's priceless, gained through years of trial and error. This illuminating book contains 97 short and extremely practical tips -- whether you're dealing with software or non-IT projects -- from some of the world's most experienced project managers and software developers. You'll learn how these professionals have dealt with everything from managing teams to handling project stakeholders to runaway meetings and more.

While this book highlights software projects, its wise axioms contain project management principles applicable to projects of all types in any industry. You can read the book end to end or browse to find topics that are of particular relevance to you. 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know is both a useful reference and a source of inspiration.

Among the 97 practical tips:

• "Clever Code Is Hard to Maintain...and Maintenance Is Everything" -- David Wood, Partner, Zepheira
• "Every Project Manager Is a Contract Administrator" -- Fabio Teixeira de Melo, Planning Manager, Construtora Norberto Odebrecht
• "Can Earned Value and Velocity Coexist on Reports?" -- Barbee Davis, President, Davis Consulting
• "How Do You Define 'Finished'"? -- Brian Sam-Bodden, author, software architect
• "The Best People to Create the Estimates Are the Ones Who Do the Work" -- Joe Zenevitch, Senior Project Manager, ThoughtWorks
• "How to Spot a Good IT Developer" -- James Graham, independent management consultant
• "One Deliverable, One Person" -- Alan Greenblatt, CEO, Sciova

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barbee Davis, PMP, PHR, writes a semi-monthly feature for the Project Management Institute (PMI) international publication, Community Post, in which she guides project managers to more successful projects. She is also an international reviewer for the PMI Registered Educational Provider (R.E.P.) program.

Experienced in training and consulting, Barbee has written and facilitated technical training for IBM Corporation and other large customers. She has designed and implemented projects in varied industries, and managed large project rollouts for many national corporations.

As co-owner of ExecuTrain of Nebraska, Barbee provided technical training for solution developers and systems engineers, as well as offering end-user training on all platforms. She came to ExecuTrain from Wilson Learning, where she was an accredited facilitator for their Management Development, Sales, Customer Service, Time Management workshops, and automated personnel selection tools.

Currently, Barbee owns Davis Consulting, formed to provide Training and Development workshops, customized training materials, and Project Management consulting services. She has been on staff with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Nebraska Wesleyan, and Bellevue University and is proficient in online learning instructional design, having both written for and taught on Blackboard for universities and corporate clients. Ms. Davis holds a degree in Education, a Master's, a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) accreditation, and a black belt in Microsoft Project.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (August 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596804164
• ISBN-13: 978-0596804169
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #187,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #98 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Systems Analysis & Design

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Project Management Potpourri September 21, 2009

By Sarah Walker

Format:Paperback

As a novice project manager in a non-profit setting, I was very enthusiastic when I first heard about this book. The title and description sounded exactly like what I needed. Other books I've read on project management were targeted towards large-scale projects or missing the wisdom acquired from years of real-life experience.

This book, advertised as being short and practical lived up to some of its claims. According to the back of the book, it's for "software or non-IT projects", but covers the software side more thoroughly. Some of the tips were practical and immediately useful to me, while others pointed out problems in vague language without specifics for how to address them. It's the kind of book you can flip through to find what you need and disregard the rest, rather than reading it cover to cover.

The book is organized in a regular table of contents, or by topic. I found the topic listing more helpful and wish it had been listed first. I also wished there had been a glossary of project-management terms. Reading the book left me wondering who the experts were. Therefore, I would prefer to have the information about the authors listed earlier in the book or at the end of each article. Overall, a quick and mostly useful read.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Useless December 21, 2009

By Script Bear

Format:Paperback

This book is nothing but a collection of 2-page (or less) truisms. If you aren't already familiar with such profound notions as: "simplicity is easier than complexity", "good morale is more productive, bad morale is less productive", and "things are never perfect", then this book might be helpful.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pearls of Wisdom From Project Management Trenches September 1, 2009

By Ira Laefsky VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

There are many books that have been written on heavy-duty (heavy-handed?) Project Management Methodologies, or the particular buzzwords and methods one must repeat to become certified in these methodologies. But, where the rubber meets the road, there are particular issues of note and secrets of successful project leaders that are often omitted, or under-emphasized in global approaches to project management, software and product development. Barbee Davis who writes a semi-monthly column for the Project Management Institute Community Post, and O'Reilly Publishers have collected the most important tips, concerns and wisdom of many successful project managers from software and other industries and collected 97 of these pearls of wisdom, in two page summaries which impart the point of significance, and just enough direction to carry out this advice in a practical project management situation.

Pointed advice on particular approaches and tools, such as how to measure what is critical to the project's success, and how to efficiently use a wiki tool to organize a team's efforts, are often the details which are omitted or insufficiently specified in an overall Project Management Methodology. But these "how-to's" and "gotcha's" of Project Management, captured by real-life team leaders form the wisdom contained in this relatively compact volume.

In order that this wisdom is available in the situations you as a project team leader need the voice of experience, a second table of contents is included, listing each of these pearls in easily recognized categories such as Agile Methods, Managing People and Teams, Communications, Purchasing Issues, International Issues and Distributed Teams.

A new Project Manager would need several lifetimes of experience to acquire the wisdom of these established team leaders, and these pearls and sticking points are just the sort of issues omitted from many larger and more pretentious volumes on the project life cycle.

-_Ira Laefsky
MS Engineering, MBA, IT & HCI Consultant