Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management (Paperback)

by Johanna Rothman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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.

About the Author
Johanna Rothman consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. She has written over 150 articles and papers and is a active blogger and frequent contributor for Better Software, Computerworld.com, and StickyMinds.com. Johanna is a coauthor (with Esther Derby) of the popular and pragmatic Behind Closed Doors, Secrets of Great Management. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Technies & Nerds, and is a coauthor (with Denise Robitaille) of Corrective Action for the Software Industry.

Product Details

• Paperback: 365 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; illustrated edition edition (June 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978739248
• ISBN-13: 978-0978739249
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #56,559 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Ronald Pihlgren "ronpih" (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Kenneth Flowers - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	David Christiansen "Author of TechDarkSide.com" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.