Book Review : The Art of Project Management

I can’t recall the store in which I first picked up Scott Berkun’s “The Art of Project Management” but I do remember that I was quickly intrigued by it, and immediately bought it. The first edition has since been revised and published as ’Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management ‘. Having read the first edition cover-to-cover, and after repeatedly dipping into specific chapters for a re-read, I can heartily recommend it as a great addition to the library of any project manager, whether you’re a newbie or an old hat.  

I was intrigued by the book primarily because of it’s style. Scott avoids the dry discussions on methodologies and processes and frameworks, and instead delves deeply into more pragmatic topics around project management such as decision making, how to make things happen, and the end-game strategy. With his background in application development management at Microsoft, it’s natural that he writes with a leaning towards managing software development projects, but many of the topics cross over to other applications of project management easily. His writing is easy to read, and most importantly for me, easy to recall later (my memory isn’t what it used to be).

Here are some takeaways of my own from the read that will perhaps give you a sense of the book:

• To Scott’s great credit, he invests two chapters on design and idea generation within project planning – where ideas come from, what to do with ideas once you have them, how to consolidate ideas, prototyping – exploring “the gap from requirements to solutions”. Since many projects fail from poor requirements and design up front, this struck me as a welcome addition to a project management overview. 
• It is interesting that the schedule chapter comes before the chapter on vision, but in the chapter there is a good discussion of three purposes to schedules, how schedules fail, a schedule is a probability, and good estimates come from good design.
• Scott delves into soft skills throughout the book – writing good specifications, specifying is not designing, decision making, management through conversation, relationships, how to get people’s best work (follow advice, inspiring, clearing roadblocks, roles, goals, teaching, asking), how not to annoy people, the benefits of good process, good email, good meetings, leadership and trust. All of this material serves as excellent reminders, and some of it is absolute gold.
• Some of the most interesting reading lies at the end of the book, as he discusses the tactical management of a software development project and writes about what do to when things go wrong, how to make things happen, prioritization, the middle and end game strategy, politics and solving problems, and my personal favourite, flying ahead of the plane.

Looking at the Amazon listing for this book, I agree that the book “doesn’t cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy” – perhaps this was the facet of the book that originally attracted me, the more casual tone not unlike a mentor providing sage advice over a mid-afternoon coffee. I know that I’ll revisit the book on a regular basis – it will be ready at hand in my bookcase, and the cover will become ever more worn that it is already.