Just (Not) Enough Project Management
October 29th, 2006 by HalHow many project management books are there? 1,000? 2,000? Would you believe 16,199? That's the number of unique results (use quotation marks around the term) I got at Amazon at 8:52 PM EDT last night. So how does anyone find a good book among that bunch? One way is to look at the sales rankings. The top book on the list is Scott Berkun's The Art of Project Management. It's a good book that I've reviewed on this weblog. Somewhere down the list is a book I read on the plane two weeks ago, Just Enough Project Management, by Curtis R. Cook.
"You do not need (the PMP®) credentials to successfully manage the vast majority of projects."
Cook writes a primer targeted to the vast majority of people doing projects. Most projects involve no more than three people. They take anywhere from a few days to a few months. They don't require CPM schedules, let alone work breakdown structures. Project controls is what happens when we just can't seem to get traction on the project. That is Cook's audience…quite a big audience. He claims that projects need just enough project management…no more. Unfortunately, there's just not enough targeted at that audience.
I really like Cook's introduction. He puts the work of projects in perspective. He closes the introduction this way, "You do not need (the PMP®) credentials to successfully manage the vast majority of projects." I couldn't agree more. He then goes on to describe the just enough world in four steps:
- Initiate the project
- Plan the project
- Control the project
- Close the project
Cook's four-step process is attractive, but the details just don't do it for me. He makes the usual mistake of separating planning from doing.
About two-thirds through the book I finally gave up reading and only scanned through to the end. (I think I was distracted when a flight attendant came by with more peanuts.) But then it got interesting. I found myself reading again! Chapter 7 Juggling Multiple Projects offers useful tools and perspective for dealing with overload. Here are his five steps:
- List all your projects
- Identify the next step for each project
- Find the quick hits
- Prioritize the remaining steps
- Schedule your time weekly and be able to display your workload
If you work on multiple projects, then the details of his five steps are worth reading, particularly if you are the project team!
Are you looking for another good book on projects? Pick up a copy of UNSTUCK, by Keith Yamashita & Sandra Spataro. It won't tell you how to do projects, but it does address the inevitable situation I find myself in — stuck — maybe you too.
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