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The Project Management Book: How to run successful projects in half the time
Business is becoming increasingly project-based and our ability to manage projects has become one of the key skills for success as managers and business people. This compact guide, written by a leading project management expert, gets to the heart of successful project management. Project management is not complicated - many projects may be complicated, but project management itself is not. By following a set of simple rules and applying simple techniques, there will be no need for the expensive project failures that we often see. Moreover, as this book shows, projects can be significantly shortened by again using simple ideas and techniques. Anyone who manages projects will find this book helps them to save time, effort, resources, and money.
128 pages, Hardcover
Published November 30, 2018
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11 people want to read
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January 5, 2020
The daily workout in the office to be mentally fit to pull out any heavyweight projects with ease
If we want to embrace our best and be nimble in the workplace like how we would be physically by putting the discipline on going to the gym every day, then this book is the go-to regime to produce similar results in the workplace where you are not frustrated with deadlines and daily performance. The author provides a list of things to be the next rockstar in the workplace, but instead of running a marathon, you can lift weights two times than usual allowing you to do the same stuff you do previously in half the time. If you read the cover of the book under the title it describes that it will teach you on "How to run successful projects in half the time" and by the end of reading it, you will believe in the message that it delivers.
The regime the book delivers is a set of exercises that you should try it out and incorporate and commit it continuously in your daily life. The author describes it as going to a restaurant and picking an item from the menu, but I digress on that metaphor, as the author indeed describes project management as the most difficult job in the world due to the uncertainties that can erupt. But just like how keeping a body healthy is a lifetime endeavor, we can make our work easier to handle by putting a project management exercise regime to keep things in shape. Let me assess that putting these principles in practice is a lot of sweat and tear at first and most people give up and do not fully commit to it and leave it in the middle. Indeed, planning the details requires patience and we can make a ton of excuses why it does not work out if we look at it only in the short term, but if we keep committing to it, we will progressively see the positive results.
I have to emphasize that project management is the most underestimated thing these days when evaluating performance. We emphasize quite a lot of people having the right values, attitudes, and skills, but never look at whether they can address projects to be completed. The problem in most organizations is not whether a project will be done on time, the problem is whether it will ever be completed. The author discusses six sections within the book and one section measures the probability of success indicator (PSI) of a project. I think we all have read mediocre books that where cheap thrills. The intro was spectacular, the rest bulk of the content was dull and the conclusion was left as a cliffhanger. Similarly, many projects face the same fate. The pitch is outstanding, what was done based on the pitch is minimal, and by the end of the year we just sugar coat it that all that mattered was the effort without doing any retrospectives of the strategy that was put in place. It is okay to show great first impressions of what we want to deliver. That is marketing and it is fine. But if the product, in the end, does not function as intended, it is not something that we can just ignore and say that it is fine and we can live with it. Sometimes, we become in denial that project management was the issue and restructure the way we do things again and again until everybody becomes at a complete loss to the direction the organization is going. In the end, that is why most companies hire project managers to oversee the business keeps up on being on the right track. These people may look at first completely unrelated to the business, but project management is a basic foundation that can often be lacking across members of the organization and needs to be coached across members of the team for making sure most projects are at least completed.
You can think of project management as having a fit body in order to move heavy objects within a physical warehouse. Having a fit body may look unrelated at first compared to knowledge of how a physical warehouse operates and how much motivation and effort an individual puts within the job. But no matter those traits exist, the individual will be in fatigue if he does not keep his body in shape by going to the gym or doing a regular daily regime to keep the muscles still in shape. Although they seem unrelated at first, having strong muscles are foundational components for an individual to do his job in half the time and with ease and no struggles, with joy and no stress. In a similar vein, having good project management skills are the muscles of moving projects to completion with ease. Like coaches motivate people to do their regular exercises, so do project managers motivate employees to monitor their projects so they can eventually be completed. At some point, this book will teach you on appreciating the role of project managers and start to be more initiative and rely less on them by facilitating their task by doing it on your own with the guidelines provided in this book.
The book contents in overall are charming, concise, easy to understand, but hard to master. Without accounting the epilogue as a section, there are six sections and each section discusses multiple topics. Each topic has several subjects to discuss outlined as a headline that can come along with illustrations, tables, and bullet points. The appearance of the book is like a small lightweight hardcover Moleskine notebook that comes with a string to bookmark any page that you find intriguing to read later on. I rarely review a book layout inside out and focus more on the message it delivers, but it is hard to leave this out. Overall, the lessons that the book mentions will not always be stuck in your head and will require to reread them another time as it takes time to progressively incorporate all the best practices discussed. Having the book in a portable format while retaining the message to be easy to read makes it more plausible for readers to read it again to gain new perspectives.
Without wanting to spoil the contents of the book, each out of the six sections provides meaningful lessons that can be incorporated in any order that sounds fit for the current situation of your organization. Part one is just a basic introduction of a list of steps for what the rest of the five sections of the book will all be about. Part two discusses estimating projects with better accuracy, such as how to handle change requests from stakeholders and taking into account the availability of time for each of your employees. Part three discusses how to make project management a less dreadful experience by keeping it short, minimal and meaningful as well as understanding how to manage each member in the team based on their performance. Part four discusses how to measure the success of projects you are currently working or inherited with a set of questions and by looking at current behaviors within your organization and how to rescue them if they are in trouble. Part five discusses the problems of multitasking and how to manage them by doing less by focusing only on what is important. Part six discusses how to make projects shorter by reducing the scope requirements and finding ways to delegate tasks of a particular project to be done in parallel by different individuals who are fully available.
I had a blast reading this book. My favorite parts are when it discusses that we cannot have the same management style for each individual. For each project, depending on their experience and output they deliver, we have to change our style from heavy micromanaging them to let them all alone without any interference. The other part that is still stuck in my head is how to deal with irrational stakeholders demanding more for individuals that need to work overtime. In those cases, putting more effort is not the solution to our problems, but instead changing the way we do things where we can produce the same results with less effort or eliminating tasks that do not add much value to the business. If those attempts do not solve the situation, then the business model may not be sustainable and needs to pivot in new ways to address the problem. In either situation, it requires taking the risk of dedicating some time in executing creative ideas and evaluating them until finding one that will work out. Working more hours constantly and increasing over time those working hours are not sustainable. The author calls those employees being cast in such tragedy as "magicians". Our bodies have so much limit to what can withstand that becomes unsustainable over time. At first, those employees can be called superheroes working overtime by jeopardizing their health. However, in the end, we will not be able to keep up those demands, as their health continually deteriorates.
In summary, I recommend this book to anybody who contributes or manages projects daily. I found the lessons easy to digest and am looking forward to incorporating more of those lessons not only within my career but also in my personal life as well. Overall, unless you have the time to turn around projects for the better, it is always good to mingle around with projects that are managed properly rather than no management in place as they may eventually be more harder for them to be completed. Also, I find project management an essential skill all good leaders should have. To this day, developed countries have treated all physical illnesses except mental diseases and heart diseases. These come from multiple factors, but one of them could be due to the pressures of the work. More and more individuals remain single or do not have children due to the demanding nature of the work. They may get constantly stressed out, deprived of sleep, or eat an unhealthy diet due to putting more priority on their work rather than their personal needs. In those situations, we have to ask whether the projects we work are managed properly. Because for every business, it emerged from founders with a vision of making our current civilization in a better state. On the same premises, I think the whole world wants to strive where the future of our next-generation workforce is in a better state while still delivering projects on time to keep our stakeholders happy. Otherwise, if we keep neglecting it, it will have ripple effects like what we do to our physical environment with global warming. We should not wait until the government intervenes when situations become dire and instead be self-initiative and pro-active in those situations. The project management book by Fergus O'Connell delivers a closer step in achieving that reality.
If we want to embrace our best and be nimble in the workplace like how we would be physically by putting the discipline on going to the gym every day, then this book is the go-to regime to produce similar results in the workplace where you are not frustrated with deadlines and daily performance. The author provides a list of things to be the next rockstar in the workplace, but instead of running a marathon, you can lift weights two times than usual allowing you to do the same stuff you do previously in half the time. If you read the cover of the book under the title it describes that it will teach you on "How to run successful projects in half the time" and by the end of reading it, you will believe in the message that it delivers.
The regime the book delivers is a set of exercises that you should try it out and incorporate and commit it continuously in your daily life. The author describes it as going to a restaurant and picking an item from the menu, but I digress on that metaphor, as the author indeed describes project management as the most difficult job in the world due to the uncertainties that can erupt. But just like how keeping a body healthy is a lifetime endeavor, we can make our work easier to handle by putting a project management exercise regime to keep things in shape. Let me assess that putting these principles in practice is a lot of sweat and tear at first and most people give up and do not fully commit to it and leave it in the middle. Indeed, planning the details requires patience and we can make a ton of excuses why it does not work out if we look at it only in the short term, but if we keep committing to it, we will progressively see the positive results.
I have to emphasize that project management is the most underestimated thing these days when evaluating performance. We emphasize quite a lot of people having the right values, attitudes, and skills, but never look at whether they can address projects to be completed. The problem in most organizations is not whether a project will be done on time, the problem is whether it will ever be completed. The author discusses six sections within the book and one section measures the probability of success indicator (PSI) of a project. I think we all have read mediocre books that where cheap thrills. The intro was spectacular, the rest bulk of the content was dull and the conclusion was left as a cliffhanger. Similarly, many projects face the same fate. The pitch is outstanding, what was done based on the pitch is minimal, and by the end of the year we just sugar coat it that all that mattered was the effort without doing any retrospectives of the strategy that was put in place. It is okay to show great first impressions of what we want to deliver. That is marketing and it is fine. But if the product, in the end, does not function as intended, it is not something that we can just ignore and say that it is fine and we can live with it. Sometimes, we become in denial that project management was the issue and restructure the way we do things again and again until everybody becomes at a complete loss to the direction the organization is going. In the end, that is why most companies hire project managers to oversee the business keeps up on being on the right track. These people may look at first completely unrelated to the business, but project management is a basic foundation that can often be lacking across members of the organization and needs to be coached across members of the team for making sure most projects are at least completed.
You can think of project management as having a fit body in order to move heavy objects within a physical warehouse. Having a fit body may look unrelated at first compared to knowledge of how a physical warehouse operates and how much motivation and effort an individual puts within the job. But no matter those traits exist, the individual will be in fatigue if he does not keep his body in shape by going to the gym or doing a regular daily regime to keep the muscles still in shape. Although they seem unrelated at first, having strong muscles are foundational components for an individual to do his job in half the time and with ease and no struggles, with joy and no stress. In a similar vein, having good project management skills are the muscles of moving projects to completion with ease. Like coaches motivate people to do their regular exercises, so do project managers motivate employees to monitor their projects so they can eventually be completed. At some point, this book will teach you on appreciating the role of project managers and start to be more initiative and rely less on them by facilitating their task by doing it on your own with the guidelines provided in this book.
The book contents in overall are charming, concise, easy to understand, but hard to master. Without accounting the epilogue as a section, there are six sections and each section discusses multiple topics. Each topic has several subjects to discuss outlined as a headline that can come along with illustrations, tables, and bullet points. The appearance of the book is like a small lightweight hardcover Moleskine notebook that comes with a string to bookmark any page that you find intriguing to read later on. I rarely review a book layout inside out and focus more on the message it delivers, but it is hard to leave this out. Overall, the lessons that the book mentions will not always be stuck in your head and will require to reread them another time as it takes time to progressively incorporate all the best practices discussed. Having the book in a portable format while retaining the message to be easy to read makes it more plausible for readers to read it again to gain new perspectives.
Without wanting to spoil the contents of the book, each out of the six sections provides meaningful lessons that can be incorporated in any order that sounds fit for the current situation of your organization. Part one is just a basic introduction of a list of steps for what the rest of the five sections of the book will all be about. Part two discusses estimating projects with better accuracy, such as how to handle change requests from stakeholders and taking into account the availability of time for each of your employees. Part three discusses how to make project management a less dreadful experience by keeping it short, minimal and meaningful as well as understanding how to manage each member in the team based on their performance. Part four discusses how to measure the success of projects you are currently working or inherited with a set of questions and by looking at current behaviors within your organization and how to rescue them if they are in trouble. Part five discusses the problems of multitasking and how to manage them by doing less by focusing only on what is important. Part six discusses how to make projects shorter by reducing the scope requirements and finding ways to delegate tasks of a particular project to be done in parallel by different individuals who are fully available.
I had a blast reading this book. My favorite parts are when it discusses that we cannot have the same management style for each individual. For each project, depending on their experience and output they deliver, we have to change our style from heavy micromanaging them to let them all alone without any interference. The other part that is still stuck in my head is how to deal with irrational stakeholders demanding more for individuals that need to work overtime. In those cases, putting more effort is not the solution to our problems, but instead changing the way we do things where we can produce the same results with less effort or eliminating tasks that do not add much value to the business. If those attempts do not solve the situation, then the business model may not be sustainable and needs to pivot in new ways to address the problem. In either situation, it requires taking the risk of dedicating some time in executing creative ideas and evaluating them until finding one that will work out. Working more hours constantly and increasing over time those working hours are not sustainable. The author calls those employees being cast in such tragedy as "magicians". Our bodies have so much limit to what can withstand that becomes unsustainable over time. At first, those employees can be called superheroes working overtime by jeopardizing their health. However, in the end, we will not be able to keep up those demands, as their health continually deteriorates.
In summary, I recommend this book to anybody who contributes or manages projects daily. I found the lessons easy to digest and am looking forward to incorporating more of those lessons not only within my career but also in my personal life as well. Overall, unless you have the time to turn around projects for the better, it is always good to mingle around with projects that are managed properly rather than no management in place as they may eventually be more harder for them to be completed. Also, I find project management an essential skill all good leaders should have. To this day, developed countries have treated all physical illnesses except mental diseases and heart diseases. These come from multiple factors, but one of them could be due to the pressures of the work. More and more individuals remain single or do not have children due to the demanding nature of the work. They may get constantly stressed out, deprived of sleep, or eat an unhealthy diet due to putting more priority on their work rather than their personal needs. In those situations, we have to ask whether the projects we work are managed properly. Because for every business, it emerged from founders with a vision of making our current civilization in a better state. On the same premises, I think the whole world wants to strive where the future of our next-generation workforce is in a better state while still delivering projects on time to keep our stakeholders happy. Otherwise, if we keep neglecting it, it will have ripple effects like what we do to our physical environment with global warming. We should not wait until the government intervenes when situations become dire and instead be self-initiative and pro-active in those situations. The project management book by Fergus O'Connell delivers a closer step in achieving that reality.
January 18, 2025
I would've loved to see an even bigger explanation of how to form objectives. Other than that, it's an amazing book! I unfortunately found it later after already having done a project, but it helped open my eyes to some mistakes I had done and hadn't even thought about. Other Do's and Don'ts that I had a feeling about were confirmed to me by this book. I loved the explanations!
August 28, 2019
Quick read. Easy to follow. Great advice for a novice project manager like me. I've bookmarked a BUNCH of pages to refer back to. Love the little notebook-like format too.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews