The Art of Project Management
Thanks to a nice relaxed weekend, I was able to polish off a dead-tree book that I've been dragging back and forth to work for the past (mumble) months: The Art of Project Management [Amazon], by Scott Berkun.
[Aside: the amount of time it took me to finish this book makes me think I need to read fewer books in parallel. I'll give that a whirl for a while...]
One metaphor I really liked (from Chapter 15, "End-game Strategy") is that wrapping up a project is like landing an airplane. If your angle of approach is too steep (i.e. you have a lot of last-minute tasks in the end-game) you may technically have a landing, but you may not be in a good condition for your next takeoff. I've been involved in projects (which shall remain nameless) that burned up a lot of developer mojo in the project finale. This leaves the team shaken and cranky, and is really a qualified success.
All in all the book was a mixed bag, but in reading it I did accomplish my goals, which were to seed my brain with some additional ideas about how projects could be managed, and to expand my list of possible sources for further research. So, mission accomplished!
[Aside: the amount of time it took me to finish this book makes me think I need to read fewer books in parallel. I'll give that a whirl for a while...]
One metaphor I really liked (from Chapter 15, "End-game Strategy") is that wrapping up a project is like landing an airplane. If your angle of approach is too steep (i.e. you have a lot of last-minute tasks in the end-game) you may technically have a landing, but you may not be in a good condition for your next takeoff. I've been involved in projects (which shall remain nameless) that burned up a lot of developer mojo in the project finale. This leaves the team shaken and cranky, and is really a qualified success.
All in all the book was a mixed bag, but in reading it I did accomplish my goals, which were to seed my brain with some additional ideas about how projects could be managed, and to expand my list of possible sources for further research. So, mission accomplished!
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