The Art of Project Management

I picked this book because I was tempted by the use of the word `art' in the title. After nearly 20 years of working in projects (mostly within government bureaucracy) I was intrigued by anyone who had the courage to use that particular word. When I first read the book I was naturally a bit put off by the Microsoft emphasis but I enjoyed the read and put the book away. But then after a few months I picked the book up again and started reading beyond the Microsoft stuff and then I realised how much insight and experience Scott has managed to get into this one book. When I got fed up or frustrated I started to read the book to see if Scott had any insights or common experiences...and he frequently does. After a while the book got to be like an old friend. Scott seems to have experienced many if not all of the typical frustrations of PMs and it feels great to dip in and see what he did or how he felt. What Scott has included may not necessarily be new or provide all the answers but it does provide a friendly sounding board and a sympathetic ear and frequently leads me to remember something or some way I cracked a problem years back. In effect it helps you to recycle knowledge and I can relate closely to his experiences. The stuff on scheduling/planning and leadership is superb and I haven't seen it discussed better anywhere else. I don't know if it will help newcomers to projects but if you've been around a while and want to reflect on your experiences and maybe recalibrate your approach for a new project or job then this book is first class.

Scott does a great job in this book of providing well-organized, practically useful guidance on how to work on and run a project. Even if you're not actually in charge of a project, I'd recommend this as a book to help you understand what should be getting done on it. The three biggest areas he focuses on are how to ensure a project has proper focus and clear priorities, how to run meetings and do feature-level design, and how to handle a project as it moves from start to finish.The key to proper focus and clear priorities is the tie between the mission, goals, features, and tasks in a project. Scott provides a great framework for tying them together, ensuring they're created, and ensuring the team understands them.The advice on running meetings and doing feature-level design is the only area that might not work as well for those outside of Microsoft. While I highly identify with it, and think that he's clearly stated the best practices for our environment, your mileage may vary.Finally, he does a great job of talking about the difference between the start, middle, and end-game. Many people try to use a single process throughout and either overburden the start of the project or allow the end-game to spin wildly out of control. Scott's very clear about how to apply the right level of touch and raise the process bar at safe but necessary increments as a project goes on.The only negative thing I could find in the book is that some of the proofreading on the figures wasn't up to the same quality as the text. References to figures are sometimes pointing to the wrong one, and occasionally the legends are mislabeled.

Reading this book is almost as good as having a highly experienced mentor help you manage a project. The book provides very thorough coverage with sound, practical advice. There is a good list of reference material as well. I have been a software developer for more than 25 years and have managed several projects and still found I learned a lot from this book. I wish it had been available years ago. The book also provided confirmation for many of my beliefs about which I disagree with my current project manager. I hope to use this book to help convince him to change. I will be managing my own project again soon and plan to use use this book to help me succeed. Every software developer should read this book even if they are not a project manager. My only very slight criticism is that the book is most helpful to software product projects, but I think even internal development projects should be run as this book explains.

As someone relatively new to project management from the managing side, but having considerable experience of being managed, I picked up this book to see if I could pick up any tips. I'm glad I did. Scott has managed to distill a huge amount of information and guidance into a very readable work, avoiding the pitfall of so many other books where they end up being dry and dull.Scott's style is lively and witty, with a mix of the technical jargon, followed up with excellent advice and guidance. The book is split into three sections: Plans, skills and Management. Each section is further broken down in to the core skills and approaches needed to get your project up and running.I've put a lot of what I've read into practice, and have noticed immediate results - I can now back up my 'gut feel' for how to do stuff with concrete examples of 'why' that approach is best.It doesn't matter what size of team or organisation you manage, this book *will* help. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy. If you're being managed rather than managing, buy a copy and give it to *your* manager, then sit back and enjoy the results.

Thank you