Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management | 
 enlarge | Author: Johanna Rothman
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $15.94
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 36550
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 365
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 7.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0978739248
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.1068
EAN: 9780978739249
ASIN: 0978739248
Publication Date: June 7, 2007
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Product Description
This book is a reality-based guide for modern projects. You'll learn how to recognize your project's potholes and ruts, and determine the best way to fix problems - without causing more problems. Your project can't fail. That's a lot of pressure on you, and yet you don't want to buy into any one specific process, methodology, or lifecycle. Your project is different. It doesn't fit into those neat descriptions. Manage It! will show you how to beg, borrow, and steal from the best methodologies to fit your particular project. It will help you find what works best for you and not for some mythological project that doesn't even exist. Before you know it, your project will be on track and headed to a successful conclusion.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
Must have (and read) for every project manager June 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is years of experience condensed to its best. It addresses all important aspects of modern project management. It is objective towards many different processes but it clearly makes the point that agile is the best choice in most cases.
While reading this book, it opened my eyes again and again -- Yep, been there, seen that.
I encourage every project manager to read this book from beginning to end; this will put hooks in your mind to come back later and re-read the appropriate chapter when needed. After having read this book, it makes a great reference. I use it to make sure I have not overseen anything when reaching certain life cycle events.
Thanks Johanna, this book was overdue for a long time!
Agile Project Management for Any Lifecycle May 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Manage It! will help you understand how to manage projects effectively, taking into account the needs of the people working on the project as well as the needs of the business sponsors. In this regard Johanna Rothman follows in the steps of authors like Jerry Weinberg in showing you how to set up a project environment that helps software developers be more effective and thus be better able to deliver value to their customers. This book has lots of pragmatic advice on how to make progress and issues visible, how to plan a project, and most everything else you need to help a project come to a good conclusion. This book is unique in that while it discusses the benefits of agile lifecycles, it shows you how to make progress in a variety of software lifecycles, and how to introduce techniques that will help your team to be more effective even if they don't really "fit" into your defined process.
Buy this book if you want to be a more effective project manager (or technical lead who works with project managers), or if you want to be more agile but are not sure how. What I liked most about this book is the focus on how project management processes can help people be more (or less) effective; an understanding of the primary role of people in a project is key to being more agile.
The best project management book EVER! February 27, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management by Johanna Rothman is the best project management reference I've ever read, and I've seen my share of project management tomes. Here's what I like best about the book: it's not theological. By this I mean Rothman doesn't advocate one "true" way of running projects. She is very careful to be continually cognizant of context when she talks about different approaches you might take. In this sense, she is very situational about prescribing solutions, which I like because it helps a project manager develop what I think is a critical attribute of a good project manager: good judgment.
One of my favorite chapters is Recognizing and Avoiding Schedule Games, which uses comic art and prose to explain and fix schedule games that can occur on projects. Here are a few from the book:
- Bring Me a Rock
- Hope Is Our Most Important Strategy
- Queen of Denial
- Sweep Under the Rug
- 90% Done
and so on, for a total of 16 entertaining schedule games that every project manager eventually needs to face.
Rothman is an entertaining writer with a knack for interesting prose and practical advice. Unlike most PM books I've read, I've not found anything yet where I was inclined to ignore her advice or felt an approach would require too much work and yield too little benefit. She definitely has a propensity toward simple, sustainable approaches to project management, something I sincerely appreciate due to my strong disdain for any approach with substantial overhead.
Another great feature of this book is you can read it out of order, either by opening it randomly or by simply reading the sections that interest you at the moment or that apply to problems you are struggling with.
Buy it. Try it. It's worth it.
Great insights into software project management October 15, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Every organization/team is different, the things that work well for one may or may not be applicable for another. It is not a beginner's book or a step by step guide to software project management. It's a great reference on things you can expect, what you can do about it and why you would want to do it that way. The great thing about this book is that it gives you the information to determine which practices you want to use and how to adapt it to your situation.
A highly recommended acquisition for any business library. August 4, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Plenty of books promise project management skills and most contain concrete, practical information - especially when it's applied on a case-by-case basis meeting certain conditions rather as a global strategy for everything. This book is for software managers but also for business managers who would understand the special applications and methods for building and managing projects. From using life cycles and creating a fine team to managing meetings and multiple projects and goals, MANAGE IT! YOUR GUIDE TO MODERN, PRAGMATIC PROJECT MANAGEMENT is a highly recommended acquisition for any business library.
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