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Project Management: Fast Track to Success
GET THE RESULTS YOU WANT IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT. FAST. Projects are there to deliver measurable benefits and value to an organisation. Delivering on time and on budget is important, but project management is not just about doing things right, it is also about doing the right things to get the results your business needs. To be an effective project manager you need to maintain flexibility in all things and to maintain your focus on the fact that it is the business need that is paramount, not the process of getting there . Fast to Project Management , helps you do this by providing you with a practical, flexible and adaptable framework for managing projects. This practical, career-oriented book gets you up to speed on project management quickly. It shows you how to integrate the core best-practice tools of project management with broader business needs and how to involve people across the whole business, as and when required. It gives Don't get left behind, set out on the Fast Track today. For more resources, log on to the series website at www.fast-track-me.com. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO ACCELERATE YOUR CAREER The Fast Track books provide you with a complete resource to get ahead as a manager - faster. They bring together the latest business thinking, cutting edge online material and all the practical techniques you need to fast track your career. Specially designed to help you learn what you need to know and to develop the skills you need to get ahead, each book is broken down into 4 key Fast Track features To complement the Fast Track to Success Series there is a custom-designed, highly interactive online resource at www.Fast-Track-Me.com - log on now to get on the Fast Track today.
- GenresBusiness
240 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2009
6 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 2, 2012
Project Management for beginners, not managers...
I wanted to like Project Management: Fast Track to Success (Accelerate Your Career) because of the title and the blurbs that were being used in the product description. As a former IT project manager, this reader was anticipating finding a good resource to suggest to others who are involved in this field. Sad to say, it didn't live up to expectations nearly as much as I hoped. This book is broken down into four major sections:
A. AWARENESS
B. BUSINESS FAST TRACK
C. CAREER FAST TRACK
D. DIRECTOR'S TOOLKIT
Within the section, it starts off well enough in the first chapter, entitled Project Management in a Nutshell, where the authors state:
They go on to ask "Just what is project management?" and go on to say: "A quick Internet search will reveal many varied definitions of projects and project management, but knowing many definitions doesn't make you a better project manager nor make project management any easier."
They then offer their definitions, which seem to be the same as any other very basic project management book that you'll find today... and that's where this gets confusing, as the subtitle is "Fast Track to Success (Accelerate Your Career)." As one reads on, it doesn't take long for the reader to realize that there may have been other titles that could have been used, such as:
• Project Management: A Primer
• Project Management: The First Steps
Authors Patrick Harper-Smith and Simon Derry are certainly well qualified, as one can see from their credentials, both in the beginning of the book and on their online site. They also have a strong and respectable team of contributors, a group that could have made this book a dynamic "Fast Track to Success" yet it seems to fizzle out. It's not that the material is bad; it's just weak, a bit thin if you will. And as much as most of us like having solid and dynamic Internet resources to back up and integrate with what we find in books such as this, there seems to be gap between the book and what they're offering on the 'Net. If they're dynamic and revise it all for their next edition, then perhaps it could be more useful.
My main gripe with this book has to deal with simple readability. If one to make a point is to use a multitude of charts and diagrams to get points across, then they should be legible. In the case of this book, the designers got carried away with too much grey-scale, and it took reading the book with a halogen lamp on its highest setting to get through it all. There's far too much use of light grey notes and headers throughout this book, and it's enough to make it actually annoying when one cannot focus on the content. Had I been the project manager in charge of production, I might be inclined to buy the lead designer one of the infamous Talking 12" Donald J. Trump action figures, place it on his or her desk, push the button and have the voice of Donald J. Trump say: "I have no choice but to tell you, you're fired!"
If you're looking for a good book that's not loaded with fluff, hype, or heavily academic lessons, then Eric Verzuh's The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management is highly recommended, as is the classic Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Both of these are highly recommended as two of the best available, but there are many others... just read the reviews.
So who should read this book? Does it have an audience?
If you're a manager with even moderate experience, you may find it a 2-star resource if you have good reading glasses and a bright lamp. If you have subordinates who are just starting off in project management yet don't want to be caught with Project Management For Dummies on their desks as being too condescending, then Project Management: Fast Track to Success might be a decent 3-star choice. But content-wise, the 'Dummies' book has some solid project management 101 level materials, so get them one for the desk and the other to read privately.
6/2/2012
I wanted to like Project Management: Fast Track to Success (Accelerate Your Career) because of the title and the blurbs that were being used in the product description. As a former IT project manager, this reader was anticipating finding a good resource to suggest to others who are involved in this field. Sad to say, it didn't live up to expectations nearly as much as I hoped. This book is broken down into four major sections:
A. AWARENESS
B. BUSINESS FAST TRACK
C. CAREER FAST TRACK
D. DIRECTOR'S TOOLKIT
Within the section, it starts off well enough in the first chapter, entitled Project Management in a Nutshell, where the authors state:
"This chapter is about raising the awareness of the need for good project management techniques across an organization. There is usually significant room for improvement in both individual and corporate capabilities and in the effectiveness of teams in managing projects."
They go on to ask "Just what is project management?" and go on to say: "A quick Internet search will reveal many varied definitions of projects and project management, but knowing many definitions doesn't make you a better project manager nor make project management any easier."
They then offer their definitions, which seem to be the same as any other very basic project management book that you'll find today... and that's where this gets confusing, as the subtitle is "Fast Track to Success (Accelerate Your Career)." As one reads on, it doesn't take long for the reader to realize that there may have been other titles that could have been used, such as:
• Project Management: A Primer
• Project Management: The First Steps
Authors Patrick Harper-Smith and Simon Derry are certainly well qualified, as one can see from their credentials, both in the beginning of the book and on their online site. They also have a strong and respectable team of contributors, a group that could have made this book a dynamic "Fast Track to Success" yet it seems to fizzle out. It's not that the material is bad; it's just weak, a bit thin if you will. And as much as most of us like having solid and dynamic Internet resources to back up and integrate with what we find in books such as this, there seems to be gap between the book and what they're offering on the 'Net. If they're dynamic and revise it all for their next edition, then perhaps it could be more useful.
My main gripe with this book has to deal with simple readability. If one to make a point is to use a multitude of charts and diagrams to get points across, then they should be legible. In the case of this book, the designers got carried away with too much grey-scale, and it took reading the book with a halogen lamp on its highest setting to get through it all. There's far too much use of light grey notes and headers throughout this book, and it's enough to make it actually annoying when one cannot focus on the content. Had I been the project manager in charge of production, I might be inclined to buy the lead designer one of the infamous Talking 12" Donald J. Trump action figures, place it on his or her desk, push the button and have the voice of Donald J. Trump say: "I have no choice but to tell you, you're fired!"
If you're looking for a good book that's not loaded with fluff, hype, or heavily academic lessons, then Eric Verzuh's The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management is highly recommended, as is the classic Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Both of these are highly recommended as two of the best available, but there are many others... just read the reviews.
So who should read this book? Does it have an audience?
If you're a manager with even moderate experience, you may find it a 2-star resource if you have good reading glasses and a bright lamp. If you have subordinates who are just starting off in project management yet don't want to be caught with Project Management For Dummies on their desks as being too condescending, then Project Management: Fast Track to Success might be a decent 3-star choice. But content-wise, the 'Dummies' book has some solid project management 101 level materials, so get them one for the desk and the other to read privately.
6/2/2012
Displaying 1 of 1 review