Sat Sep 26 09:14:01 PDT 2015
The Rational Project Manager by Andrew Longman and Jim Mullins
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The Rational Manager is a management classic - The authors are from the management consultancy founded by Kepner and Tregoe, and the company influence on this book on project management is clear. Kepner-Tregoe strengths are decision making and problem solving and naturally this volume focuses on these aspects of project management. In addition to the consistently Kepner-Tregoe tone the book contains a logical breakdown of project management through the following overall flow: loosely federated project teams are now common, project definition is critical, planning, and assigning responsibility, implementing, managing people, decision making, and problem solving. A final chapter covers the possibility of installing project management software organization-wide. The people management and problem solving chapters are the most useful, in my view. Many modern project managers are faced with the problem of working with teams where the members have diverse reporting responsibilities and often the needs of the organization are a complex blend of conflicting priorities. In these circumstances the project manager needs to be careful - and diplomatic - and the methodologies in these chapters are useful in the negotiations, upon which the success of many projects now hinge.