Great information about all aspects of project management
Identifies and describes aspects of project management that are generally accepted across all industries.  As the official publication of the PMI on this subject, it is an excellent reference guide for anyone interested in the profession of project management.

It will not give you a cookie cutter step by step approach to project management, so you need to interpret it and take what actions you deem are appropriate for your situation.   It can form the basis for project management practices in an organization.

An outstanding "how to" book with practical guidance
I have recommended this book to many new project managers.  Considering both the human and technical sides of project management, the book provides a great step by step approach to the subject. (Skip chapter 6 "Schedule Computations", since scheduling tools like Microsoft Project hide the need for you to understand these details).

The follow-up to "The Benefits of Project Management", this contains cost information on the "virtuous cycle of project management".
William Ibbs continues his research into project management, partially funded by the Project Management Institute.  Buy this in preference to The Benefits of Project Management if you only get one of these.  This short book documents the latest findings, this time concluding that project management does indeed have value. The three key quantitative findings are:

1. Companies with more mature project management practices have better project performance.

2. Project management maturity is strongly correlated with more predictable project management schedule and cost performance.

3. Good project management companies have lower direct costs that poor project management companies.

These findings, and the manner in which they are presented, should help people make powerful arguments for improvements in project management practices in their company.  There is guidance on the steps you will go through from poor PM activities to good PM activities - the "virtuous cycle of project management".

Find out what companies are actually doing with project management
An excellent study of the subject of project management and how it is understood and applied in a number of companies.  Also contains project management maturity and project management excellence questionnaires. .

There are little gems throughout the book, such as "One or two years is a reasonable time frame for aggressive companies to reach the growth phase" (of the project management life cycle, prior phases being embryonic, executive management acceptance, and line management acceptance).

The book does admit many similarities between running projects with dispersed team members and those where team members are co-located, and determines that it is important to define project management for all projects, then focus on the differences that come from dispersed teams. This means it can take a while to sift through it to find out points that relate specifically to virtual teams. Although it takes time to find, the book does document a good set of things to be careful about when running projects with virtual teams.  Additionally, there are questionnaires to help determine the effectiveness of your virtual teams, and an organizational maturity model for virtual teams to help you understand what you might be capable of striving for.

All told, this book does provide helpful information in a reasonably informative manner, although I would have liked to see some kind of "quick summary of issues to watch out for and plan for" for experienced project managers.  It is a useful addition to the project management knowledge base and covers an area I have not seen well represented before.

Some of the helpful comments from the book relate to the following:

Communications - well, we all say this is more difficult, but what specifically? The book identifies the following:

• confirming understanding of messages

• more difficult to judge personality

• a feeling of lack of recognition of effort / work results from remote team member

Some areas of projects that become more complex are:

• requirements analysis

• integration management

• configuration management

Some new / modified approaches are needed:

• more leadership skills are needed, at each remote location

• meetings need to be even more focused when they are held via phone / video

• email guidelines should be given

• use of some kind of web based team room in place of a physical project war room

Also noted was that people are more likely to be focused on their individual tasks than the overall project (a potential negative), and that you may get less groupthink and more novel ideas (a potential positive).

I've known Paul Coombs for over 20 years, having worked with him at Logica in the 1980's.  He was always one of the most practical software developers / designers I had the pleasure to work with - avoiding unnecessary complications and looking for appropriate ways to tackle problems.  His approach to estimating followed this trend, as he always looked for ways to turn estimating from a black art into a more precise process.

Paul has more experience than most of developing systems, and like many of us has experienced first hand the problems caused by poor estimation.  In this book he provides an easy to follow series of steps towards getting realistic estimates, and why they are important.  There is discussion of various estimating techniques, and their pros and cons.  Along with the book comes a CD with a cost model spreadsheet to help you develop project budgets that take into consideration contingency.  (This model is somewhat similar to that available from the tools area of our website, although it makes for explicit allowance of contingency at the task level).

If you are new to software estimating and find even this straightforward book daunting (it may appear that there is much work to do, but in fact if you want an accurate estimate there is much work to do) then at least read and take into consideration his 12 "Blindingly Obvious Rules of Estimation", the first of which is "Your estimate will be wrong".  If you find it strange that a book explaining how to estimate says up front that in spite of your best efforts your estimate will be wrong, then but the book to find out why, and what this means.

There are some British phrases in the book which may confuse US readers, primarily the use of the phrase "bespoke software" in place of "custom software", and where he talks about the task list I'd like to see him refer to it as the Work Breakdown Structure, but these are minor inconveniences in what is an excellent treatise on the tricky subject of estimating software development projects.

David ties his project management experience and wisdom together using the device of the parable.  The book is very open and personal, full of self revelation and introspection, with overtones of bitterness as David shows a rebellious attitude toward hierarchical organizations. He does not like to take or give orders.

The book does not claim to provide step by step advice. From the preface: “If you hope this book will tell you how to create successful projects, I want to disappoint you here.” The subtitle of the book is Mastering Project Work, so I guess the book cover giveth and the preface taketh away. As an explanation David says that his book will not tell you what to do but will help “you discover what you already know.” The individual is the most powerful tool for transforming project management”, according to Schmaltz. 

Schmaltz calls himself a feral project manager. Perhaps this is another way of saying he has a constantly open, beginner’s mind. He does not refer positively to any particular approach or body of knowledge other than what he’s learned in the wild. The book reminds me of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. That’s one measure of just how dark and self absorbed I found this book to be, as well as how well written and open I feel it is given its extreme inner focus and under-current of bitterness.

David Schmaltz, is a consultant and founder of True North pgs (project guidance strategies, Inc.). David is the creator of project management workshops, including the Mastering Projects Workshop, Mastering Project Work workshop and the Beyond Leadership program.  He also hosts the Heretic’s Forum, an online discussion group. David, of course is the Chief Heretic.

The elephant metaphor is described in chapter eight of the book as follows: “Any project goal complicated enough to require cross-functional interactions qualifies as an elephant.” He goes on to say that ‘Where “all ya gotta do’s” abound, an elephant usually lurks unrecognized.’ The elephant in David’s book is the reality of any complex project; in fact of any project worthy of study.

While The Blind Men and the Elephant is an ancient parable found in Hindu and Buddhist sacred scripture, it was westernized in the poem of the same title by John Godfrey Saxe, written in the 19^th century. In Saxes’ poem, the version used in the book, “six men of Indostan”  visit an elephant to try to  understand it. Limited by their handicap, they misinterpret what they are able to perceive by touching one part. One finds that the elephant is like a rope (tail) another finds it like a tree (leg) and so on. Saxes’ moral is:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

The moral of David Schmaltz’s book is that projects can’t be managed well unless mutual blindness is acknowledged, patience applied in the face of frustration and coherence found. Many pieces of wisdom are disclosed as the book discusses the symbolism of the snake (trust snakes to be snakes), rope (coherence is needed to tie it all together), tree (hierarchies that branch up and down into the roots are features of project life), wall (trying to know what you want from a project, or what a project is really supposed to achieve, can be like hitting a wall; at this point David counsels “hasten slowly”), fan (the “pitiful” aspect of a project manager fanning the embers of commitment) and spear (“War metaphors limit a project’s potential”). 

Schmaltz asks each project team member to look for his/her project within the project – to seek a personal objective within the project. In the section on the spear project team members are advised to question orders as a “bad solder” would.  Given this advice achieving coherence will not be easy. But once achieved it should be stronger than if done by acquiescence alone. One of the themes that runs through this book is a kind of “what’s in it for me”, Dilbert like approach to projects. While this is not at all high minded, it is a very real reflection of the mental state of many project team members. It’s also a reflection of some project manager’s mental state – but these I would classify as that most “pitiful” group (to use a term David likes, i.e. pitiful) -- reluctant project managers.

In fact, given David’s mental state, one wonders why he became a PM. I’ll venture a guess and say it was an accident of fate and economics. If so it’s not unusual. David says he is a feral project manager among professional project managers. I’ll wager that many PMs feel this way. In a sense the voice David projects in this book is the voice of the accidental, somewhat reluctant project manager. Certainly his voice is not the voice of the professional.

David doesn’t believe that Project Managers produce results. He believes the power of the individual does it by working in a coherent community. Trust is the bedrock of such a community. This is spelled out in a section of the chapter on the snakes entitled Snake Hunting that discusses the Peanuts cartoon character, Lucy who always pulls the ball away from Charlie Brown, just as he is about to kick it. Charlie, often thought of as the looser, is the winner in Schmaltz’s mind. Charlie is the winner because he is always positive and looking for someone to trust. 

A successful team will have members who are mindful that it’s the team’s success that is important. This is illustrated in the story of the computer tournament based on the prisoner’s dilemma, which has an outcome similar to the economic discovery of John Nash, at least as portrayed in the Movie, A Beautiful Mind. Working in the best interest of the group -- even conspiring to thwart those who would divide the team, as in the prisoner’s dilemma -- without concern for personal victory is a recipe for project success. This is one aspect of enlightened self-interest and very good advice.

But the negatives at work here almost overwhelm the good advice. There is bitterness against the established community of project management authorities sprinkled throughout the book. For example in the bibliography, there is this entry:

“PMI PMBOK Standards Committee. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge …. A semiridiculous attempt to document the knowledge needed to successfully manage projects. If this premise doesn’t amuse you, the execution should. Check out all that’s not there, but this is still a useful description of the sorts of window dressing some will insist from you. Remember, this is coherence for some of your community members.”

There is also a long section on David’s experiences with the draft and how he is a bad solder. This will be off-putting to many especially those who believe in service to country. David says he is frozen by what he perceives to be a bad plan. This tendency might disqualify him not only for military service but for project work as well depending on how he defines a bad plan. If it means any plan he decides is bad – that’s, well – bad.

It’s apparent that David doesn’t respect those who take credit for project success. In fact at one point he relegates “those who have not been discouraged by their projects” to a “conference with the shiny–suited consultant crowd.”  He says “Projects, like companies, never succeed or fail on the goodness of their plans, but judges have only plans to assess results against. So we maintain two sets of books, one for the judges and another for those of us inventing our future.” 

This sounds pretty cynical. And yet the book can be used as an aid to meditation, which is exactly where its value lies. In the chapter on the tree, there is a section entitled There’s no such Thing as a Project. Team members can’t perceive the project, in the same way as trees can’t perceive the forest. Take this literally and you get mentally stuck. Many people feel that the project manager’s job includes the responsibility to codify the definition of the project for the team – to make sure the team knows that there really is a project. But human beings are usually unsure of the truth of what they see. They don’t trust their senses. Thinking about the unknowable nature of projects in a meditative state might not be everyone’s cup of tea, and yet most project team members have done just that at some point in their career. This book reveals the value of such inner thoughts.

I believe that David Schmaltz thinks of project work as psycho-therapy. He believes that the real purpose of projects is to create community. In chapter nine there is this quote referring to project management conferences: “Yet the conferences venerate these poor souls and their contributions, never mentioning the elephant, the pursuit of coherence, which I know was – or if it wasn’t, it could have been – the purpose behind their engagements.”

The “poor souls” in this section are successful project managers who didn’t realize what had made them successful was the good work of the community (David clarified this point for me in an e-mail exchange) or who recognized it but choose to ignore it. The problem with this is that David’s brush unfairly hits all successful PMs. Many PMs are very much aware of the contribution of the team and others in the wider community that made the success possible. This is true of some of the most command and control oriented leaders, as evidenced by their public recognition of team players and stakeholders. 

The notion that the pursuit of coherence is the purpose behind project work puts the cart squarely in front of the horse, in my view. If coherence is necessary for successful project work, it is a means and not an end. This seems consistent with the bad solder rebellion that underlies the book.  Achieving team coherence might enable the team to perform better on future projects – a great and helpful objective – but it still leaves coherence as part of the recipe for success rather than the purpose of all the activity.

I don’t think of projects as therapy. However, I do see the therapeutic value of The Blind Men and The Elephant. I don’t know how well it has sold – it was released last spring – but I believe it should be popular because it reflects the attitude and funk that many project managers and team members find themselves in. In a time when the integrity of many if not most corporations has been questioned and with the economic recovery not including as many workers as one would hope, a meditation on why and what should I contribute, written by a soulful veteran of the project wars is appealing to many. 

Learn about the psychology of buyers, and an effective sales process
I love this book!  So why do project managers need to know about selling?  Selling is needed in many different situations, not just when a "sales" person is trying to get you to buy something.  Maybe as a project manager you are involved in helping the organization decide whether a project should be done or not.  This can involve persuading people to agree to go ahead with the project - you may need to get them to see the benefits.  If so, this book may help you.  If you are a project manager working for a vendor, then you may be directly involved in a sales process, helping your company win the business.  Even if you have not been directly involved, you are representing your company and are often the front person for winning additional follow-on business. In this case, the book may be much more directly relevant to you.

Michael Bosworth has developed a model for selling which he explains in this book.  It focuses on how to sell intangibles - solutions, rather than how to sell a widget type product.  His writing style is excellent, and the book is packed full of real life examples.  These examples make for wonderful reading - he says how he has seen sales staff squirm when facing tough buyers, and indicates how he helped them in the situation.  These examples make for great bedtime reading!

When I worked for a solution oriented vendor, Logica, we implemented the Solution Selling process in our company.  This was done via a multi-day training class, with supporting tools.  I have continued to use (and therefore remember!) some of the basic principles of this sales approach.  There are a few other formal sales process, but this one seems naturally easy to understand, powerful in its implementation, and was very well aligned with what we were selling.  As a delivery oriented person, I found it exciting to see that selling could be broken down into an understandable process.  I could almost treat a sale as a project!

A paper that my colleague Frank Winters and I wrote about coordinating sales and project management utilizes and references Solution Selling.  The business capture toolset available on our website also provides templates aligned with some aspects of Solution Selling - note that this is NOT a full set of Solution Selling templates.

I highly recommend this book to a wide variety of people, not just sales staff.  As a project manager and line manager I have found it very helpful, and I have seen business analysts at internal IT departments requesting Solution Selling training because they knew that their interactions with their internal business clients would benefit from this.

In doing research for the book, the author interviewed many older people.  When asked the question "If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?", a consistent answer was:

- Be more reflective.
- Be more courageous.
- Be clear earlier about purpose.

I have captured some of my own struggles in articles on my personal website, www.westfordconsulting.com.