AntiPatterns in Project Management

Rating:
Summary: A Worthwhile Read for Project Managers
Review: A very talented software engineer highly recommended this book to me as an engineering manager. I was intrigued to find that some of the Amazon.com reviews were sooooo negative. However, I bought the book anyway and found it to be quite useful.

The book uses the methodology of AntiPatterns, which is a hot topic in the software development community, to analyze problems with project management. This is simultaneously the book's strength and its weakness. Antipatterns are just one tool; one way of looking at the world; one way of analyzing a situation. Another useful addition to the toolkit is always welcome and the book clearly delivers one. On the other hand, if you are looking for the unified theory that will solve all project management problems, it doesn't deliver on that. (I am still looking for that book.)

One reason the book might receive mixed reviews is that it does have a tone of irreverence towards management. For example, in the Executive Summary, it says "The primary cause of software development failure is the lack of appropriate project management." While this may be true, some project managers may not enjoy reading about it. Similarly, the book has a tendency to identify the root cause of problems as "haste, ignorance or sloth", most likely on the part of management. This may be true, but perhaps not all that helpful or enjoyable to read.

Overall, I found the book to provide a valuable perspective on software project management. The book will not solve all of the world's project management problems but that's OK with me.
Read the book and use the principles wisely.

Rating:
Summary: No PHM's need apply
Review: AntiPatterns in Project Management contains easily read and digested templates on people, technology, and process management antipatterns. The examples are concise, yet they offer enough information that experienced programmers and project managers will cringe when they read the stories. The antipattern templates are easy to read and understand. And they provide a consistent framework for the discussion about exceptions, refactored solutions, typical causes, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Good idea, disappointing execution
Review: The basic idea of the book is good: Identify and classify commonly occuring project management problems (AntiPatterns), discuss them a bit, and present a solution.

However, the book mostly fails to deliver.

For one, the book has imposed a superficial and poorly fit structure to the description of every AntiPattern. The result is that lots of information, like the causes and results of the AntiPattern, will be described two or three times in slightly different forms. This bloats the book needlessly. If a different form had been selected - say, a collection of essays - the book could have been 150 pages instead of the massive ~450 pages it is now.

Another reason the book fails, is that many of the solutions seem firmly planted in old thinking about project management as advocated by SEI, NASA/SEL, and others. Significantly, change is mostly regarded as evil. One of the recommended solutions to change in the Chaos AntiPattern is "Develop a software development plan and stick to it". In the Gilding the Lily AntiPattern (a.k.a. "Gold Plating"), it states that "Often the architects and developers must be physically prevented from making changes." Also, while incremental or iterative development is carefully mentioned in places, most of the solutions fit best with linear, phased, and pretty inflexible development paradigms. The book would have benefited from using solutions from more agile methodology thinking.

A third reason is that some of the solutions don't attack the root causes at all. The one and only solution to the Process Disintegration AntiPattern (where people don't follow the process because it is too heavy) is to institute an internal, no-process-at-all, developer-driven project. But how does this solve the problem for all of the company's normal projects that, presumably, are still expected to follow some normal process? The book doesn't say.

The book is not totally hopeless, though. It can be useful to be aware of most of the AntiPatterns and their causes, as well as some of the solutions.

But in the end I wouldn't recommend this book neither to inexperienced project managers - who wouldn't be able to recognize what solutions are good and what are bad - or experienced project managers, who would be enlightened enough to already know what they can do, or if not, would benefit much more from reading other books.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: This book is dull compared to the first book in the series, "AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in Crisis". The authors take a reactive instead of proactive approach to project management. Read the four page antipattern synopsis in appendix B. The rest of the book regurgitates these items in expanded form. The text concentrates on project management problems and offers little in the solutions section. The antipattern named "standards" was helpful, however the material was duplicated from James Moore's book "Software Engineering Standards: A User's Roadmap".

Rating:
Summary: No PHM's need apply
Review: This is certainly an enlightening book, bringing up many points to consider. The writers are experienced, and though this results in an overly authoratative tone at times, their work is sound. The problem I have with the book is not actually the book itself. If a project manager can be so opened-minded as to step back and look at the problem with an accurate perspective, having a clear idea of all the facts of the case, they should be able to use this book to accurately diagnose and fix the problems they face. If they can't do that this book may be less useful.

On the other hand, reading this book adds perspective, which may be enough to help one step back from the situation and reevaluate.

In addition, since the authors reference their earlier works frequently, it might be best to read the other books first.

Rating:
Summary: Will add wisdom to your approach
Review: You can acquire knowledge and skills from being shown how to do things right. You can also gain a lot from other people's mistakes. I learned project management the right way with a book titled Visualizing Project Management. It gave me the techniques with which to build experience. This book, Anti-Patterns in Project Management, gave me wisdom.

As I read this book I could not help but cringe because just about every anti-pattern discussed reflected what I had seen or endured (or inflicted in some cases) during projects. What I took to be business as usual, and attributed to human nature, turns out to be worst--but common--practices. I am sure that anyone who has managed or performed on a project has seen the same practices time and again. What makes this book valuable is the fact that the authors show you how to rectify these bad practices, and they do so with humor and a practical approach.

My favorite set of anti-patterns addresses the people part of the equation because, in my opinion, people are the root cause of failed projects. Why? People indulge in politics, have personal agendas and are too often assigned to responsibilities without any requisite experience or skills. Sound familiar? Also, "people" select the technologies and develop and implement the processes that are covered in the other two groups of anti-patterns. Learn from the anti-patterns provided here and you are well on your way to transforming a project from a nightmare into one that will be successful. Of course, the process and technology anti-patterns discussed will probably be as familiar as the people ones, but they can be resolved once you take the authors' collective advice about how to deal with the people-focused anti-patterns.

Not only does this book give you sound advice on how to turn the anti-patterns into best-practices from which PM patterns can be based, but they reinforce this with an appendix that lists project management best practices. The contrast between these and the anti-patterns themselves will anchor your view of project management as an endeavor to which "good" patterns can be applied. Another chapter I particularly liked is titled "AntiPattern Collisions", which is the PM's worst nightmare. This is when anti-patterns combine to become problems from hell, and reflect the complex nature of any process.