People and Processes (Managing Multimedia: Project Management for Web and Convergent Media, Third Edition, Book 1)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide to managing new media projects
Review: These are an excellent and comprehensive set of books that any professional or lecturer involved in new media project management should have as their guide to successful projects. The transfer from one book (edition 2) to the two books has meant that a lot more in-depth information has been dealt with.

Book 1 'People & Processes' takes you through the various stages in a project: client requirements, understanding clients, contracts, team selection, copyright issues, multimedia elements, interface design, testing, localization and a very good new section on 'managing small, quick projects'.

Book 2 'Technical Issues' is not just lessons in file formats and authoring, but helps project managers to understand what is involved in producing and delivering the different media elements and current key technical terms.

Most Multimedia books I have used tend to talk about project lifecycles and processes in the strictest sense but miss out the actual reality - that these are not cut and dried processes. These books explain that the new media industry is still defining a standard for project processes. This will help professionals to understand that the industry consists of people with a myriad of skills, what these involve and their working methods. By doing so it gives advice on how to manage teams with these diverse backgrounds.


As a lecturer in Multimedia I use various sources for research information and have found that these books don't just give the theoretical facts of how things should be done, but how they should realistically be done. Having also used the 2nd edition, I have found these books to be an invaluable source that I will continue to buy.