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Summary: If you're using Project 98 - buy this book!
Review: After working with MS-Project since 1985 and teaching it since 1990, I've finally found a book that lists most of the tips and tricks I've found over the years. As a project management consultant, my clients often ask me to suggest books that will help them with Microsoft Project and this is the one I recommend. For new users, or users moving up from previous versions, the book is full of useful techniques - often providing useful background information about many of the more obscure "features" of Project that cause problems for many users. Most books on Project don't provide example that can be used in a real project environment - I found that this one does and I highly recommend it.Pat Buckna, Maryhill Computing
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Summary: Best Project 98 book on the market!
Review: As a Microsoft Project consultant and trainer, I've read and reviewed every book I can get my hands on. This book is the most comprehensive, well-written, and useful I've seen. Most books are heavily front-loaded: they spend the bulk of their time on the easy stuff and put one chapter in the back that touches on the hard stuff (advanced techniques, customization, and programming). This author really understands Project 98 and clearly explains what happens, even under the hood, when you use its different features. He also understands why and how to do the hard stuff. It's the book I recommend to anyone who asks.
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Summary: Most Comprehensive
Review: I continue to examine other books on MS Project, and keep coming back to this one as having the most thorough coverage of this software. To fully use MS Project to manage a team on a project, one has to dig pretty deep into many of it's features, this is the only book that digs deeply enough for me. The Project 2000 version of this book does not come out unitl Aug, but I would still choose this book before any of the other current 2000 books... still more value. Not a 'project for dummies' type book, more of a full reference for serious users.
Rating:
Summary: Most Comprehensive
Review: I continue to examine other books on MS Project, and keep coming back to this one as having the most thorough coverage of this software. To fully use MS Project to manage a team on a project, one has to dig pretty deep into many of it's features, this is the only book that digs deeply enough for me. The Project 2000 version of this book does not come out unitl Aug, but I would still choose this book before any of the other current 2000 books... still more value. Not a 'project for dummies' type book, more of a full reference for serious users.
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Summary: Too long-winded and complex for the general user.
Review: I don't think I've ever found a software manual as frustrating as this one. Though I'm a pretty experienced Project user, I still want to find simple answers to my questions. Here, instead, I get long paragraphs of text. Me, I just want numbered explanations: 1. Click here. 2. Click there. 3. Print. Not in this book. You get long adoring discussions of what Project can do, but rarely get just a step-by-step explanation on how to do it. This book would have benefited with at least one or two tutorial chapters for the intermediate user. (Note that the adoring reviews above are mostly from very experienced users...).
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: If you are looking for a book to use as a quick reference for MS Project don't by this one. This book assumes you know nothing and contains too much detail making it difficult to use as a quick reference. I consider a book worth while if I can find the answer to a question, make a few mouse clicks, and get on with the project. This book doesn't do that.
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Summary: How to do just about anything in Project '98...
Review: Intrinsically, project management requires chess-like thinking; it is multi-dimensional by nature. I think both the software and this book reflect that complexity and do not try to over-simplify. Project '98 is a highly challenging application to learn to do correctly, and that is why I think the explanations and discussions contained in this book are so valuable. The book is logically structured. Also very helpful: each chapter begins with an overview and ends with a summary; tips and notes are graphically offset; and the many illustrated screen-shots are clear and readable. I also like IDG's choice of a friendly font, good use of headings, and overall layout and design. Especially useful to me, there is at the end of the book a Project '98 glossary, a list of PM resources (i.e., associations, books, training, websites, and other software products), an index, and the accompanying CD-ROM offers some useful templates and other goodies. "Project '98 Bible" covers the subject from soup to nuts, in-depth. I highly recommend this book to others like me with strong project management background, but limited training and hands-on experience with Project '98.
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Summary: Great - if you have time to spare
Review: This book covers EVERYTHING you need to know about Project 98 - but if you're looking for quick-n-dirty information, you'll find yourself wading through almost 1000 pages of text. However, once you do get through it, you'll know just about all you need to know to use Project 98 effectively.
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Summary: Great resource for training on Project98!
Review: This book is GREAT! It's been a HUGE help. I've already benefited greatly from everything I've read. My project team and my business has also benefited, and I just received a note this morning thanking me for creating the project plan to organize a complicated internal software release. This is the clearest, most relevant software book I've read, and I make it my business to read the books that go with the software I depend on to do my work.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for learning; a bit cumbersome as a reference
Review: This is an excellent and very comprehensive book. The coverage is very complete; in fact the main problem with the book is that the authors go into so much detail that it can be a little frustrating when you try to use the book as a reference. For learning, however, it is perfect. I worked through the book from the beginning, and found that it guided me accurately and fairly quickly through setting up a 1200 man-hour 4 person project. What I particularly liked was that it covered some special settings I happen to need in the course of covering the related topics, rather than having a chapter for each pulldown menu. For example, there are many things you can do with the Task Information dialog, but the book goes back to that screen at different points in order to explain different details. I needed to set my tasks as "Fixed Work", rather than "Fixed Units" or "Fixed Duration"; failing to make this setting would have caused chaos for me, but chapter 10, "Assigning Resources and Costs to Tasks", made the right answer quite clear. The book covers every aspect of Project 98. There are excellent sections on reports, views, and formatting, and good tips on how to tailor the input screens to your needs. It also covers integrating multiple projects and the use of macros and VB. Perhaps even more usefully, it reviews some basic project management guidelines as it goes through the tasks involved in setting up and tracking a project, so that it is almost possible to learn project management (or at least the planning and tracking skills needed) from this book at the same time as learning the tool itself. The book is long--close to 1,000 pages of material--but project management is a complicated subject and the book is not to blame for that. However, the very thing that makes the book valuable for learning makes it a poor reference. For example, if you have a question about task data, a look in the index reveals six columns starting with "Task". The answer you want is no doubt there, but it may take some digging. Another example: there are four separate chapters, covering 130 pages, just on the topics of allocating resources and costs. This is a complex subject, but it makes it hard to swiftly dive in and get an overview of the tool's capabilities in the area. Overall, I think this is a terrific book to get for learning to use Project 98. I'm still looking for the perfect quick reference though.
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