The Little Black Book of Project Management

Rating:
Summary: This is Crap
Review: First of all, the book is over 10 years old at this point. Second of all, it's based on industrial project management concepts from the 70's. Third, it accomplishes very little besides completely boring the reader for 170 pages. It dispenses useless advice such as "make a budget," "make a schedule," written in a stilted format apparently designed to numb the reader's brain. You will not refer back to this book as a reference at any point after reading, I promise you.

If this book has sold well, I imagine it's because of the clever title and black cover. It's certainly not because of the contents. Try "Project Management for Dummies" instead--it's got a silly title, but has much more useful information inside. Or at least buy something sold more recently than this paperweight.

Rating:
Summary: Good Resource to Start Project Management Quickly
Review: I was looking for a book that would get me going fairly quickly. I had a project with a tight budget that was going to take the better part of a year. I needed to start managing it, and I needed to start then. Those 600+ page college-text style tomes were not going to help. Then I found this little gem, and I was off and running.

Thomsett starts at the beginning--organizing-- then in 11 chapters and 182 pages describes planning, team-building, budgeting, scheduling, communication, documentation, review, and even tips for eliminating common problems. The most important (and common) tools such as PERT and Gantt charts, flow diagrams, etc. are all here. There are even exercises after each chapter (with answers in the appendix) so you can test yourself and make sure you've got it.

This book helped me get it, and gave me the tools I needed to be able to manage my project successfully. If you're an accomplished project manager, this book will seem basic (although it may be a good review). If you're starting down this path or want to share the basics with your team members, you'll find it to be quite helpful.

Rating:
Summary: The Project Management Primer with the most ROI.
Review: If there is only one book you want to read and you don't want to spend more than a few hours to get up to speed on project management, this is that book.

We were introduced to this book in graduate school at Georgia Tech while taking some Industrial Engineering classes that had a lot of team oriented projects. The Industrial Engineering graduate program at Georgia Tech has consistently ranked No. 1 in the nation for at least the last decade. So, when they recommended that we buy, read and keep this book for a long time to come, I didn't question their judgment.

I wasn't too thrilled with what the book had to say when I first read it a few years back. My first impressions were - why are they making such a big deal about these simple concepts? The theory in the book seemed too simplistic at the time. But over the last few years as I started gaining experience as a project manager, I discovered the reasons why this book is so popular.

The reason why this book is so valuable - most people when first introduced to project management are not interested in reading a lot of material on the subject and want to get a Cliff's notes version of the subject. That's when you can get the most benefit from this book. It is better to read this book than not read anything at all on the subject. And it is a very easy book to read.

Over the years, I have been able to convince several people to read this book and gain project management skills because it is not that much of a commitment to ask from people. I have even led weekly project management learning sessions using this book as the main tool. It worked and people learned quite a bit more about project management than they knew before reading the book.

After years of project management experience and passing the PMP, I now realize what a gem this book is even for an experienced project manager. It can act as a refresher if you read it once a year. Sometimes, we all tend to forget the simplest and most obvious things and this book helps us remember the basic project management principles.

Don't be fooled by this 170 page lightweight, it packs quite a powerful punch! A lot of professionals who are not project managers have thanked me for recommending this book. It helped them understand what I do as a project manager without having to spend too much time. It may be an excellent idea to distribute copies of this very inexpensive book to members of your team so that it can enhance team communications.

If project management is your career, you should definitely move on to other books after finishing this book. You can keep the copy as an annual refresher though.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading Advice
Review: This book offers a lot of advice to would be project managers; unfortunately, little of it appears to be born of experience. In fact, following this book to the letter would lead to one novice pitfall after another. The author recommends against adding float (he calls it 'fudge') to cost or time budgets. Experience yields contact with variance, and variance is a fact of life that cannot be denied in the planning phase. Toward the end of the book, advising how to build a career, the author suggests that projects should always be brought in on time and on budget. Without float, how in the world can things come in on time and on budget without a miracle? Although some of the information provided is useful, the mistakes in here are toxic enough to warrant avoiding the book. I would think a book entitled 'little black book' would provide some coverage of organizational politics. Perhaps this is a book that could be sent anonymously to one's enemies? My advice is to avoid the book, and to avoid getting your boss the book, despite the fact that other reviews describe it as an executive primer.