Berkun Scott. Making Things Happen. Mastering Project Management

O’Reilly Media, 2008. — 410 p. — (Theory in Practice). — ISBN 978-0-596-51771-7.In the updated edition of this critically acclaimed and bestselling book, Microsoft Project veteran Scott Berkun offers a collection of essays on field-tested philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. Each essay distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice, and the new edition now adds more value for leaders and managers of projects everywhere. Based on his nine years of experience as a program manager for Internet Explorer and lead program manager for Windows and MSN, Berkun explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. Making Things Happen doesn't cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy. Unlike other project management books, Berkun offers personal essays in a comfortable style and easy tone that emulate the relationship of a wise project manager who gives good, entertaining and passionate advice to those who ask.
Topics in this new edition include:How to make things happen
Making good decisions
Specifications and requirements
Ideas and what to do with them
How not to annoy people
Leadership and trust
The truth about making dates
What to do when things go wrongComplete with a new forward from the author and a discussion guide for forming reading groups/teams, Making Things Happen offers in-depth exercises to help you apply lessons from the book to your job. It is inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, and definitely the one book that you and your team need to have within arm's reach throughout the life of your project. Coming from the rare perspective of someone who fought difficult battles on Microsoft's biggest projects and taught project design and management for MSTE, Microsoft's internal best practices group, this is valuable advice indeed. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.This book is useful in three ways: as a collection of individual topic-focused essays, as a single extended narrative, and as a reference for common situations. Each chapter takes on a different high-level task, provides a basic framework, and offers tactics for successfully completing the task. However, in this opening chapter, I need to take a different approach: there are three broader topics that will make the rest of the book
easier to follow, and I will present them now.
The book will be most valuable for people who fit themselves into one or more of the following categories: experienced and new team leaders and managers, students and those who are in project management.A brief history of project management (and why you should care).
Plans.
The truth about schedules.
How to figure out what to do.
Writing the good vision.
Where ideas come from.
What to do with ideas once you have them.
Skills.
Writing good specifications.
How to make good decisions.
Communication and relationships.
How not to annoy people: process, email, and meetings.
What to do when things go wrong.
Management.
Why leadership is based on trust.
Making things happen.
Middle-game strategy.
End-game strategy.
Power and politics.
Appendix: A guide for discussion groups.