PROJECT SURVIVAL SKILLS

Project Management Disasters and How to Survive Them

David Nickson, Suzy Siddons

2006, ISBN: 074944780X, 226 pages, $54.95

Not so long ago, I found myself in the midst of a Project Management Disaster (PMD). I’ve been involved or associated with PMDs before, but this one came a little closer to home and I decided that it was time for Action. The team was feeling a little lost, and I was looking for a systematic means of digging ourselves out of the PMD hole. My own response to this sort of catastrophe is usually to go straight for the self help book, and I leapt at the opportunity read David Nickson and Suzy Siddons’ Project Management Disasters and how to survive them.

In writing this book, the author was seeking to fill a rather cavernous gap in the market. While books describing Project Management theory are plentiful, the written support for what happens when things go wrong are rare.

Nickson starts out by describing why PM disasters happen, goes on to look at what we can learn from said disasters, and then picks out certain techniques and resources that may help teams extract themselves from disasters. These techniques include use of Human Resources departments, public relations methodologies and culture. The two final chapters, Recipes and Survival Skills and What Not to Do, summarise some simple techniques and tips that could be applied on any project.

The feature of the book I found most useful was the set of checklists found at the end of each chapter. The checklists serve as a useful summary of the content of the chapter, and working through them helps the reader to apply the content of the chapter to their own situation. I would recommend that anyone who is in the midst of a PMD might benefit from this book for the checklists in particular. Also, throughout the text the author recommends further reading that would also be quite useful as a starting point if a particular idea or concept resonates with the reader.

The style of the book, however, straddled uncomfortably between essay and textbook. Features of textbooks were included in the text, such as break out headers like “Key Point” or “Note”, but I found the use of them a little distracting as they contained content that should have been included in the main argument to enhance its flow. The content itself was also a little frustrating- there seemed to be quite a number of motherhood statements, and the case studies were frustratingly brief and fragmented. The book would greatly benefit from a more systematic structure and overarching case study supplemented by minor examples. A deliberate decision of whether to use a textbook or essay style would greatly enhance readability.

All in all, this is a fair start on the subject and I agree with the author’s comment that there is little on the way of literature on the matter. A quick scan of engineering journal databases shows that commentaries on the matter are few and far between and it would be refreshing indeed if the profession were able to share how they escaped from their own project management challenges.

As it turns out, my own PMD was not so disastrous after all, and there is much to be said for some perspective and the knowledge that this is not the first project management disaster in history, and that, sadly, it won’t be the last.

Project Management Disasters and How to Survive Them was reviewed by Astrid Kauffman, a project manager in the defence industry.

Comments

[Hugo Boss Leather Shoes less]

Time is money.

[Best Forex Indicator]

This is an excellent providence. It really makes a good point out of it.
Thanks,

[vibrating exercise machine]

The content which is found in this article was very cordial. I really liked it very much. Thanks a lot for posting such an informative site in this post. Thanks a lot!