Stakeholder-led Project Management (Book Review)

Overview

  • The aim of this book is to provide a stakeholder-centred analysis of projects, and to explain which stakeholder identification, analysis, communication and engagement models are most relevant to different types of projects.
  • Using case studies from around the world, it illustrates what goes wrong when stakeholders are not engaged successfully, and what lessons we can learn from these examples.
  • The book is aimed at project professionals who find themselves involved in managing projects with stakeholders (so that’s just about all of them then!).

Continue reading “Stakeholder-led Project Management (Book Review)”

Images of Projects (Book Review)

This book recommends that project practitioners should consciously view projects through multiple “lenses” or “filters” to gain different perspectives. This approach directs attention to project aspects that might not otherwise be considered, which will affect the action taken, and hence the results obtained.

Considerable repetition of the principles and case study content (mainly to make it easier to use for reference), and overlap between the images caused me to have several déjà vu moments in reading it straight through, but the approach should be useful to PMs (on projects and programmes) and PMOs (to challenge PMs on their view of projects, and to think about portfolios) at all career stages. Continue reading “Images of Projects (Book Review)”

Managing Business Transformation – a Practical Guide (Book Review)

by Melanie Franklin, IT Governance Publishing, Ely, 152 pages,  £24.95 RRP (review copy provided free of charge by the author)
Pragmatic PMO Rating: ****

This book is intended as a practical guide to understanding and managing change that will benefit your business. It covers the differences between change management and project management, and how to integrate the two.

Continue reading “Managing Business Transformation – a Practical Guide (Book Review)”

Business-driven PMO setup – Practical insights, techniques and case examples for ensuring success (Book Review)

The stated aim of this book is to show the reader how to create and maintain a business-driven PMO, because PMOs that are driven by the needs of the business succeed, whereas PMOs that are driven by other motivations fail.


Continue reading “Business-driven PMO setup – Practical insights, techniques and case examples for ensuring success (Book Review)”

Project Psychology (Book Review)

This book addresses a gap in the Project Management literature – how people and their behaviours contribute to project failure, and shows the reader how psychology can improve the chances of project success. Continue reading “Project Psychology (Book Review)”

Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders – A Practical Guide (Book Review)

This book aims to improve Project Managers’ understanding of their projects’ stakeholders, and in doing so to improve the quality of engagement and hence project outcomes.

It starts by stating the obvious (but easily forgotten) truth that project stakeholders are all human beings (hmmm, not sure if I can say that applies to all the stakeholders I’ve dealt with…) with all the emotions, personal agendas, hopes and fears that entails. It crucially points out that they may not care about or really support the project (even if they say they do), and that behind the scenes they may even be working really hard to ensure it fails.

Continue reading “Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders – A Practical Guide (Book Review)”

Lessons Learned: Specific or Universal?

lessons-learnt

At a recent PMO FlashMob event, I got chatting with a few FlashMobbers about what can be done with the Lessons identified in project closure reports. There were split opinions in the group:

  • Some thought that Lessons are usually specific to the Project concerned, and are only useful in later stages of the same project, or in running future projects that are very similar to the one from which the Lessons were learned;
  • Others (including me) thought that it is possible to extract more generic learning from at least some Lessons that can be implemented across many projects (even those that are different from the project that identified the Lesson), perhaps by adding or making a small change to a checklist, template, approach, BAU process or corporate PM methodology, or by including the Lesson in PM training or coaching.

I have written before about Lessons Learned and my ideas on how to use them, but I thought it might be fun to try an experiment, with which I would be grateful for your help. Continue reading “Lessons Learned: Specific or Universal?”