The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

There are just too many "so what" moments in Scott's book, things which he seems to think are great insights, but which are just plain everyday life in most companies. There is very little real creative thinking, very few ideas or solutions on offer.

I could take specific issue with a number of points - just one example would be that the "basic" functional requirement he uses to illustrate a point, "There will be a barn and it must be green", it just wrong. It describes an implementation, not a user need. It would be better expressed as a series of statements "there shall be a covered space", "the covered space shall not be heated", etc, which would then lead to the solution space he talks about. But in any case, this is in the domain of requirements management, not project management, and it is hardly the only substantive digression.

The text itself is full of minor digressions and little jokes, which start off ok, but get a little old very quickly. It is also illustrated with sketchy type diagrams, which look cute but convey nothing, and random photographs, a bit like Phil Greenspun's timeless "Phil and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing", but nowhere near as good - or indeed upfront (Greenspun declares openly that the photos are totally irrelevant). Actually, I get the feeling that Scott is a bit of a Phil Greenspun wannabe - well so was I once, and there are plenty of others out there.

Clearly Scott wanted to write, and the most marketable topic was going to be something like this that he could flog to O'Reilly. And clearly, there is a subject here to be written about in a new way. But to be honest, whilst I find his website very useful, and inspirational in places, and I'm sure I'd like him personally, I'm afraid the book is a total dud. With firmer editing and mentoring from a stronger publisher, he might have turned out a classic, but then again, since one gets the impression that despite what he says he couldn't wait to escape from Microsoft, I have my doubts. Perhaps he'll write the Great American Novel one day, but he'll have to tidy up his prose first

Scott's style is lively and witty, with a mix of the technical jargon, followed up with excellent advice and guidance. The book is split into three sections: Plans, skills and Management. Each section is further broken down in to the core skills and approaches needed to get your project up and running.

I've put a lot of what I've read into practice, and have noticed immediate results - I can now back up my 'gut feel' for how to do stuff with concrete examples of 'why' that approach is best.

It doesn't matter what size of team or organisation you manage, this book *will* help. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy. If you're being managed rather than managing, buy a copy and give it to *your* manager, then sit back and enjoy the results.

(Disclosure: I was a technical reviewer for this book.)