Breaking the Code of Project Management
Alexander Laufer
The genesis of this book come from Laufer’s observation that traditional project management principles need overhauling. He argues that the growing realisation of the power of empowerment, the poor historical record of project management, the flawed foundation of a major project management tool (PERT), and ‘emerging paradigms’ in research and practice require a new investigation into what is needed to ensure project success.
Laufer is big on using stories as a means of learning and presents his reasons why. The book brims with stories.
It gave me some discomfort when Laufer referred to the ‘Agile method’ as a ‘project management approach’, given its limited focus on product development (primarily software products). He also makes the mistake of referring to the ‘four values’ (a pet peeve of mine).
No project management tools appear in this book. You won’t find discussions of the WBS, PBS, Gantt Charts. The focus is on what it takes to deliver projects successfully.
Laufer concentrates on what he calls ‘Results-Focused Leadership’, a framework of guiding principles, colour-coded for vividness: yellow for the spirit of will to win, green for planning, brown for implementation, red for people and organisations, and grey for communications.
Recommendation: A practical book on how to deliver projects, yet very different from the standard project management books which cover the tools and principles of project management. It almost ignores traditional project management.
No comments:
Post a Comment