Useful Books: Scott Berkun, “The Art of IT Project Management”
There are not so many good Russian-language books on project management now on the market, I would like to tell a little about the ones that have come to me. I'll start with this:
Scott Berkun, “The Art of IT Project Management” (O'REILLY) PETER, 2007
This book is one of the first published books by Scott Burkun, Microsoft’s most experienced “ex-manager” (he worked there from 1994-2003), who participated in Internet Explorer, Windows, MSN, and other projects, and now deals with writing books and consulting.
Scott has his own website where you can learn more about his current activities: http://scottberkun.com/
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The book consistently outlines all the main activities of a project manager, while managing a software development project: from defining a product concept to testing and implementation. The chapters devoted to the preparation of the concept of the product and planning made a very good impression.
Scott devoted a separate chapter to the “instructions for reading” the book, describing in detail which part of it, what will be discussed, and also commenting on which chapter would be more interesting and useful for reading.
Each chapter contains a detailed description of the actions that, from Scott's point of view, the project manager should undertake, as well as all sorts of practical advice and examples from his own practice. The greatest usefulness of this book lies precisely in the field of practical advice.
The book is replete with useful links to external information sources on topics that the author did not have the opportunity to disclose directly on the pages.
It is impossible to say with complete certainty what the reason is - in a bad translation, or in the author’s own style, but the book seems “dry” and is written boringly. (It is important to understand here that my ideal of the “literary character” of such books is, for me, the books of DeMarco, and not everyone can write this).
The author himself positions this book as quite universal (among the list of people who would benefit from reading it, the author pointed out: experienced and novice project managers, programmers, testers (and other performers), and even students).
My personal impression is that Scott tried to create the most comprehensive guide to managing IT projects for novice managers by cramming into the format of a small book all the stages of software development that he encountered. (At the same time, alas, the fullness of the presentation suffered, sometimes it is very strongly visible).
We can say that the book is more intended for beginners. But also for experienced practitioners, project managers, it will be very useful in terms of re-and in-depth understanding of their own management experience.
Lyrical digression: Personally, it seems to me that such books are generally meaningless to read, without having at least some experience of relevant activities. They pass through such a reader without leaving any new knowledge or thoughts in it.
The book is entirely “written off” from the personal experience of the author. On the one hand, this is good, as real examples from his work at Microsoft are constantly cited, on the other hand, not so much, because sometimes it seems that Scott didn’t do any analysis (either he didn’t want or didn’t consider it necessary). there was simply no time).
It is impossible to call this book a masterpiece (the content does not quite correspond to the “bright” title), but a strong middling is quite (even with claims to a “leader”, given the generally small number of good similar books).
I can safely recommend it to both novice project managers (even completely “green”, as a “guide”), and experienced ones (to once again think about many pressing issues).
A small comment: Beginner managers (or those who plan to go to managers) would be advised to read the book carefully, sometimes in the text there are vivid manifestations of a “bias” towards the author’s subjective view, do not forget that each company has its own context.
On a 5-point scale, the book can be assessed as follows:
Scott Berkun, “The Art of IT Project Management” (O'REILLY) PETER, 2007This book is one of the first published books by Scott Burkun, Microsoft’s most experienced “ex-manager” (he worked there from 1994-2003), who participated in Internet Explorer, Windows, MSN, and other projects, and now deals with writing books and consulting.
Scott has his own website where you can learn more about his current activities: http://scottberkun.com/
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Content
The book consistently outlines all the main activities of a project manager, while managing a software development project: from defining a product concept to testing and implementation. The chapters devoted to the preparation of the concept of the product and planning made a very good impression.
Scott devoted a separate chapter to the “instructions for reading” the book, describing in detail which part of it, what will be discussed, and also commenting on which chapter would be more interesting and useful for reading.
Each chapter contains a detailed description of the actions that, from Scott's point of view, the project manager should undertake, as well as all sorts of practical advice and examples from his own practice. The greatest usefulness of this book lies precisely in the field of practical advice.
The book is replete with useful links to external information sources on topics that the author did not have the opportunity to disclose directly on the pages.
Presentation style
It is impossible to say with complete certainty what the reason is - in a bad translation, or in the author’s own style, but the book seems “dry” and is written boringly. (It is important to understand here that my ideal of the “literary character” of such books is, for me, the books of DeMarco, and not everyone can write this).
Who is this book for?
The author himself positions this book as quite universal (among the list of people who would benefit from reading it, the author pointed out: experienced and novice project managers, programmers, testers (and other performers), and even students).
My personal impression is that Scott tried to create the most comprehensive guide to managing IT projects for novice managers by cramming into the format of a small book all the stages of software development that he encountered. (At the same time, alas, the fullness of the presentation suffered, sometimes it is very strongly visible).
We can say that the book is more intended for beginners. But also for experienced practitioners, project managers, it will be very useful in terms of re-and in-depth understanding of their own management experience.
Lyrical digression: Personally, it seems to me that such books are generally meaningless to read, without having at least some experience of relevant activities. They pass through such a reader without leaving any new knowledge or thoughts in it.
Summary
The book is entirely “written off” from the personal experience of the author. On the one hand, this is good, as real examples from his work at Microsoft are constantly cited, on the other hand, not so much, because sometimes it seems that Scott didn’t do any analysis (either he didn’t want or didn’t consider it necessary). there was simply no time).
It is impossible to call this book a masterpiece (the content does not quite correspond to the “bright” title), but a strong middling is quite (even with claims to a “leader”, given the generally small number of good similar books).
I can safely recommend it to both novice project managers (even completely “green”, as a “guide”), and experienced ones (to once again think about many pressing issues).
A small comment: Beginner managers (or those who plan to go to managers) would be advised to read the book carefully, sometimes in the text there are vivid manifestations of a “bias” towards the author’s subjective view, do not forget that each company has its own context.
On a 5-point scale, the book can be assessed as follows:
- For content: 4
- For the style and quality of presentation: 3+
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/14288/
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