Practical Project Management

International Journal of Project Management 22 (2004) 173 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

Book review

Practical Project Management—Tips, Tactics and Tools Harvey A. Levine, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2002. £25.95, 0 471 20303 3, 378 p. This American publication has been written by a man who has long experience as a project management professional mostly within General Electric. Latterly he has run a consultancy firm specialising in training, software selection, evaluation and implementation. He has also been active within PMI. The back cover of the book jacket gives a good indication of the nature of this book, including the rhetorical question ‘‘Yet another book on project management?’’ It then answers the question by indicating the particular strength of the book, namely that it is ‘‘light-hearted and conversational.’’ It does this without being trivial, and is set out rather like a training programme. The text is interspersed with highlighted paragraphs stating tips, tactics, tools, and also traps, which serve to emphasise to the reader how to handle each problem being discussed. The subjects covered are as might be expected, and include the following familiar topics: setting up the project management operation, initiation, scheduling, resource and workforce management, budgeting and control, risk, change control, bridging the gap between operations management and project management, enterprise resource planning, tools and training. The text goes into new areas of interest such as professional services automation, stage/gate (i.e. new product development), re-badging of proven project management concepts, and the psychological contract (people). The omission of computers and software in the above list is because the whole ethos of the book is based on computer methods and solutions and these pervade almost every chapter, and in fact very nearly all diagrams in the book appear to be photographs of computer screens. It is clear that readers are expected to be computer literate, and possibly even familiar with one or more of the software packages which are available to project managers. There is a very good introduction which is set out in four categories, with the suggestion that they be studied in sequence. The first is the ‘‘essentials’’, which includes

doi:10.1016/S0263-7863(02)00061-3

a definition of what a project is and what has to be managed. It goes on to cover the usual range of topics, i.e. initiation, networks, resources, budgets and control, measurement contingency, risk, change control, appropriate software, and communication. The second category is entitled ‘‘Missives with a message’’ including such topics as ‘‘Does your company need a chief project officer?’’ through to ‘‘Why implementation programs fail’’. The third category deals with ‘‘finer points’’ such as work breakdown structure, critical path, critical chain (though the explanation of this is not particularly clear), uncertainty, contingency, and computer applications for cost management and risk analysis. The fourth category ‘‘Off the Beaten Path’’ is mostly concerned with people and organisations. Throughout the text there are simple exemplifications of detailed points, but there are really no full case studies, and it is not easy to detect from the text which industries have been the basis of the author’s experience. The coverage is however wide and it is perhaps the case that this text is appropriate for readers who are involved in project management consultancy and training rather than for those who are aspiring to be project managers in industry. The author states the main purpose of the book to be ‘‘to strive to uncover the mysteries of project management’’. The mysteries are certainly discussed but whether they are totally demystified for all readers is not clear, but they will be both informed and entertained. The book is fairly easy to read, its text and figures are clear and the quality of printing and layout is appropriate for this type of book. Some readers may be irritated by the frequent use of acronyms (on one page chosen by a quick scan through the book there were 18). There is no bibliography, and relatively little use of formal references; the work of other project management specialists is often introduced by giving a name within the text, e.g ‘‘According to XXX . . .’’. At $25.95 this book is reasonably cheap and will therefore be popular, and will provide good value to its readers. John F. Woodward Norfolk, UK