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 enlarge | Author: Scott Berkun
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $29.71
You Save: $10.28 (26%)
New (37) Used (3) from $29.71
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 6174
Format: Illustrated
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 408
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0596517718
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780596517717
ASIN: 0596517718
Publication Date: March 25, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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| Customer Reviews:
Essential Buy For Project Managers May 30, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
In the field of project management, 'Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management' is one of the finest books I have ever had the chance to peruse. From gathering ideas to managing teams and schedules, everything and anything is in this book that is a MUST BUY for all project managers or group leaders that want to update or learn new techniques for creating widgets in the real world and doing so efficiently and successfully. I think a chapter overview would be helpful to help the reader get an idea of the wonderous content contained within:
01. History of Project Management
I - PLANS
02. Schedules
03. What To Do
04. Vision
05. Ideas and how they come about
06. What do to with your great idea
II - SKILLS
07. Writing good specifications
08. Good decision-making
09. Communication and relationships
10. Process, Email, Meetings - Don't waste people's time
11. When things go wrong
III - MANAGEMENT
12. Leadership & Trust
13. Making things happen
14. Middle-game strategy
15. End-game strategy
16. Power and Politics
I was originally going to Highly Recommend this book but I think it's so fantastic I'm going to up it to HPR. If you are any way related to making progress at your job or possibly even life this can be useful, this book is a must read... NOW.
***** HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION
Outstanding Book May 29, 2008
This is an outstanding book that speaks in a very practical way to the thorny problems that all projects face.
Many project management books are either theoretical or case-study based. Both approaches are valid and valuable, but Scott takes a third approach. He offers up a series of lessons and practice around the various classes of problems project managers run into -- especially people problems. "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy" (von Moltke) -- and Scott recognizes that the enemy most often is not entropy or planning software or supply-chain delays. Rather it is the spate of well-meaning folks who populate real-world projects and bring their various agendas into play. He shares useful and practical ideas about "winning over the enemy" where you can and working with and around them when you can't.
The book isn't entirely about people issues, of course, but the title "Making Things Happen" is indicative. How do you, as a project manager, work proactively not to keep your project from failing but rather to drive it to succeed?
 Practical Advice on how to do IT May 15, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Scott writes good books, from his own experiance (credible) and they are fun and easy to read. I learn something with every book. Read them all.
Add My Voice to the Chorus April 23, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
Perhaps only a little off-key since I am not a project manager -- altho my professional life is made much easier by working with some dedicated ones.
I did not read the previous edition as the other reviewers did. In fact, I was not really intending to read this edition straight through. I was going to give it a good skim for those aspects of project management that intersect my own world as a Web application interface developer.
I have to say that Scott Berkun is a real teacher because I found the *whole* book to be relevant to my work -- and it was fun to read in the bargain.
This book is not in color and does not contain lots of fancy images. The illustrating and illuminating is done verbally. For once, this was enough for me because Berkun finds a way to make things both practical and vivid. From the text, it is reasonable to assume that his public talks are worthy events.
This is definitely a book to read for people who may not be project managers but who sincerely want to build their teams by understanding this important role better.
An amazing book April 23, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm a big fan of Scott Berkun's first book, "The Art of Project Management". But he's really outdone himself with "Making Things Happen". I think it's simply one of the best books you can buy on project management. If you've never read any of Scott's books before, you're in for a treat. On the other hand, if, like me, you loved "The Art of Project Management", you definitely want this book. It's not just a simple update; it's a new and improved book that will not disappoint.
Don't let its casual tone and the fact that it's very easy to read fool you -- this is a serious book on the ideas, tools and techniques of project management. The first part of "Making Things Happen" covers planning. But it's not just about building project schedules (although it does have a lot of good information on how schedules work); it gives you incredibly valuable advice about making sure your project starts out with the right vision, and "real life" ideas for planning projects.
It goes on to talk about core project management skills that can help anyone, from project managers to team members. While this book has a focus on software development, people who work on all kinds of projects can benefit from this, especially this section. He teaches you about specifying your work, communicating with people, gathering opinions and gaining consensus, maintaining relationships with people, and dealing with problems. And it gives a lot of real-world advice about how to make sure your projects actually finish as well as they start. This is really important -- a lot of project management books forget that that a PM's job doesn't stop when the plan is finished. A good PM needs to be able to guide a project through to completion, and Scott covers that better than anyone I've seen.
Just so you know, I'm the author of one of the top-selling books on PMP preparation. And I can tell you this: if you are a PMP-certified project manager, you know how important it is to continue to improve your own project management skills. And this book is a great way to do that. You'll learn all about things that you didn't learn for the PMP exam: where great ideas come from, how to build relationships and work more effectively with people in your organization, manage your commitments, and make your projects run better.
If you're looking to be a better project manager, if you're not a project manager but you want your projects to run better, or even if you just want to be a better member of a project team, this book should definitely be on your bookshelf.
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