Book Review Department Editor Warren Keuffel

Management Through the Ages

Jerry Conklin

The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun, O’Reilly, 2005, ISBN 0-596-00786-8, 392 pages, US$39.95.

The Art of Project Management, a well-written book by a knowledgeable author, is grounded in research and experience. Scott Berkun portrays software development projects within the context of a matrix that includes all project types. He reaches back into history as far as the Roman aqueducts and Egyptian pyramids and shows the salient characteristics of project management, such as cost control, scheduling, and resource requirements.

Berkun provides a big picture of project management, supported by many anecdotes and references. What he doesn’t provide is a how-to cookbook for those who wish to approach a project as if they were baking a cake.

An important topic that he covers briefly is learning from failure. During my early career, IBM’s former Federal Systems Division conducted a regular seminar for managers and prospective managers. At the seminars, project managers discussed projects they had led that failed in one or more ways (late delivery, budget overrun, and so on) and elaborated on what might have been done differently for a better outcome. This required courage and honesty from the project managers and was a priceless gift for beginners such as myself. An expansion of this topic would add significantly to Berkun’s book.

The book doesn’t cover project staffing at all—a significant omission because staffing the right people and ramping up and down at the right rate seriously impacts timely delivery and production cost. If you don’t bring in the right people on time or you release them too soon, system performance and timely delivery are at risk; if you bring them in too soon or release them too late, unnecessary labor costs impact budget control. Every project manager must address this delicate problem of balance and trade-offs, and it’s crucial for large projects.

This book is well organized, with an excellent bibliography. The preface discusses Berkun’s approach to writing the book, his intended readers, his underlying assumptions, and how to best use the information presented. He begins with a brief history of project management, followed by three parts: plans, skills, and management. Each chapter and preface begins with a thought-provoking photograph that pleasantly segues into the next topic.

Despite its weaknesses, I recommend The Art of Project Management as a useful portrayal of general project management principles with a strong focus on software development.

Jerry Conklin is a software project manager at HarvestTime Software Productivity. Contact him at zootzot@yahoo.com.