Book Review August 2007

Hone your project management skills

Why do IT projects fail? The oft cited reasons are failure to show the benefits and overshooting of the budget. But it is overrunning of the schedule that has been the bug-bear of many IT projects. In fact, when my colleagues hit the field for our cover story on business intelligence in this issue, the project management aspect would make its way into the discussions. The missing element, it emerged, was the micro perspective in terms of tools at hand, the required skill sets, and managing with less. In addition there is the soft side because project management is also a people game, whether they are all at a single location or spread across geographies. The two books reviewed here address the macro and micro perspectives.

Madhavan S Rao, in Steering Project Success, addresses the evolving dimensions of project management and presents an innovative approach to managing project challenges. Rao is assistant VP at Satyam Computer Services, and heads its Innovation Enablers business.

According to the author, project management is undergoing a paradigm evolution from project control to empowerment of project teams. Project stakeholders are challenged with the need to be more responsive to changes, uncertainties and vulnerabilities in the environment which require the project team to think like entrepreneurs and leaders.

The essence of the book is captured in a framework of seven mantras which can enable project managers to be more successful and nurture entrepreneurship in their teams. The mantras are

1) Foreseeing the Bigger Picture

2) Investing in Customer and Team Education

3) Information Seeding

4) Perception Management

5) Learning to say a positive no and conditional yes

6) Steering the Comfort Level

7) Thinking $ for stakeholders.

The book has real-life project experiences summed up in a concise and reader-friendly description, approach, outcome and takeaway format, tied off with a relevant mantra.