Description
Project Management rests on three distinct pillars: planning, control and communication. These are the building blocks of the profession, and every single project, regardless of type of industry or specialization, depends on them.
If we use the process of baking bread as a metaphor for project management, then project planning is the ‘flour’, the base; its function is to create the path to the goal. Project control is the ‘yeast’; its function is to influence all the other ingredients and ensure that the project progresses according to plan as it moves towards its goals. Communication in the project is the ‘water’; its role is to unite the efforts of all those who are working on the project. It is a key factor in the success or failure of the project as a whole and in attaining project goals.
All projects pose ongoing challenges. This is the case not only in our professional lives, but in our private lives, too. We are often required to manage all sorts of projects—small ones as well as large ones. Most of these projects tend to deviate—sometimes significantly so—from the planned budget, schedule, content and even goals. Some are canceled before bearing fruit; others simply fail outright.
The project manager should be, first and foremost, a capable manager, a leader and a good communicator. In addition, ideally the project manager should be an expert in the project’s field and have plenty of practical experience in it, too. Finally, the project manager’s unique characteristics should suit the particular project he or she is called upon to manage.
Mathilde A. –
Beautiful book and perfect for first timer learner!
I also took the ‘Being a Multi Professional’ online course which was great!
Anna B. –
Awesome book! So not what I expected from a text book.
Great job!
Gary –
Excellent book! Great value.
Irina Saibeni –
The book is great, but only 22 of promised 31 tools were availbale to download. Please add missing tools!
Hamutal –
Irina,
I apologize for the confusion. There are 31 tools only some of them are actually sheets within the ‘Project Compass’ Excel template.
If you’ll go through the list of the tools you’ll see that all of them are included.
Happy to read you like our book.
hofit –
Presents Project management in an engaging way.
The examples given is this book do a good job of cementing your understanding of how to plan a project and how it can be implemented.
R.C. –
Thoroughly enjoyed the book. I read a lot pf PM books and this is one of my favs this year.
Intrepid Reviews –
Being a Project Manager is well written book in textbook style. What I mean by that is that is seemed like a school course. It was too the point and told exactly the steps needed to manage projects. If you were starting a project it would be easy to follow these directions. While it is not complicated it is not a light read meaning, there are not a lot of engaging stories. It is to the point, in a clinical manner. I would find it helpful in a long-term project. It is quite detailed in breaking out task, assigning parts to the project etc. So it will take you from start to finish in the planning of your project.
I give this book a 5 out of 5 stars, as it was well written with load of information.
Bookworm –
Relatable.
Things are put forward in a simple but no-nonsense way. Easy to understand and follow.
clinical chick –
Great layout of material and easy to follow!
Maria Catalina Egan –
This book had great examples and very clever advice for managing large and small projects alike. I learned some and re-learned techniques from management classes too long ago to want to remember. I loved their graphics with ingredients we can all relate to.
Using the book itself and the way it was planned as one of the examples was very relatable.
Andreea Popia –
The book is really easy to follow, using simple words that anyone can understand. However, what I enjoyed the most were the illustrations and chart. The graphics follow the same creative metaphor (baking) throughout the book and it illustrates all the techniques and methods presented. It makes it even easier to grasp and does not bore the reader. Hands down, my favourite part!
Pick it up if you want to manage a project or just need some guidance in your home projects.
Jessica –
My friends and I started a film company and no one really knows how to manage the film projects. I stepped up but needed help, this book really lays it all out for you. Our film shoots are running much more smoothly now.
I was able to have a successful film day because of these tools. Planning ahead is key.
Very informative, customize for yourself.
Jim Dyar –
this book was incredibly absorbable. the golden pyramid examples are extremely useful as a gauge against unrealistic expectations.
should grace every managers book shelf. clearly presented views and sprinkled with useful examples.
Piaras –
This is an excellent book for Project Management training and a day to day guide for all project managers. I am relatively new to project management and this book has helped me get organized and look at projects from different aspects. Very informative. I will be keeping this book.
jaideep khanduja –
A Crisp Book On Project Management.
Being a Project Manager by Hamutal Weisz and Daniel Zitter is a short yet powerful book. It is quite useful not only for aspiring project managers but professionals also. In fact, in this book project managers find a lot of useful tips to enhance their path. As a matter of fact, project management methodologies and practices are critical for project managers to understand and adhere to. The book is useful to guide project managers handling project of any size. Since the focus of this book lies on the foundations of project management that are planning, control, and communication, it is able to empower project managers handling any kind of projects. In fact, the book does not talk about any particular methodology or practice.
Being a Project Manager talks about corresponding methods and tools to help in making project management easier to implement. Of course, improvement has no end. In fact, there is always a scope of improvement. That is where this book becomes quite handy. Because the methods that this book describes are good enough to walk in this direction. It helps in enhancing project management skills for any kind of project of any size. Thus, if you are a project manager, grab this book in order to get certain tips and clues to sharpen your project management skills.
The cover of Being A Project Manager is fabulous and rightly indicative. It displays end product as a bread or bun showing all the key ingredients that are responsible to reach that stage of successful closure of a project. The correlation is quite simple yet important to understand. As flour is to bread, planning is to project. Hence, if there is no planning, a project is bound to fail. Similarly, Yeast indicates control. And water as one of the key ingredient of bread indicates communication. That covers the complete mechanism of project management emphasizing the importance of planning, control, and communication.