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In the updated edition of this critically acclaimed and bestselling book, Microsoft project veteran Scott Berkun offers a collection of essays on fieldtested philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. Each essay distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice, and the new edition now adds more value for leaders and managers of projects everywhere. Based on his nine years of experience as a program manager for Internet Explorer and lead program manager for Windows and MSN, Berkun explains to technical and nontechnical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. Making Things Happen doesnt cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy. Unlike other project management books, Berkun offers personal essays in a comfortable style and easy tone that emulate the relationship of a wise project manager who gives good, entertaining and passionate advice to those who ask. Topics in this new edition include: How to make things happen Making good decisions Specifications and requirements Ideas and what to do with them How not to annoy people Leadership and trust The truth about making dates What to do when things go wrong Complete with a new forward from the author and a discussion guide for forming reading groupsteams, Making Things Happen offers indepth exercises to help you apply lessons from the book to your job. It is inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, and definitely the one book that you and your team need to have within arms reach throughout the life of your project. Coming from the rare perspective of someone who fought difficult battles on Microsoftsbiggest projects and taught project design and management for MSTE, Microsofts internal best practices group, this is valuable advice indeed. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.
[...]... of project management Project management can be a profession, a job, a role, or an activity Some companies have project managers whose job is to oversee entire 200-person projects Others use the title for line-level junior managers, each responsible for a small area of a large project Depending on how an organization is structured, what its culture is, and what the goals of the project are, project management. .. full-time project managers") In this book, I'll primarily use the phrase project manager, or PM, to refer to whoever is involved in project leadership and management activity By project management activity I mean leading the team in figuring out what the project is (planning, scheduling, and requirements gathering), shepherding the project through design and development work (communication, decision making, ... on creativity and management It's all up at www.scottberkun.com; I hope you'll stop by, as your purchase of this book helps make the many free things I produce possible Cheers and best wishes, Scott Berkun Redmond, WA March 2008 PREFACE My favorite word in the English language is how How does this work? How was this made? How did they do this? Whenever I see something interesting happen, I'm filled... of project management (and why you should care) In many organizations, the person leading a project doesn't have the job title project manager That's OK Everyone manages projects in their daily work, whether they are working alone or leading a team For the moment, these distinctions are not important My intent is to capture what makes projects successful, and how the people who lead successful projects... get things done and make things happen But to keep my writing as simple as possible, I'll rely on the phrase project manager, or PM Sometimes the absence of a dedicated project manager works fine Programmers and their bosses maintain schedules and engineering plans (if any), and a business analyst or marketing person does the planning or requirements work Anything else that might qualify as project management. .. decision making, and mid-game strategy), and driving the project through to completion (leadership, crisis management, and end-game strategy) If this sort of work is structured less formally in your world, just translate project manager or PM to mean "person doing project management tasks, even though it's not her primary job" or "person thinking about the project at large." I've encountered many different... technologies or theories Over years of building things and comparing my experiences to those of other managers, programmers, and designers, I've learned how to manage projects well This book is a summation of those ideas It includes approaches for leading teams, working with ideas, organizing projects, managing schedules, dealing with politics, and making things happen even in the face of great challenges... manager were project management functions In the simplest terms, this meant that I was responsible for making the project and whoever was contributing to it— as successful as possible All of the chapters in this book reflect the core tasks involved in doing this, from early planning (Chapter 3 and Chapter 4), to spec writing (Chapter 7), to decision making (Chapter 8), to implementation management and... lessons from my inquiries into the past are the following three points: 1 Project management and software development are not sacred arts Any modern engineering work is one new entry in the long history of making things The technologies and skills may change, but many of the core challenges that make engineering difficult remain All things, whether programming languages or development methodologies, are... follow, and I will present them now The first is a short history of projects and why we should learn from what others have done The second is some background on the different flavors of project management, including some notes from my experience working at Microsoft And the third is a look at the underlying challenges involved in project management and how they can be overcome Although these points will . feedback process Trust and making mistakes Never reprimand in real time Trust in yourself (self-reliance) Summary Exercises 13. Making things happen Priorities make things happen Common ordered lists Priority. CREDITS SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly Making Things Happen Scott Berkun Editor Mary Treseler Copyright © 2008 Scott Berkun O'Reilly Media SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook. history of project management (and why you should care) Using history Learning from failure Web development, kitchens, and emergency rooms The role of project management Program and project management