– Customer review on 01/06/2006

Easy to read. To the point. Very practical. Full of great ideas that I started applying immediately after I read them -- before I even finished the book. Many of their ideas are useful well beyond project management. Bradbary and Garrett describe this book as "a fun, funny, often irreverent look at some of the least-used (but most useful) notions in running projects. It's an oddball collection of tips and tricks for PMs, managers and plain old workers who are willing to bend the rules to get things done. And we think it's highly effective". Well, I think so too. Most of their tips take no more than 1-2 pages to outline so the book can be read in bite-sized pieces. The book includes excellent tips and tools for managing people, teams, customers, bosses, stakeholders meetings and your own sanity.

I haven't found any bad points about the book, but I should note some minor cautions:
- most of the examples are from IT because that is where most of the authors' experience lies. I found the ideas translated easily into R&D project management, however (which is mostly what I do).
- this is not the book to learn about Gantt charts, critical paths, work breakdown structures or the other "hard" tools of project management. Though the authors mention them all and seem to use those tools enthusiastically, they do not go into detail on them in this book. For that material, I recommend a traditional project management text such as Lester, A. (2000) Project Planning and Control, 3rd Edn, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, UK.
- I found some of the "fun" in the book to be a bit much.

These cautions are minor, however. I think this book is excellent and I'm recommending it to a number of colleagues -- both those with considerable experience in project management already and those who are just learning the role.