Project Management

Jimbeam3678

Jimbeam3678

Jimbeam3678

Soldato
Joined
8 Dec 2002
Posts
21,626
Location
North Yorkshire
I've recently had a promotion at work and they are looking at getting me involved in project management.

Work are willing to put me through a prince2 project management course but whilst they are organising this which historically will take a while I'm looking for some foundation books on the subject.

Any suggestions? I've obviously looked on Amazon but there seems to a huge choice so looking for some first hand recommendations.
 
You might get a book for free as part of the course your employer sends you on, at least that's what happened for me. I have the AXELOS "Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2" book (ISBN 9780113310593) and it's perfectly good.

I sat the PRINCE2 Practitioner exam on Friday (11th) having done the foundation exam two weeks before

To be honest, if your employer is going to send you on a proper week long course (I did three days of training before the foundation exam, then an additional two days last week), you really don't need to do any pre-study. Both exams are multiple choice (1 hour and then 2.5 hours), with the foundation exam being very straight forward.

Unless of course you are REALLY keen to learn about checkpoint reports and how to close a stage....

Also, it's worth noting that PRINCE2 will only teach you principles of this specific project management framework. It won't teach you PM techniques like APMP does (EVMS for example)
 
amigafan2003 said:
Don't do it - Project Management is the most soul destroying job I've ever done.

It might be good at a small start up, but at any reasonable sized company (500+ employees), then I'd pass.
Click to expand...

Depends entirely upon the company, industry and your own capability obviously....

I love my PM job, every day is an exciting challenge and I find it very rewarding. It's a great way to Network, get involved in varied projects with varied teams, objectives and widely differing skill sets.

Rather Project Management than analysing stress concentrations for the latest Titanium Bolt design iteration. Yawn. Each to their own obviously.
 
i did a prince2 course when i was unemployed for a few months (was paid for) - cheekily downloaded a pdf of the manual and printed it beforehand. Showed the person doing the course and she said 'sure you can use that, well done on taking intuitive' lol (the practitioners exam is open book).

Damn it was boring though.
mine was a 2 week course so relatively leisurely - i wouldn't want to do it over a week, there was a lot to read and take in if you haven't done anything like it before.
 
Windle said:
IT project management or real project management?
Click to expand...

This made me laugh, IT Project management = latest scapegoat to blame when things to wrong due to underfunding, unskilled staff and unrealistic expectations.

Whilst a project manager can manage expectations he/she can do sod all about the other two if the project board is incompetent, which is will be.
 
Halfmad said:
This made me laugh, IT Project management = latest scapegoat to blame when things to wrong due to underfunding, unskilled staff and unrealistic expectations.

Whilst a project manager can manage expectations he/she can do sod all about the other two if the project board is incompetent, which is will be.
Click to expand...

You can deal with underfunding. Make sure you find and get VO's. You'll find a way to make them.
 
Well this escalated quickly I only asked for book suggestions.:p

To the answer the questions I guess it's only small IT related projects for example bringing in new tech etc etc.

So what book would you lovely people suggest for learning PM techniques at beginners level ?

By the sounds of it Prince stuff is best studied whilst I'm on the course.

Any other advice then fire away :)
 
Jimbeam3678 said:
Any other advice then fire away :)
Click to expand...

OK...

the best project managers I've worked with have been women who have basically treated it like an admin role rather than acting like they're in a management role

they write their reports for senior management, keep track of the progress of various tasks and tell people which tasks are currently a priority and which are less important right now and handled various conference calls/progress updates with the client - basically they had good organisational skills and good people skills... they knew when to back off and give people space, they just wanted to know when something was going to be finished and/or be told if/when anything changes with regards to that

the worst was also a woman - she was new to the company and seemed to be under the impression she was managing the people working on the project rather than managing the project - continually chasing things, wanting to know irrelevant details or starting arguments when something went wrong and was pushed back, attempting to micromanage despite the fact no one directly reported to her... she got ignored/sidelined and quit the company pretty quickly...
 
dowie said:
OK...

the best project managers I've worked with have been women who have basically treated it like an admin role rather than acting like they're in a management role

they write their reports for senior management, keep track of the progress of various tasks and tell people which tasks are currently a priority and which are less important right now - basically they had good organisational skills and good people skills... they knew when to back off and give people space, they just wanted to know when something was going to be finished and/or be told if/when anything changes with regards to that

the worst was also a woman - she was new to the company and seemed to be under the impression she was managing the people working on the project rather than managing the project - continually chasing things, wanting to know irrelevant details or starting arguments when something went wrong and was pushed back, attempting to micromanage despite the fact no one directly reported to her... she got ignored/sidelined and quit the company pretty quickly...
Click to expand...

Thank you for the above post sounds exactly how I imagined a PM role on smaller projects. Really appreciate it , however still after a suitable book :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom