Mastering Project Management

Revised edition of the best-selling project management book.

/Theory/In/Practice

Mastering Project Management

Scott Berkun

Making Things Happen

Mastering Project Management

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Making Things Happen

Mastering Project Management

Scott Berkun

O'REILLY8

Beijing ? Cambridge ? Farnham ? Koln ? Paris ? Sebastopol ? Taipei ? Tokyo

Making Things Happen by Scott Berkun

Copyright ? 2008 Scott Berkun. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472

O'Reilly books maybe purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are alsoavailable for mosttitles (safari.). Formore information, contactour corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or corporate@.

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Indexer Ellen Troutman Zaig Cover Designer Mark Paglietti Interior Designers: Marcia Friedman and

Ron Bilodeau

Printing History:

Illustrator Robert Romano

March 2008:

First Edition. (A revised edition of the work previously published as The Art of Project Management.)

The O'Reilly logo isa registered trademark ofO'Reilly Media, Inc. Making Things Happen and related trade dress aretrademarks ofO'Reilly Media, Inc. Many ofthedesignations used by

manufaaurers and sellersto distinguishtheir products are claimedas trademarks. Where those designations appearin this book, and O'Reilly Media, Inc.wasawareof a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in capsor initialcaps.

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information contained herein.

RepKbverTM Thisbook usesRepKoverTM, a durableand flexible lay-flat binding.

ISBN: 978-0-596-51771-7 [M]

[06/08]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

mmmmS?

Foreword

w'

1 A brief historyof projectmanagement

(and whyyou should care)

1

Pari One

PLANS

2 The truth about schedules

23

3 How tofigure out what todo

13

*\ Writing thegood vision

69

5 Where ideas come from

89

6 What to do withideas onceyou have them 113

Part Two

SKILLS

7 Writing good specifications

135

8 Howto makegood decisions

155

9 Communicationand relationships

175

10 Hownot to annoypeople:

process, email, andmeetings

193

11 What to do when things go wrong

213

Part Three MANAGEMENT

12 Why leadership isbasedon trust

2H1

13 Making things happen

259

11 Middle-game strategy

279

15 End-game strategy

301

16 Powerand politics

329

Appendix Aguidefordiscussion groups

353

Annotated bibliography

361

Acknowledgments

369

Photo credits

371

Index

373

FOR E WOR D

Something crazyhappened with the first edition of this book. It sold lots of copies. It

made several bestseller lists, was nominated for awards, and earned enough attention to send its author around the world to talk about ideas from the book. Then something crazier happened: the book's title needed to change.

Taking this as an opportunity, the folks at O'Reilly and I agreed we should add more value to the book if it was goingto have a secondlifewith a new name. First published as The Art ofProject Management, thistext hasbeencleaned-up, enhanced, updated, and expanded for your pleasure. You maywonder why the title was changed. Here are some

possibilities:

1. TheDepartment of Homeland Security discovered a terrorist threat in the old title. 2. Tim O'Reilly realized his media empire could achieve instant worlddomination if he

could just getowners ofthe first book to buyit a second time, underthe ruse ofa title

change. 3. ................
................

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