They, one a PhD psychologist and the other a PhD systems engineer, jointly operate a consulting firm that seeks to find individualized paths to productivity that can be sustainable, convenient, natural and delightful.
To them, reliability has a simple definition. The reliable worker or workgroup finishes every work item in a reasonable amount of time and with reasonable quality. Many who are capable of brilliance are capable of reliability, but often it does not come easy. Being competent means you can complete the job.
Being reliable means you can complete the job every time. Unless your customers can depend on you, regardless of the project's complexity, you have problems. The high value, high-complexity organization cannot afford to deliver inferior service.
The book combines skills from time management, task completion and organizational psychology. It offers jargon-free definitions of important terms; tips and tactics for facilitating multiple projects; practical advice to minimize project errors and warning signs new activities are headed awry.
The authors provide simple, proactive strategies for consistently achieving multiple objectives
The title seems to suggest that this book is about project management, but since the authors define "project" as "a commitment of time and resources aimed at a specific outcome," the book is really much more comprehensive.
It's about managing lots of things effectively as the same time.
So, it's about managing time, formalizing processes, dealing with emotional demands, avoiding the dangers of setting priorities, compartmentalizing, tracking projects, and making changes in systems.
Just try to find another book that covers all those areas! This book covers them - and the tone and style make it easy to read. (It's interesting what can happen when a systems engineer and a psychologist team up to write a book!)
How much time do you lose trying to juggle tasks and the people responsible for them? How much is that time worth? It's probably far more than the price of this book. Do you want to manage more effectively and more easily? If so and you're serious about it, this book would be a great investment.
The Cheeseburger Paradox opened my eyes to our quality problems from a completely new perspective. The chapters on time management and scheduling are fresh and present new ideas that I can put to work immeadiately.
My other project management books sit on a shelf collecting dust, being either too detailed or esoteric for day-to-day use. This is one that I carry around with me, loving marked with post-it notes, so I can show people, "See, this is what I mean."