Verzuh has taken some of the best writing in project and program management, then added articles crafted in his honest, clear, to the point, style to fill in any gaps. The result is an excellent reader for those who care to help their business achieve the next level (and the next...) in project performance.
I've recently taken on several significant change efforts for major clients. I've found the chapters on: Enterprise Project Management: The Path to Maturity (12.), Integrating Project Management into the Enterprise (14), and Project Risk Management (6) particularly helpful in forming my approach. But as I look at this list I reflect on the fact that virtual teaming is giving one client a problem. Guess I better re-read Virtual Team Critical Success Factors (10). And I'm sure the other chapters will be needed before I'm done with this book. That's why others mention how dog-eared Verzuh's books become - because they provide assistance when you need it, and that's a value-added book you should have on your shelf - nope, it won't stay on your shelf, better make room for it right on the desk.
Thanks Eric, we needed this one.
This book is intended for their leaders. It takes an integrated approach to managing a project based organization. CIO's, department managers, program managers and senior project managers who are being challenged to formalize the processes of managing projects will find this compendium to be a source of strategies and standards for leveraging the discipline of project management across an organization.
Verzuh has assembled some the leading thinkers in project management to provide the reader with the theory, methods and framework to manage the project-based organization successfully. The collection includes essays from:
?Elaine Biech, President and Managing Principal, Ebb Associates
?Robert G. Cooper, President and cofounder, The Product Development Institute
?Denis Couture, President and cofounder, PCI Group
?Deborah L. Duarte, George Washington University
?Randall Englund, Associate, Strategic Management Group
?Robert J. Graham, Senior Associate, Strategic Management Group
?Ned Hamson, strategic innovation consultant
?Samuel J. Mantel Jr., Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati
?Jack R. Meredith, Editor in Chief, Journal of Operations Management
?Nancy Tennant Snyder, Vice President for Leadership and Strategic Competency Creation, Whirlpool Corporation
?Eric Verzuh, President, The Versatile Company
?Neal Whitten, President, Neal Whitten Group.
I particularly enjoyed Chapters 7 and 14. In Chapter seven Ned Hamson provides as concise an overview of quality, quality management and project management as I have found on the subject.
In Chapter 14, Eric Verzuh discusses integrating Project Management into the organization. In it, he argues that in the successful project-based organization project management disappears. Disappearing, he says, is not the same as ceasing to exist. The purpose of the project driven enterprise is not to hone project capabilities, it is to deliver products and services.
My copy of Verzuh's first book, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, sits dog-eared on my desk from constant reference. I will not be surprised if this, his second, soon starts to take on a similar appearance.