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The Lazy Project Manager: How To Be Twice As Productive And Still Leave The Office Early (2000)

by Peter Taylor(Favorite Author)

3.18 of 5 Votes: 3

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English

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review 1: In this book, project management consultant Peter Taylor espouses his concept of "productive laziness". This essentially boils down to running projects effectively, in a manner where the project manager does not get over-burdened. Can't object to that!The book presents as its key insight that if you spend the time up-front to plan your project carefully, then it will be easier to execute. This is a basic notion that is understood by pretty much every project manager in the field; it's hardly new thinking. Taylor dresses his basic idea up with a chatty style and some vignettes from his professional experience, which is not really that exceptional compared to other PM consultants I have dealt with. The book is very glib, and fails to address obvious and common problems with ... moreapplying this idea, such as inheriting a project after the intiation stage, or not being given sufficient time to do the up-front planning you would like. Essentially the book is a bit of fun, an ad for his consulting practice. It's not much use to any of the experienced PMs the book is addressed to.Applying Taylor's own philosophy, I'd suggest there are far more productive ways to spend the limited time you have for professional reading.
review 2: Brief read that recaps all the rules of thumb that you know intuitively from your battle scarred years of leading successful and some rather unsuccessful projects. If you are a new project leader-- this book is a shortcut to gaining the lessons of the experienced professionals without the scar.In the opening chapter the author outlines what this book is not, it is not a book for learning to become a PMP or any other acronym soup for the project management discipline. In fact I would recommend this book for two audiences (in addition to the aforementioned novices):1. Project managers who find leading successful projects a challenge, despite their prerequisite certifications2. Business or technical professionals who find themselves in a project leadership role without the job title of 'project manager'One thing that Peter Taylor does well that a lot of project management books do not is take a viewpoint of project management as a competency (something we all must have some minimal skill in) vs. a discipline (a subject to be mastered). I'm sure there are a lot of people who view project management as a discipline, and it may be in your field, however in the software development field-- I believe its a competency.The ideas of this book boil down to two concepts:1. Projects are not shaped like Brontosauruses - they are thick in the beginning, thin in the middle and thick again at the end. This means focus your energy on getting the project setup right in the beginning, in the middle just re-enforce the healthy practices you setup in the beginning, and finish strong (ie. make sure you do a post mortem)2. Pareto Principle - 20% of your energy will produce 80% of the result. FInd this 20% and invest in it and ruthlessly eliminate the work items that consume 80% of your energy and produce 20% of the effort.A quick read- and for that reason it is approachable and worthy of an extra star to make it four. less

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