BOOK REVIEW
Book Title: Optimizing Project Work, Management and Delivery
Authors: Gary L. Richardson and Brad M. Jackson
Publisher: CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
List Price: $69.95
Format: Soft Cover, 249 Pages
Publication Date: 2023I
ISBN: 978-1-032-49366-4
Reviewer: Gauranga Deka, PMP
Review Date: March 2024
Introduction
The book Optimizing Project Work, Management and Delivery is a thoughtful analysis of existing project management practices in the industry. The authors of the book follow a practitioner path which combines project management theories with several decades of industry experience in various domain including oil and gas, insurance, consulting, telecommunications and defense in various geographies in Europe. Middle east, East Asia and Americas. In addition to contemporary project management processes the book also touched upon lean concepts like Total Quality Management and agile methodology. This book made a serious attempt to conceptualize a “Flexible Integrated model” for delivering outcome.
Overview of Book’s Structure
The content of the book is divided into two main sections. The first section discusses the project environment and second section contains authors’ thoughts and ideas for a set of effective delivery strategies. Each of these sections contains two distinct perspectives; one is an introductory narrative that sets the scene & explains the context and the other is about new ideas/thoughts from a practitioner’s point of view. Overall, the book contains the following sections.
Section I – Project Environment
Chapter 1. Introduction
- Provides some introductory background of project management practices
Chapter 2. Delivery Methods
- Introduces the concept of work delivery & the basic evaluation of this topic since WW II. The current approach to delivery is shown to be ad hoc and fragmentary.
Chapter 3. Project Profiles
- One of the important messages of this text is about how projects have different characteristics & delivery goals. This chapter describes as to how a project can be profiled.
Chapter 4. Evolution of Project Management
- An Overview of key evolutionary steps that describes the gaps in the current development model
Chapter 5. Project Success Drivers
- This chapter summarizes the major items that influence project out comes
More…
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How to cite this review: Deka, G. (2020). Optimizing Project Work, Management and Delivery, book review, PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue V, May. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/pmwj141-May2024-Deka-Optimizing-Project-Work-Management-and-Delivery-book-review-3.pdf
About the Reviewer
Gauranga Deka
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX USA
Gauranga Deka, PMP, PMI-ACP, SAFe SPC4 is an IT Project Manager with sustained expertise in building complex software solutions. Currently, he is a member of Project Management Institute & PMI Dallas Chapter. In last 20+ years, he has been leading critical roles in the development of very large, complex, mission critical software products in Banking/Financial Services Domain. He is well versed in software size & effort estimation, forecasting, Agile, Scaled Agile framework (SAFe) & Water fall model of software development process. He has authored & published scholarly articles on software project management topics. He regularly reviews articles as well as books on the project management area, some of which are published on PM World Journals periodically. Mr. Deka, as a mentor, guides young project managers/agile practitioners in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area & also participates on expert panel to discuss important topics that influences contemporary project management processes in the PM Symposium at the University of Texas at Dallas TX.
Gauranga Deka received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MANIT, Bhopal & Executive MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
Email address: G_deka@yahoo.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurangadeka
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