Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern Pragmatic Project Management

About this Book

Watch the movie for
Manage It!

Your project can’t fail. That’s a lot of pressure on you, and yet you don’t want to buy into any one specific process, methodology, or lifecycle.

Your project is different. It doesn’t fit into those neat descriptions.

Manage It! will show you how to beg, borrow, and steal from the best methodologies to fit your particular project. It will help you find what works best for you and not for some mythological project that doesn’t even exist.

Before you know it, your project will be on track and headed to a successful conclusion. You’ll:

• Learn all about different project lifecycles
• See how to organize a project
• Compare sample project dashboards
• See how to staff a project
• Know when you’re done—and what that means.

You won’t need expensive tools or fancy software. Manage It! shows you how to use low-tech techniques to directly address the most pressing problems of modern software project development.

Contents and Extracts

• Table of Contents, Preface and Introduction
• Chapter 4: Scheduling the Project
• Chapter 11: Creating and Using a Project Dashboard (excerpt)

Project Templates

• Download PDF file

About the Author

Johanna Rothman consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. She has written over 150 articles and papers and is a active blogger and frequent contributor for Better Software, Computerworld.com, and StickyMinds.com. Johanna is a coauthor (with Esther Derby) of the popular and pragmatic Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds, and is a coauthor (with Denise Robitaille) of Corrective Action for the Software Industry.

Upcoming Author Events

• 2013-04-21: Johanna Rothman
  5.5 days of leadership training for people who want to learn to be problem solving leaders. (Problem Solving Leadership Workshop, Albuquerque, NM)
• 2013-05-16: Johanna Rothman
  Starting (or Restarting) Your Agile Project Right! Join us if you need to define where your project is headed and what done means. Discount for both workshops. (London, UK)
• 2013-05-17: Johanna Rothman
  Master Class: Coaching for Leaders. Are you using all possible coaching stances? Explore with a master coach. Discount for both workshops. (London, UK)
• 2013-05-20: Johanna Rothman
  Tutorial: Hiring for Your Team: Culture Trumps Skills (Let's Test Conference, Sweden)
• 2013-05-21: Johanna Rothman
  Keynote: Becoming a Kick-Ass Test Manager (Let's Test Conference, Sweden)
• 2013-06-06: Johanna Rothman
  Exploding Management Myths: Johanna will explain the management myths and what to do instead. She'll tackle favorites such as 100% utilization, no time for training, promoting the best technical person and more. (Agile Development Conference/Better Software, Las Vegas)

Comments and Reviews

• Martin White said:

  Even after some thirty years in project management, I found much of value in this book and time after time found I was saying to myself “That’s neat!”. Give this book to any one in your team that you have appointed as a project manager but do read it first, as you will find yourself being asked some difficult questions within a very short time.

  Managing Director
• Jennifer Cannon said:

  I highly recommend this book to all project managers, from novices to those with more experience. This is an incredible resource that should be referred to frequently for advice on how to help you decide which project management practice or technique is appropriate for your project—which she helps you to apply immediately.

  SticckyMinds.com Review

• Concrete and useful. In this book there are things you may learn from university and from your job after years of experience. Take this book and a shortcut.

  —Nicola Pedot
• David Christiansen said:

  the best project management reference I’ve ever read… Buy it. Try it. It’s worth it.

  Information Technology Dark Side