Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly))

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Ego/No-ego: The ego can be a driver for managers, who often derive great personal satisfaction from their work. Note: Since Making Things Happen book is both thick and complex, I am publishing the summary in two parts. Scott’s book gave me a new appreciation for the difficulty and risks, and the tremendous rewards of good project management.

This book focuses on the essence of project management: allowing a group of people to work together to accomplish some goal. Since then, I’ve done a fair amount of self-discovery and, for the most part, have learned to change my thinking about the things I can’t control. Ideas morph into designs **via conversations between different people** with different types of expertise.

But this book really applies to any job where you (1) deliver something to a client or (2) work as part of a team.

Now, take the pile of things you can’t control and toss them in the garbage (or use them as fertilizer). The author comprehensively explains how project management is done in detailed yet easy to read words.And as the gap between the PM and the project grows, the amount of unnecessary attention paid to charts, tables, checklists, and reports increases. Those are questions, without answers, and thought-provoking isn’t a word I would use to describe them.