Book Review – The Lazy Project Manager

Posted on | November 20, 2009 | Author: | JohnZachar | 2 Comments

Author: Peter Taylor, available through Amazon

See details on how to win this book below

It is extremely unusual for me to pick up a ‘management book’ involuntarily. I think I lost that particular desire when I did my MBA in the nineties. However, occasionally there is a need to acquire additional information or background knowledge.

So it was with some trepidation that I picked up Peter Taylor’s book one Sunday afternoon, knowing that I’d promised a review. I finished it later that day, having only put it down for a meal. I really, really enjoyed it.

I’ve read a number of the ‘jokey’ type of management books over the years; those that have catchy titles, and purport to be a fun read, yet seem to be. This time I was pleasantly surprised that the book not only caught and kept my attention, but that it did it in a very enjoyable, easily absorbed way.

Peter’s use of analogies and stories is where I found some of the value. The remainder of the value came in the real content of the book. Over the years as a project / programme management consultant, lecturer, teacher and practitioner, I’ve built up a pretty good education about how to manage change into organisations through projects. I cannot find fault with any of Peter’s recommendations – especially the bit about being lazy!

Peter has been able to enrich the content by using his stories and analogies to make a number of points, all of them common sense; even things like “it is important to separate the important from the immediate” (my words not his – you find his analogy in the book).

One of the analogies that Peter uses, almost from the outset, is that of a dinosaur – in fact a brontosaurus. “I’m sure you know the one, thin at the front, thick in the middle, then thin at the other end.” Well, Peter modifies the analogy a bit by saying that projects should be thick at the front, thin in the middle and thick at the other end again.

The thickness of the project shape represents the amount of effort or work that needs to be done at that stage of the project. The corollary is: initiate well, compensating for difficulties, be lazy in the middle because a well organised project can run on its own like a well oiled machine if initiated well, then put some effort into finishing with real enthusiasm, helping all the stakeholders realise how well it has gone, and what a wonderful result we have.

Organising your project in this fashion allows you to apply the principles of being a lazy project manager – and still be successful. That is really what it is all about.

Don’t forget, this is not about just being lazy and not doing the job – this is being lazy, and being successful as well. Do the job, but do the job in the most intelligent way you can, so that you can be lazy when you can. That is my kind of project management. The other bits that are interspersed throughout the book are about how to achieve the above by using a great deal of common sense.

Peter’s book made this entertaining, yet useful for me.

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5. Arras Book Review: Project Governance by Ralf Muller

Comments

2 Responses to “Book Review – The Lazy Project Manager”

1. Glen B. Alleman
   November 22nd, 2009 @ 11:51 pm

   I sorta like the thin-thick-thin moving to thick-thin-thick but the units of measure are not defined.

   The S-curve of Earned Value sorts low, builds, then ends flat. This says only a few people on the project up front, then staffing rises, then tapers off near the end.

   The units of thick and thin need definition in the book.

2. Peter Taylor
   December 3rd, 2009 @ 4:29 pm

   The focus of the ‘dinosaur’ theory is to push people’s (PMs) thoughts to the focus of effort up at the front end of the project – to set a great foundation for successs – and at the back end – to spend time actually learning those ‘lessons’ from the project experience.

   It is not about staffing of the project but more about the way a project manager ‘manages’ there time on the project.

   Peter

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