Nice beginning project management book. It covered the creation of a WBS, scheduling, and other PM tools. The most helpful (yet brief) sectioni for me was on team-building.

I am working as a Sr. Electrical Engineer and am being asked to perform as a Sr. Project Manager so I needed to get some skills quickly. This book references the PMIBOK which is the Project Management Institute Body of Knowlege. My supervisor is certified with this organization, so I thought it would be appropriate.

The book is a good overview of the topics that are needed to be a successful project manager. It goes from projects and scheduling to people and managing teams. This was excellent to see how the author put it all together and explained the importance of each. He gives Do's and Do Not's, but I found that my organization does not do things that way, nor are they willing to change. One specific one is, a project manager should never manage a project and also work on the project. This is how things are done where I work, and we have the exact problems the author mentions.

Where I felt the book fell short was practical examples. It had many great examples, but not what I needed which was how to break into a schedule and shorten a schedule. Also how to analyze each task for risk. Other than those items, I think it did an excellent job. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. It is an easy read and not boring at all.

I sure hope this helps someone.

it's a very interesting book, can learn about control and follow projects. Helps to clarify the resources alocation acording to activities and its priority.

If, like me, you are looking for a light intro to the art of Project Management then you need not look further. This book will give you an overview of the tools and methods that will help you on the path to successfully delivering projects. But what I also liked about it is that it emphasises the need for leadership and interpersonal skills and provides a few tips on these. Definitely a 'must' for starting off any Project Management library.

This is an excellent, easy to read book for someone who is in a leadership program or position. I am using this book as one of my textbooks for my Leading Change and Project Management course on my Master's degree in Leadership Education. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

I was looking for the fundamentals and I found them. Mr. Lewis approaches this subject in a simple yet, thorough fashion. He provides the reader with insights, experience and a well rounded introduction to the process of project management. What you gain here is a substantial base from which you can build.

Fundamentals of Project Management (Worksmart)
I needed to have a general knowledge about project management and found this book to be clear, simple, easy to understand and gave me all the basics. It is good for some one who wants to start working in this field.

I am not a PM, but had to do some work juggling data in MS Project and SureTrak. Their manuals and help pages were useful, but confusing. Lewis' book helped cut through the tangle of jargon, and explained the simple math underneath the software. Especially useful were the exercises explaining how ES, EF, LS, and LF were calculated, and how resource leveling was performed. (I focused on that section, and got my money's worth right there.)

This book won't be enough for PMs, but for managers and others working in a project-oriented organization, and using PM software, this is an excellent, concise, well written guide.

I am not a PM, but had to do some work juggling data in MS Project and SureTrak. Their manuals and help pages were useful, but confusing. Lewis' book helped cut through the tangle of jargon, and explained the simple math underneath the software. Especially useful were the exercises explaining how ES, EF, LS, and LF were calculated, and how resource leveling was performed. (I focused on that section, and got my money's worth right there.)

This book won't be enough for PMs, but for managers and others working in a project-oriented organization, and using PM software, this is an excellent, concise, well written guide.

This is an excellent book if you are looking for well written, sound advice on Project Management and what being a Project Manager is all about. The author used humor and very mild sarcasm in alot of the sections, which makes the book alot more entertaining and easier to read than most dry books of this nature, and serve as 'memory-hooks' to help you remember the message intended by that text. I would highly recommend this book.

This was a required book for my doctorate. However, I never used it... the material just wasn't pertinent to what I was doing. It is fairly simplistic with common sense thrown in. Unless it is required, I would not bother buying this book.

Although I have several years experience in Project Management, I took this book because of good reviews and because I somehow wanted to consolidate what I have learn in practice.
This book was exactly what I needed. Very concise, without loosing a point. I most liked the author's idea to make a project out of this book when describing importance of planning. And I can say he did it - the book is well organized, explains everything you need to know, and also offers a good references for further reading. Of course, don't expect to be world class manager after reading 200-pages book, but you can be sure that you will get very structured baseline for managing projects after reading this. For sure worth of reading.

Anyone wanting to get a foothold on the burgeoning field of project management can easily begin with this small book. Its clear and untechnical language flows effortlessly through ten accessible chapters. The author mixes real life anecdotes with the inevitable dump truck full of jargon. This helps pick up the pace considerably (anyone who has read books on project management knows their entertainment value). Also, various aphorisms of project management wisdom dot the margins, including a memorable one from Charlie Brown: "No problem is so big or complicated that it can't be run away from". Most, however, spill good advice for newcomers or seasoned managers seeking a refresh, such as "No plan, no control!"; "Rule: The people who must do the work should participate in developing the plan"; "The WBS is a good way to portray the scope of a project"; "An exact estimate is an oxymoron"; "Project Management is not just scheduling"; "A negative message always takes priority over a positive one"; "Process reviews conducted as witch-hunts will produce witches". One of the book's final quotes recommends that project managers watch the movie "Stand and Deliver" (the one from 1988 directed by Ramon Menendez) for a good example of leadership. This book really covers a lot of ground in some 133 pages.

Readers completely unfamiliar with project management will learn about such things as work breakdown structures, the difference between a mission, a vision, and an objective, project control, earned value analysis, and the ever elusive nature of the work estimate. These tools will help anyone get a handle on managing a small to a medium sized project (for a large project do more reading; much more reading).

Earned value analysis might have been too heavy of a subject for an introductory text. The author throws rather esoteric terms and acronyms at newcomers without providing a framework for real world application. Unfortunately, the discussion remains rather academic and probably not too useful.

The author does give a great rundown of network diagrams and their uses. No one should come out of this book without a clear understanding of early finish, late finish, early start, and late start. Readers who do should read it again. Also, the pages on critical path analysis effectively illuminate this bugbear concept.

The book doesn't end with simple concepts and jargon. An entire section on managing project teams closes the book. Many longer books ignore the psychology and human resources aspects of project management, so it's suprising to see this subject broached in a book of this length.

Of course no book attains supernatural perfection. As good as this book is, one thing missing from it is a case study that runs through all of the chapters. Many of the concepts get treated in the abstract and left there. The earned value analysis chapter suffers greatly from this lacuna. Some step by step applications of the concepts would improve comprehension for absolute newcomers. Plus, the book's brevity runs the risk of not providing enough granularity for retention. Some of the chapters fly by really quick, along with many of the definitions. After a constant shower of concepts readers may grow dizzy in the new world of project management and find that none of the book stuck to their neurons. But the "Key Points to Remember" included at the end of each chapter do help.

Those who need just a glance of this huge field can probably stop reading here. But those continuing on to manage projects of considerable complexity have to read more detailed books. This one will by no means give potential project managers all that they need. It serves best as a ten thousand foot view of the field or as a reiteration of basic concepts. So don't rely on it alone. Nonetheless, the book succeeds admirably in what it sets out to do: lay out the fundamentals of project management in an accessible way for general readers.

If you are looking for a book that introduce you into project management without boring then it's a good point to begin. It'll give you the basis with an easy and nice prose including for non english.
After read it you'll have better criterion selecting another books to increase you knowledge on project management.

If you need an easy-to-read, beginners level book for Project Management, this is definetely the book. Very clear writing and good examples. It is a fundation builder for a newbie project manager.

I have been trying for some time to get people on my company to read about Project Management, with no success: even if they start, they don't read more than a few chapters. This book has an exceptional advantage over many other books: It is short, instructive, readable, and fun.

In the last three months, I have convinced four people to read this book, lending to them the copy I bought for the company, and two of them bought a copy for themselves (I almost forgot: it is also very inexpensive :-) ). Afterwards, most of them say that the book does not contain any secrets, but it provides an excellent framework on PM, and wets their appetite for this discipline.

By the way, some of the best books on PM I have read come from Amacom. I'd recommend Team Based Project Management, also by James Lewis, and another great book is Information Systems Project Management, by Hallows.

Reading the reviews, there appears to be a difference of opinion about the value of this book. This book will show anyone how to define the critical path of a project and create a PERT chart to outline the project. If you're looking for something else, you might want to look elsewhere (no GANTT timeline charts here). In addition, there are other excellent, succinct chapters on the art of managing projects. Five stars, because it does exactly what it proposes to do.