"Project Planning, Scheduling & Control"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the book "Project Planning, Scheduling & Control," by James P. Lewis. The author reviews the book, describing it as a how-to guide for project managers. The author then determines that Lewis overuses buzzwords and catch-phrases to describe concepts that should be simple. The author says that despite the helpful nature of the book, it fails to provide any real insight, instead simply restating well-known theories and statistics in the psychology of project management. The paper claims that Lewis is repetitive and adds very little overall knowledge to readers.

From the Paper:

"Lewis begins by defining what a project is, and what a project manager does. It is highly unlikely that someone who does not know what a project is would choose to read a book about project management. He points out that project management involves dealing with people and offers such useful advice as "To violate the cultural expectations of powerful members of an organization is to invite trouble." Not all the book's content is so basic; Lewis goes on to address a number of common problems, and offer common-sense solutions. Planning, always an important consideration in a large project is often overlooked or considered to be a waste of resources. Lewis explains how lack of planning wastes far more time than planning would require, claiming the existence of a large number of case studies, but failing to cite specifics. He then goes on to devote several chapters to explaining how to plan a project, beginning, as usual with exceedingly basic definitions, but going on to provide some useful specific advice about planning."

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