Pm Crash Course: Premier Edition

Written by Rita Mulcahy a long time back, like 11 years ago, this one is a sort of refresher course or a starting point for a PM newbie. This book also serves as a staring point to your endeavor of being a PMP. This one small book also serves the purpose of a refresher which PM practitioners having PMP can read periodically to remind the philosophy behind good Project Management.Be aware, since it was written nearly 11 years ago some topics like Quality Management, Project Closing etc. are not covered.

This is a book that provides a great resume of how to manage a project. It should also be read by anyone having to draft Statement of work, professional services quotations or having to evaluate workload for teams.I have been doing informal project management for 20 years, am self trained, learned from my failures and successes and the book really sums up all that should be known and used.

Met with expectations, good resource.

Rita Mulcahey is one of the leading training providers in the project management profession, not to mention one of the most engaging lecturers. The book shares these features: engaging, interesting, full of information, and a good companion if you are planning on taking a PM test any time soon. Several of my staff members have benefited from the effectiveness of her programs.If you are a semi-skilled project manager who has not yet taken the PMI Certifiying exam, or who doesn't want to wade through the encyclopedic and difficult PM Body of Knowledge, then this is a very good, very easy to read overview of pretty much everything that a high-speed project manager would want to know and do.However, in my initial impression, I would assume that a "crash course" is intended for someone who does NOT have the required skills and needs to get some results in a hurry.What this book is not, is a useful guidebook for someone who is getting started in the role of project manager. It is just too complete. The new PM will despair, and those who resist PM as "overhead" will have plenty of new evidence. Mulcahey makes the point over and over that PM is about planning ahead in order to avoid failure down the road, when corrective action is expensive. This is absolutely true, yet it may be lost on a neophyte PM or their process-resistant manager who will see project management processes as just another straw on the camel's back. But who other than a new PM would _need_ a crash course as opposed to the more deliberate and thorough training that an experienced PM would need?Short version of the PMBOK - definitely.Review book for trained PMs - definitely. I will probably be buying some for my office for this very purpose."Crash course" for people unfamiliar with the practice of project management: this baby's too hot for you to handle. Remember, the project managers you see succeeding around you are trained professionals.

This book is very good as:- a starting point for a PM newbie before the academic "PMP preparation book" by Rita- a concise "reminder" for PM practitioners having PMP - that you can read each 1-2 years just to refresh the philosophy lying beneath PMBOK ("why" in the end do we need it?) in a time-efficient mannerDisadvantage of this book is natural - it was written nearly 10 years ago (probably, in the times of PMBOK 3) and some topics (like Quality Management or Project Closing) are not covered.

Used this in conjunction with other books and passed the PMI PM certification on the first try. Worth what I paid for it.