Managing Multiple Projects

Nice Reading

Got this for extra reading on a project management course. Has some good stuff.

As I read the first chapter...which makes several good points...I realized, disappointingly, that I was reading a 20 year old book! Some of the references are VERY dated. If the book we're updated it would be far more useful. I'd also give it 4-5 stars, depending.

Starts well but gets bogged down in academic details.

I have the Job from Hell - I'm responsible for production scheduling at a busy graphics pre-press house. All day long I make commitments to customers and then turn around and try to get my work group to deliver on them. Before I read "Managing Multiple Projects" I felt completely overwhelmed by my responsibilities. Now I believe there's hope.Chapter 2, "The Cheeseburger Paradox", really spells out the problem. "It's great to aim high, to attempt to do more and do it better. But unless you can do that reliably, unless your customers can depend on you, you've got problems... the high-value-added operation cannot afford to deliver inferior service." The rest of the chapter - and the book - offers tools and techniques for achieving reliability.This book really helped me see where the systems I use are letting me down and how I can change that. I've read books on time management. I've struggled to make Microsoft Projects work for me, but nothing's clicked like the advice I've read in "Managing Multiple Projects". Anyone who's tried other books on time and project management and felt unsatisfied ought to give this book a try. The authors' combination of systems engineering perspective and psychological insight into stress and group process sets this book apart. I happen to think it is groundbreaking work.

Irene and Michael Tobis have written an essential book for managers who run numerous small projects or complex combinations of large and small projects with multiple employees who have varying skill levels. If the process you manage hasn't been automated to the point of being an assembly line, you need this book, especially if you are responsible for team production and output. We recommend it as a fundamental part of any business management curriculum and as a training tool for new managers. Others who would benefit from it include teachers, project leaders, volunteer organization presidents and committee heads who orchestrate complex tasks. The authors provide principles, definitions and techniques that you can apply to your specific situation. Anyone who feels overwhelmed or overloaded will benefit, in particular, from chapters five and six, which focus on identifying everything you have committed to and developing a plan both to get out from under the overload and to manage future commitments more gracefully. Go get your copy.

The authors posit that unreliable brilliance will always lose to reliable adequacy. It is noble to aim for greatness, but unless you can deliver reliability consistently, you are creating problems for yourself and your organization.They, one a PhD psychologist and the other a PhD systems engineer, jointly operate a consulting firm that seeks to find individualized paths to productivity that can be sustainable, convenient, natural and delightful.To them, reliability has a simple definition. The reliable worker or workgroup finishes every work item in a reasonable amount of time and with reasonable quality. Many who are capable of brilliance are capable of reliability, but often it does not come easy. Being competent means you can complete the job.Being reliable means you can complete the job every time. Unless your customers can depend on you, regardless of the project's complexity, you have problems. The high value, high-complexity organization cannot afford to deliver inferior service.The book combines skills from time management, task completion and organizational psychology. It offers jargon-free definitions of important terms; tips and tactics for facilitating multiple projects; practical advice to minimize project errors and warning signs new activities are headed awry.The authors provide simple, proactive strategies for consistently achieving multiple objectives

A waste of time to read, no redeeming value. Not sure how this got published at all, but, some people get lucky.