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I have to admit that I was skeptical when I first looked at Johanna Rothman’s book. Johanna has a successful blog dealing with general project management, as well as a couple of other books that deal with personnel aspects of our industry. And yes, I am probably a little jaded, but to me the best book on software project management on the market is Steve McConnell’s “Software Project Survival Guide”, published about 10 years ago.

But guess what…when I was about half-way through “Manage It” I had to begrudgingly admit that Johanna’s book was good in its own way. No, it is not at all similar to McConnells, but it brings an interesting point of view to the subject matter that complements McConnells book in surprising ways.

Specifically I really loved the section that Johanna called “Schedule Games”. Don’t know why its called games, other than maybe to reflect the notion of games people play to get what they want. Johanna describes in great detail a number of archetypes that may sound familiar to you. See if any of the following ring a bell:

• “Bring me a Rock” – that’s where the PM or stake holder keeps asking for new a different deliverables that aren’t in the spec and doesn’t let the project end.
• “Hope is our most important strategy” – this one describes a situation in which teams get so far out of their depth that hope is the primary strategy for finishing the project on time.
• “The Queen of Denial” – describes a PM who believes a project will be on time just because she tells the developers that it will be. 
• “Pants on Fire” – That one is my personal favorite. Its laid out in one simple statement: You arrive at work to find an email from the Big Cheese that reads “Stop work immediately on your current project and start this new one here !” Johanna correctly points out that this syndrome is usually caused by Management who cannot manage their customers and is afraid to say “No” or afraid to outline a proper schedule. I have personal experience with 2 different companies that worked on this dysfunctional basis. In one case I literally had the CEO taking the temperature of every developer and assigning work on the fly in exactly the manner described by “Pants on Fire”. Usually he would make a call to a lead dev “What are you working on?…. Oh that can wait…. you need to do this instead…..”
• “Split Focus” – that’s when you are asked to spend 50% of your time on project one, 30% of your time on project two, 20% of your time on project three and in any left over time please review the report for the Big Cheese. What leftover time ????!!!!! Again Johannna correctly points out that this sort of dysfunction occurs when management cannot commit to a project / program strategy.

As I mentioned before, I have worked as part of management teams that were sales driven, rather than engineering driven and therefore did not follow what developers would consider best practices. In the end it really hurt the product and the company.

Because of this experience I recognize the value of Johanna Rothmans book. No its not McConnell. But it doesn’t have to be. What good is McConnell when you are working in a company that is so far removed from good practices that McConnell is the last thing that would help. Johanna really shines in providing good alternatives to the insanity that is often present in tech companies.

Her recommendations in “Manage It!” allow you to focus your stake holders and your team. I believe this book is a great addition to any Project Managers / Lead Developers library.