What We Liked
It is a real delight to have the project management experiences of a well-qualified practitioner, all converted into practical advice in a handy little book. And that advice is also documented in a logical format that can be referenced for intended or on-going projects that are both large and very costly. The book is well written in a clear and easy-to-read style. Where needed, there are five figures to add clarity. From our own relatively limited experience, we believe that all the author's advice, page after page, is well worth digesting and repeat-reading to refresh the memory when needed.
To emphasize his observations, Antonio includes brief summaries of a range of serious project failures, as well as some successes against significant risks and odds. They provide excellent lessons and much detail, but too extensive to be included in this review. Instead, use the following lists to do searches on the Internet — add the word "project" to the title if missing.
Projects challenged or outright failures[3]
- Saint Helena Airport
- Russky Bridge, Vladivostok, Russia
- Oil and gas megaprojects
- International Space Station (ISS)
- Boston's Big Dig
- Energiewende
- Purchase of 60 buses for the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa[4]
- Uplace Shopping and Leisure Project in Belgium — stakeholders can kill your project[5]
Lessons from successful projects
- Project Purple — the iPhone[6]
- Lessons from the Google Glass[7]
- Lessons from Crossrail[8]
- London Olympics[9]
- Lessons from Stonehenge — a difficult project challenge not yet resolved[10]
- Launch of the Euro (January 1, 1999)[11]
3. Ibid, pages 17 to 21.
4. Ibid, p66. The author suggests that "The clue should be in the name"!
5. Ibid, p103
6. Ibid, p35
7. Ibid, p36
8. Ibid, p48
9. Ibid, p53
10. Ibid, p102
11. Ibid, p106
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Book Structure
