Summary
Both books reviewed in this paper do contain a lot of good information with extensively worked examples and illustrations. As such they represent a lot of hard work on the part of the authors and it is easy to be critical. Producing a book of the proportions of these takes a lot of dedicated time and effort and writing a book is not a trivial project.
The two books reviewed take different approaches to their contents. Kathy Schwalbe's book is essentially a "how-to" book, i.e. prescriptive, while Jack Gido and James Clements' book takes a more descriptive approach. We feel that generally the Schwalbe book is more suited to those first entering project management, especially in an in-house tech project environment. On the other hand, we feel that the Gido book would be more suited to those with several years of project experience but who now find themselves in need of more formal training.
Both books have some important shortcomings (in our view), so we think a good solid training book that is really up-to-date has probably yet to be written. As to recommending one over the other, it all depends on what you are looking for.
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