Brad Egeland recently completed his 15th Project Management eBook titled “A Real World Project Manager's Guide to the Successful Project.” Other than maybe switching some words around in the title and shortening it, Mr. Egeland seems to have hit it spot on. The book is written in his normal casual style of experience, opinion and best practices... from a real world, logical and practical point of view.

Always trying to give advice to those experienced, new and aspiring project managers looking for hitting the pavement advice, this book continues to follow that same theme. I'm not going to give away much about the contents of the book, but I will list the chapters which should give you some insight into what information is being shared in this publication...

Chapters:

Introduction
From the Beginning
Document Processes and Requirements
Execute the Project
Review with the Client and Gain Final Approval
Communication is Everything
Are Lessons Learned Important?
How to Run the Perfect Project Meeting
Risks are Real... Plan for Them

Mr. Egeland makes no apologies for professing that communication is Job One for the project manager and adhering to solid communication processes is a common theme of this book. He feels that it is critical to success and experience proves that. He helps the reader understand what that means in different areas of the project engagement. That alone is worth the price of admission.

There have been a few testimonials / reader comments that Mr. Egeland has received including these...

"Best direction I've received in 2018 - a must read for logical PM steps to successful delivery"

"Great takeaways - highly recommend"

"Must reading for all PMOs, Brad's info is spot-on"

"5 stars! Thanks for sharing your straightforward project management knowledge and style... keep up the great work!"

“just like your articles, always something great to take away. Thanks for the advice... well worth the money. Keep writing!!”

Pros:

• This is not PMI legalize type of reading – reads more like stories and opinion pieces, which for this writer/reviewer is a good thing. Judging by the thousands of reads that Mr. Egeland's articles get every month it must be a fairly widely held opinion.
• In my opinion and from my experience, there is nothing here giving you anything but sound advice for project success.
• Price – at $4.99 it's priced well. If you get one piece of helpful information out of this book – and you will – then it was money well spent.

Cons:

• Though it is laid out nicely and well put together, I wish it was longer. I've spoken to Brad and he has assured me that is next self-published, for sale eBook will be considerably longer and he already has a title for it which you can find on the books page of his site. You'll also find links to download other free eBooks he has written as well. He also shares plans and templates on his templates and downloads page.

Conclusion

Download the book – it's not $24.99, it's only $4.99 and well worth it. Then set it aside and re-read it every time you start a new project until you have it committed to memory. You'll use the advice and sequence in this book more than you realize. And if you're directing a PMO, get a copy for all of your staff... it won't break your PM budget.

Pages: 35
Price: $4.99
Available from Mr. Egeland through Square here. Following purchase you will receive the eBook within 24 hours via email, though he tries to fill all orders within the hour.

As you may have noticed, I often like to use a rock and roll theme. This time I’m borrowing a line from one of my favorite Cheap Trick songs. You’re only as good as your last project…or at least your last few projects. As the Project Manager you’re in charge, you’re the point person and everyone on both sides of the project is looking to you as the primary information flow.

How you perform in this role and how you succeed in keeping everyone well organized and well informed not only speaks volumes about your ability to perform under pressure but also defines how key you are to your organization’s plans going forward.

The Disorganized PM

If you fall in the disorganized category, then you’re not likely to last very long as a PM anyway. The disorganized PM has trouble with the following:

• Timely response to customer questions and issues
• On time delivery of status reports and project schedule updates
• Keeping the delivery team up to date on status, expectations and resource forecasts
• Leading regular project status meetings

These tasks are critical to success, critical to just about every facet of an engagement. If not performed well and in a timely fashion, then the project will undoubtedly suffer and possibly fail.

The Organized PM

The reputation of the Project Manager truly is fragile. Even if you do your job impeccably well, there’s always that chance that you just won’t ‘click’ with the customer and the customer may ask for someone else to perform in this role. Difficult customers abound, and you never know when you’re going to run up against one. Therefore, it’s important to always, always do the following:

• Keep your team informed
• Keep the customer informed
• Manage a well-defined project schedule
• Ensure that the customer has all weekly documents in a timely fashion
• Track all deliverables and help ensure as many milestones as possible are met
• Manage the budget well and keep everyone informed of budget status and potential problems
• Track all issues and risks and keep them constantly reviewed and in front of personnel on both sides of the project

The bottom line is – leadership is key. Leadership, integrity, promises kept and delivered upon….all of these go into building and maintaining your reputation. As the Project Manager, we don’t always have direct authority over our resources – they’re borrowed for the most part. But we do have direct authority over what we do with the resources and responsibilities that we’ve been given. When issues arise, communicate and reach out to resolve. Ensure that everyone on both sides of the project know that you know you own it and are steering the ship.

Summary​

The Project Manager can’t ensure that they’ll be loved by everyone – nor do they want to be. They aspire to be well respected by the customer, but even that can’t always be guaranteed no matter how well they perform and manage the project. But, the Project Manager can ensure that everything that is expected of them is being performed well and if that doesn’t always do it for the customer at least it should be noticed by the delivery organization.

Worry about the project and what you can do to help ensure it’s success and it will be well noticed. Your reputation can’t be untarnished, but what you do and how you do it will help ensure that it stays relatively intact.

We are taught that great leaders are fair but stern, collaborative but focused, flexible but driven. They are stubborn and not easily swayed. Well, I’m here to tell you that may not be project management reality for you if you really plan to be a successful project leader.
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Certainly you need to stick to decisions that are made and plans that are confirmed. You need to be consistent and resilient in front of your project team and customer and senior leadership if you want to be taken seriously as a good leader and a person deserving of their respect and following. What that doesn't mean is that you need to stick to your guns no matter what, going down with the ship just because you were too stubborn – or stupid – to listen to others or change your mind because you thought that might make you appear weak. We all know that a sign of confidence and strength is also admitting when you're wrong, welcoming the input and ideas of others and working toward making this current project the best it can possibly be...

To produce and deliver products of the highest possible value, you must be able to help teams deliver products in short cycles, enabling fast feedback, continual improvement, and rapid adaption to change. If that sounds a lot like the definition of Scrum to you, then you’re already on the right track to becoming a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).
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Becoming a CSM isn’t hard, but successfully leading your team under the principles of Scrum takes commitment, courage, and focus. The requirements to become a CSM give you the ability to do exactly that...

From Michelle LaBrosse - Cheetah Learning

Every day we help people become Project Management Professional (PMP) Certified.  A strong foundation in how to use the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) in the day to day requirements of doing projects makes passing the PMP exam much easier.   For that reason, we focus on helping our students learn how to use the PMBOK in managing projects.

​Over the years, the Project Management Body of Knowledge has gone through numerous revisions.  When I started using the PMBOK almost 20 years ago, it reminded me of the military specifications I had used as an Air Force Officer. At that time it was about 1/4 the size it is today, more theoretically oriented and I had to use many other references to round out my professional library...

​Agile and Waterfall processes are not generally considered something that should be mixed. They are mixed – and have to be – as many organizations make the transition from a Waterfall software development and project management methodology to an Agile methodology of the same. The exception being, of course, new organizations or startups that go the Agile only route. But in reality even as these organizations become larger and their customer base expands, they will encounter customers, excellent on-boarded resources, and other vendors and stakeholders who require – for various reasons – a Waterfall delivery as opposed to an Agile process. It may be a government requirement, or an may just be a lack of Agile comfort, adoption and familiarity. Not everyone can or will agree to make the jump for whatever reason so the likelihood of maintaining both is high in any organization and industry...

Pass the PMP then see me for mentoring on real world project management expectations, experiences, failures, successes, best practices and work arounds. 20+ years experience. Named “#1 Provider of Project Management Content in the World”. I have written more than 6,000 PM related articles, ebooks, and white papers and more than 40 videos so far.

​I have managed projects in both private and public sectors up to $50 million and about every industry imaginable plus started or helped build 4 PMOs. I will mentor you.