Positive Project Management for a Change

Using the form of anecdotes, significant problems and their solutions are presented in a light-hearted manner, with complex problems shared in an almost chatty tone. As the readers come to trust the narrator, they soon feel as if they themselves are part of the action. Particularly as in this case, the project manager has the privilege of being on a level playing field with the other employees. The perspective of the industrial worker who still has to live the project when it no longer is a project is a topic so often ignored in other books, and is presented here vividly.§Or, as the well-versed project manager Giritzer says with a wink, but in all seriousness: Practice is a step ahead of theory! Project management has been a buzzword around the work since the 1990s. While the fundamental meaning behind it, which is the same regardless of the department of a company, and what it means for modern work life, is not always truly understood. This situation is not helped by the myriad of technical books that complicate the topic instead of clarifying it.§Gottfried Giritzer pulls the term back out of the confusion of theoretical descriptions and puts it back into the daily processes of industrial operations. As an experienced project manager who has had the pleasure of managing many successful projects, he is certainly an advocate of theoretical knowledge, but is also in favour of putting to a practical test. The many different examples in this book describe just how they are tested. Information that is riddled with technical jargon and seems abstract in other guides is presented here in concrete, real-life projects. He takes us from the creation of the project plan and the definition of goals to step-by-step descriptions of the approach (that it is better to think of a project from the purpose of the goal is just one of the surprising insights of this book).