How to Run Successful High-Tech Project-Based Organizations

by Fergus O'Connell

Book Overview

This volume offers practical steps to creating a Structured Project Management (SPM) system in your organization. Based on the ten steps in Fergus O'Connell's previous book, How To Run Successful... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1580530109
• ISBN13: 9781580530101
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Artech House Publishers
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.3" x 10.3"

Customer Reviews

You won't regret buying this one

A very entertaining read. Wonderful writing style. Chapters tend to be short and begin with a short quiz. The author interjects humor into what is often a boring subject. The final portion of the chapters consist of templates for use in your own work. Very useful from a practical point of view as well. The focus of this book is on the big picture ideas. The author lays out the important conceptual steps which are vital for success. The more technical details (such as using software) are well covered in other books and this one does not go into those in detail.Some of the great take aways from this book include; estimating the probability of success of a project, practical strategies for saving projects gone awry, how to review proposed projects before the expensive work begins.I am glad I bought this book.

Shows service companies how to attain world-class status

After working for various consulting companies I have discovered that the best have established processes that are based on project management and customer satisfaction, and the worst have no processes at all. This book provides a recipe from going from worst to best. This is the second of Mr. O'Connell's books that I have read. The first was Running Successful Projects, in which he provides excellent advice on how to effectively and skillfully manage projects. In How to Run Successful High-Tech Project-Based Organizations he extends these practices to organizations, and does so by providing a step-by-step approach and a performance model that is the basis for company-wide processes.He gives ten steps that every consulting or service company needs to incorporate, and does so in a clear and methodical manner. The steps themselves are easy, the barrier is leadership and management from the top. Unfortunately, Mr. O'Connell doesn't address how to get management on board, but that is outside of the scope of this book. My personal view is Mr. O'Connell advises and the wise will abide.I thought that the two strongest chapters in this book were the organization-wide status report, which is sorely missing in too many companies, and the program for project-based organization. The organization-wide status report is the key to achieving teamwork because it communicates to the entire company and makes everyone a stakeholder in the company's success instead of relegating them to a cog in an impersonal machine. This, by the way, is one of the most basic tenets of good leadership, and the lack of leadership is why too many consulting companies are in chaos, have abysmal records for execution, and poor client satisfaction. Part three of this book offers the real roadmap to success: treating your organization as a project. This is a unique approach and is really an excellent foundation for strategic and tactical planning. I saw how this aspect of Mr. O'Connell's approach provides the essence of a vision, mission statement and values. This book, if read and taken to heart at the right level in a consulting company (or any other kind of company that delivers services), can make the difference between achieving world-class status and extinction. There would be less material for Dilbert cartoons if everyone read this book and applied the information.

How to run successful high-tech project-based organizations

Really it is a great book to read. All High-tech Project managers should read it. Easy to read, well organized, direct to the point approach, makes it an useful book.