The Project50 (Reinventing Work): Fifty Ways to Transform Every "task" Into a Project That Matters!

by Tom Peters

The common denominator/bottom line for both the professional service firm/PSF and the individual/Brand You is: the project. And for the cool individual in the cool professional service firm there is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375407731
• ISBN13: 9780375407734
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.5" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Guides you in making your work and your life matter.

When you learn to use this little book you can turn nasty little jobs into opportunities that are rewarding. Sounds like the same old words but it sure doesn't feel like "the same old" when you get it to work the first few times. It MAGIC and it makes your project fun, manageable, and they are all set up for further correction and deeper development. I used to hate making some business telephone calls and after I defined the project and found the WOW in it, it became O.K and then went on to be one of my strengths and I'm making friends on the telephone now and have doubeled my income. This is powerful and Tom Peters is to big a part of our business evolution to not have as a traveling companion as we become more and more part of the global brain.

Vintage Tom!

As usual, Tom Peters takes an irreverant approach to normal,mundane things like business projects. You're nominated to clean upafter the big party? No sweat--turn it into a redecorating process, or team-building exercise. Great thoughts about reframing everyday, normal business projects into something that can be resumed!

Reinvigorate your vision for your work

As a multimedia software writer/producer, I thought my projects were pretty hot stuff. That might be true, but reading "The Project 50" sent me on a quest for the fabled "way cool" moniker for every project I do.In this practical and outrageously optimistic book, Peters makes a clarion call for work that matters, that takes your breath away--that, in short, WOWs not only your clients/customers but everyone who sees what you do.With 50 suggestions (each with a number of action items) for creating WOW projects, Peters stirs a divine dissatisfaction for business-as-usual. "Good enough" work no longer is--and will soon be the death knell of its practitioners.With characteristic bullets, colors, UPPER CASE PHRASES, and underlines, Peters confronts us with the challenge of the near-future: Making the most of the new millennium will require nothing else than producing WOW projects--whether they be spread sheets or theme parks.This book reinvigorated me and recast my vision for the future--so much so that I bought copies for my fellow writer/producers. Read it and you'll see why.

WOW! A business must!

WOW! Buy it. Read it, no ABSORB it. But put it to work BEFORE you finish the book. So many parts of this book struck a cord. I took rapid prototyping to heart and used existing tools to completely revamp a process. Project Time - 2 1/2 hours, time savings - 2 hours per day x 3 employees! Approval and buy in took a week. (Our normal process would have taken months). If you try to read this and then put the principals in practice you will be overwhelmed. Practice as you go along. Tom is cutting straight to the meat with his "50" series books. You NEED these books.

Turn the Mundane into the Sublime -- WOW!

This book is the Pilgrim's Progress for those who head up projects (which will be more and more people as organizations downsize and outsource). I liked the way that Tom Peters shows that everyone can make every project meaningful and a valuable, worthwhile contribution. This is a wonderful gift, and one that all can benefit from. Tom, when you redo this book (and with your theory of fast prototyping, I assume that this will come out next month), I think you missed a big opportunity -- helping people pick the project to work on that will make the most difference. If you subscribe to the 80/20 rule, then 20 percent of the projects will make 80 percent of the difference. By picking the right areas to work on, you can multiply your influence by more than 20 times than if you pick the low-potential areas. That is like getting to live 20 times over in one lifetime. Wow! I agree that high potential projects often come disguised as unimportant ones. A good companion book for this one is The Fifth Discipline, to help you understand systems thinking so that you can pick the areas to work on that will influence everything else. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook and the Dance of Change also have very valuable ideas for running projects. Having spent my working career running projects, I especially subscribe to his notion that projects should have a stealthy beginning, so that you can have the freedom to create what is really needed. Too much publicity and money too soon are killers. I found the advice to closely parallel my own experiences and those of best practice cases that I study. This is a very valuable book for anyone who wants to make a difference. I also recommend the other two books in the series, Brand You 50 and Professional Service Firm 50. Thanks for sending copies to me, Tom Peters!