As I’ve said before, items can sometimes linger on your TODO list a lot longer than you’d like, and it can be tricky to understand exactly why that is in each case. I’m convinced cringing is often a factor.

The Art of Project Management
by Scott Berkun

oreilly.com — Online Catalog: The Art of Project Management

O’Reilly recently sent me a review copy of Scott Berkun’s The Art of Project Management. I’ve read a couple chapters through, and—as the author himself has recommended—have grazed through a bunch of the sections that looked especially interesting to me. See, I have a marker for a non-fiction book that’s really connecting with me—as I’m reading it, I find myself repeatedly cursing the fact that it didn’t exist earlier. I’m definitely feeling that with this one.

Where so many Project Management books fetishize GANTT charts, waterfalls, and abstract planning methods, most of Berkun’s book lives much further down in the trenches—where misunderstandings happen, dates slip, and bad decisions threaten to derail your project. The book is full of really practical advice on handling these challenges in the real world. And, yes, I really wish it had existed 7 or 8 years ago. As it is, many of my bouncer skills were primitively self-taught.

Looks like a good thread in the green to watch and maybe contribute to.

Now shipping from Amazon and on its way to subscribers' mailboxes.

We’re fortunate right now to see so many great tools emerging to help people get their act together.

Products like 37 Signals’ Backpack and TaDaList are beautifully constructed, entirely usable, and have an amazingly high sense of fit and finish. It doesn’t go without saying that these products are also very fun to use. At the same time, a clever little app like GTDTiddlyWiki comes along that’s lightweight, portable, and is also very fun to use. And, although I haven’t played with Trumba or Sproutliner much yet, I understand they’re both turning a lot of heads and are—you guessed it—very fun to use.

These are all Good Things, and I couldn’t be happier that the quality of tools we’re seeing is so consistently high. Kudos, tool persons. You have all done a good job.

Still, as attracted as all we users naturally are to adopting these new apps, I have a growing concern that I want to share. And while it’s not directly related to these particular products, I do think it goes to important attitudes we have about seeing tools as panaceas for our productivity and time-management problems.