P e r g a m o n International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 199-200, 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain 0263-7863/98 $19.00+0.00

Book reviews

Micromft Project Designed for Windows 95 Microsoft Proj. Ini Ltd

The version of Microsoft Project reviewed here is version 4.1, designed for Windows 95. The system specification as defined by Microsoft is 6MB of memory for use with Windows 95 or 12MB of memory for use on Windows NT, a maximum of 25MB of disk space, a VGA or higher resolution monitor and a mouse. The recommended retail price for Microsoft Project is £414.

I installed the evaluation software on a Pentium 75Mhz computer with 16 MB RAM running Windows 95. The installation process was smooth and the soRware ran well.

Anyone familiar with the Microsoft Office interface will immediately feel at home with Project. Options on the main menu and many of the icons on the default toolbars are found in other Office products. For those not so familiar with Microsoft the screen layout is clear and intuitive and the Planning Wizards and templates enable a new user to develop a plan on a step-by- step basis by following a series of clear instructions and/or suggestions. For the slightly more experienced user the Answer Wizard allows a question to be entered and the required information will be displayed. I found this particularly useful and it interpreted all the questions I entered as I had intended. A further useful help facility is the interactive Cue Cards.

As one might expect with a Microsoft product there are excellent linking facil- ities which allow data to be dynamically linked, not only between projects, but also between a project and another application such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel. Version 4.0 of Microsoft Project supports OLE2 and therefore links can also be established with other non-Microsoft products that also support OLE2.

Microsoft Project is a powerful project management tool. It can be used for simple, single-user projects as well as large enterprise-wide projects and for the management of many simultaneous pro- jects. The Consolidated Projects feature allows up to 80 projects to be opened and

selected details to be consolidated. Filters and outlines can then be created and applied across multiple projects. The Multiproject Resource Sharing feature allows a pool of resources, collected from up to 79 different projects, to be created which allows resource workloads to be visualised over time.

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is now included as part of Microsoft Project and this means that custom project scheduling solutions can be created.

In summary, Microsoft Project is an excellent Project Management tool for anyone, and it is especially powerful when used in conjunction with other Microsoft products.

Sue Nugus Reading

UK

Power and Politics in Project Management Jeffrey K Pinto Project Management Institute 1996 159 pp $24.95 ISBN 1 880410 43 5

In 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli set out to write a book explaining how The Prince could use power and politics to achieve success despite a tenuous source of power and amid feuding lords who were schem- ing to dethrone him. In 1996, JeffPinto set out to do a similar thing, only this time our prince is a project manager. Many of the practices that Pinto suggests were also suggested by Machiavelli, indicating that there is nothing astoundingly new in the book. However, the Preface of the book states that it is written to present a practical discussion of the role of political behavior specifically in project implementation. The aim is to provide a pragmatic guide to project management politics and the lessons managers need to derive from its practice. Given that goal, the book performs rather well.

Chapter 1 explains that one of the main problems needing political acumen is that projects are often assigned without ade- quate resources, and that the project

manager has little inherent power to obtain sufficient resources. This situation is explained by covering project definitions and examining some important differences between projects and departments. Chapter 2 covers the important topic of stakeholder analysis and Chapter 3 covers sources and uses of power, with a closing section on how to improve your power. It seems that improving your power is necessary for success as Chapter 4 develops an interest- ing argument that politics is an endemic part of organizational design and function- ing. This statement is based on the argument that most important decisions in organizations involve the allocation of resources, and since no good way of allocating resources has been developed, resources are thus allocated based on the exercise of power and politics. As politics is shown to be so important, Chapter 5 covers a variety of political games that are played in organizations. Chapter 6 covers alleged "real world examples" of politics in organizations. However, since the names o f the organizat ions are not provided and the names of the people are contrived, the potential impact of these examples is dubious. The real reward to the reader comes in Chapters 7-9. Chapter 7 outlines a set of negotiation skills which are important to the success of any manager, and particularly appropriate for project managers. Chapter 8 covers sources and resolution of conflict in project management. Chapter 9 is a summary and guide to action for our newly politicized project manager.

The book suffers from a few vague suggestions and references. For example, in Chapter 3 the project manager is advised to find ways to promote their project, without any concrete advice on how to do that. In fact, the advice given is to not "over-hype" the project and to use the promotion approach sparingly. In Chapter 5 we learn that one of the techniques of the "politically sensible" person is to "net- work and expand connections" whereas the "political shark" is said to "cultivate and use friends and other contacts." It seems to me that both of those traits involve the same behavior. It is also interesting to note that some of the same

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behavior suggested in Chapter 2 to increase the project manager's power is seen in Chapter 5 as "political games" to be overcome in organizations. Here Pinto seems to be suggesting that the same behavior that is undesirable in organiza- tions as a whole is justified on the part of the project manager because the result, a successful project, is so desirable. This 'ends justify the means' dilemma is a typical problem encountered by those who write on power and politics, and was also one of the principle criticisms of Machia- velli 's work. Divorcing action from scru- ples can land the individual in a difficult moral dilemma. Therefore, the reader needs to evaluate himself i f all of the

suggested tactics are indeed justified by the end results.

Still, I wish I had this book when I was just starting as a project manager. I may not have followed all of the advice, and I may have made some of the same mistakes, but at least I would have under- stood other's actions much better. There- fore I would recommend this book for newly minted project managers, particu- larly those with technical backgrounds for whom much of this material would be new and to whom the exercise of power and politics is often seen as disdainful. It is also an excellent source book for those studying for the PMI Project Management Professional examination. Much of the

material in this book is covered in the Communications and Human Resource sections of that exam. There is probably not enough value to warrant a read by practicing project managers, although they may find that Chapters 7 and 8 help to explain and clarify some things that have happened to them during their career. However, i f they have practiced project management for a few years, and have been successful, they have already learned the lessons in this book.

Robert Graham R J Graham and Associates

California USA

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