Avoiding Project Disaster: Titanic Lessons for It Executives (Lessons from History) - Softcover

Kozak-Holland, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1895186730 ISBN 13: 9781895186734

Publisher: Multi-Media Publications Inc, 2006

Synopsis

Titanic's maiden voyage was a disaster waiting to happen as a result of the compromises made in the project. This book explores how non-IT executives can take lessons from a nuts-and-bolts construction project like Titanic and use those lessons to ensure the right approach to developing on-line operations. Looking at this historical project as a model cuts away the layers of IT jargon and complexity.

Avoiding Project Disaster is about delivering IT projects in a world where on-time and on-budget is not enough. It will help you successfully maneuver through the ice floes of IT project management in an industry with a notoriously high project failure rate. This book outlines the stages involved in creating mission critical services and the underlying environment to support these. Specifically, the book provides the non-technical manager a step-by-step guide to the deliverables that the IT department should produce at each stage of the creation process.

The book enlightens the non-technical manager to the fact that a considerable part of the effort is in realigning the organization and procedures rather than technology. Knowing the rationale for and the timing of deliverables enables the non-IT manager to be a full participant in the creation process. The book leaves the reader with a simple philosophy: namely, focus your IT investments on getting your organization and procedures aligned and you can get best-in-class results from your technology.

The book uses close to 90 figures and more than 40 tables for clarification of major concepts through detailed models, e.g., Change Management (9-step model) and Problem Management (4-step model).

About this title

About the Author

Mark is a PMP and a Senior Business Consultant and certified in the Consultant Profession. He specializes in helping organizations evaluate how emerging technologies can impact their business. Mark puts a different spin on complex business problems by applying lessons from history. In his book series, Lessons-from-History, he uses relevant historical case studies to examine how projects and emerging technologies of the past solved complex problems. Mark believes history has great relevance in business today. A good analogy helps to simplify, frame and put today's complex projects into context. It builds up a better understanding and enhances reader retention.
 
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From the Inside Flap

I want to start with a statement that this book, although aimed at IT executives, contains valuable information for executives in any part of an organization. Project disaster can happen to anyone at anytime. All projects should be on-time and on-budget no matter where they exist. So where do you start? You start by having a copy of this book and read it from cover to cover, make notes, and review everything with your team.

You will begin with your strategy. What industry does not need to define a strategy? Anything from stating the problem, creating a solution, resource requirements, to return on investment, should come into play no matter what the project. IT executives tend to fall into this far more often than any other executive and this book addresses a number of the issues through example. What better teacher than projects that have not made the grade.

It has been said that Edison found thousands of ways that his inventions did not work and those so called failures were the teaching tools for the successes that followed. Any IT executive that has never reached the point of failure still has a lot to learn. Kozak-Holland presents project disasters where the reader may gain experience through learning what did not work, even though the procedures were put in place to prevent disasters. Following the book to the letter will not necessarily help to avoid disaster; it simply provides a road map to guide your judgment. For example, the author talked about avoiding percentages because peak periods are not taken into consideration. If percentages are used, then disasters are more than likely to occur. Good advice!

So what does this book provide for the reader? "Avoiding Project Disaster" is a plethora of information on how problems can interfere with a project and solutions for avoiding most of those problems. The key message is to monitor the project at all times and never let down your guard. The book will guide any IT executive through the project maze. If you are at all involved with managing projects, then this book is a necessary tool for your team. Do not start your next project without it.

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]
--Bette Daoust

Edition details

• Publisher: Multi-Media Publications Inc
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1895186730
• ISBN 13: 9781895186734
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 312