A quick, comprehensive guide to successful project management.
Osman offers tips and strategies in this manual for project managers.
An experienced project manager who has worked on many construction sites, debut author Osman never uses the word “problem” for the hurdles that come up during the building process. He prefers the term “issues,” because to call something a problem is to expect someone else to solve it, and a project manager has no such luxury. With this book, Osman seeks to explain the role of the project manager and to offer strategies for those who fill that role. He has a favorite metaphor for his field: “the construction site itself can be seen as a kind of ‘delivery room.’ ” The building’s architect is the doctor; the client is the father; the contractor is the mother. The project manager, whose responsibilities are the focus of the book, is the equivalent of the delivery room nurse “in their ability to monitor events, and to identify issues that require immediate solutions, find those solutions, and implement them.” Osman includes basic managerial philosophies, such as the superiority of matrix team structures over traditional vertical management structures and the importance of hiring team members who are more knowledgeable than the project manager in their specific areas of expertise. He then runs through a series of situations in which various construction-related problems arise and walks the reader through ways to fix them. By keeping a cool head and falling back on fundamentals like foresight, planning, and creative thinking, a manager can always keep the project on schedule and on budget. Osman is a patient, lucid writer, explaining each point and scenario with clarity and examples. He perhaps leans a bit too heavily on his delivery-room metaphor (and even spends several pages early on musing on the metaphor’s limitations), but his advice is rational and easy to follow. The book is written specifically for project managers working in the construction industry, but the fundamental managerial skills are applicable in any situation that involves a large team and accountability to a third party. At about 100 pages, the book is concise and informative.
A quick, comprehensive guide to successful project management.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 107
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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