by Yasser Osman ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A quick, comprehensive guide to successful project management.
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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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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