Leadership Knowledge

I’m almost through finishing this book, and I’m already recommending this to so many of my friends.

I feel like many companies could probably save fortunes by reading this book instead of hiring consultants from many top tier firms. You could essentially take this book and follow it as a step-by-step tutorial for making any project succeed. For example, Simon discusses in one chapter the 10 steps for a successful strategic project portfolio management process: know what you have, build momentum, define business goals, capture ideas, be transparent, prioritize, use efficient decision making, establish communication frameworks, conduct postmortems, and improve continually. These may sound like no brainers, but you’ll be surprised how many people stray from these steps and lose their focus when they’re caught in the excitement of developing their ideas.

If you’re an entrepreneur with or without an MBA, this book will help you strategize and plan the next steps after you’ve settled on your block buster idea. If you’re a CEO or you’re managing projects within a company, you’ll learn in addition the early stages of generating the perfect balance of ideas and resources for creating a portfolio of projects with the highest chance of success.

Amazing book. Learned a ton so far. It’s written very well and gets straight to the point. Looking forward to other books by Simon Moore. Keep up the great work.
Rating: 5 / 5

This is a useful overview of the world of project portfolio management, it is most applicable for larger organizations who have a basic process in place for managing projects but see opportunities for improvement. I found the opening section on capturing good ideas particularly insightful, and the book does a good job of walking through the process of creating a strong portfolio management system and, more importantly, creating an environment where people will use it. Other books and guides I’ve seen focus on the theory which is good but can ignore the people element, and I like the way the book devotes a chapter to the people side of things. The real world examples were helpful in giving context, although I would have liked to have seen more of them. The diagrams were also very useful, and really helped my understanding of the topic. I appreciated the way the book went deep on various topics, and included good academic follow-up references, but also contained high level summaries of the important areas in list form. I felt that rather than rehearsing traditional ideas on the topic, this book did a lot to drive new thinking in the field of project management.

If you’re looking to take your project management system to the next level, I recommend this book.
Rating: 5 / 5

Clearly written and amply illustrated, this book delivers direct, thoughtful insights into project portfolio management. Case studies describe current management best practices. Examples of common pitfalls will help you avoid these mistakes in your organization.
Rating: 5 / 5