Scrappy About: Scrappy Project Management (PDF)

There are myriad books about how project management should be done in the ideal world. And the Project Management Institute has created a whole Body of Knowledge to explain and codify a nice, clean, surgical description of what a project should look like from end-to-end.
Hog wash! Projects are MESSY! From the minute the project begins all manner of changes, surprises and disasters befall them. Unfortunately most of these are PREDICTABLE and AVOIDABLE. In fact, many project retrospectives produce “lessons learned” that are identical to the LAST project lessons learned. As a matter of fact, the #1 reason that teams fail to achieve their goals is . . . well, they don’t HAVE goals, at least not clear ones that everyone agrees upon. And the #2 reason projects fail is that communication is, shall we say, less than sub-optimal – it sucks.
Let’s admit it – project management is not for the faint of heart. Many projects start in the deep recesses of some corporate hallway, and the project manager only hears about them long after they are well underway. And even when a project is carefully planned and properly kicked off, the plan changes before the ink is dry on the schedule! Tact and diplomacy can only get you so far in the wild and wacky world of project work. A combination of outrageous creativity, sheer bravado and nerves of steel will serve you far better than any fancy-schmancy Microsoft Project Gantt chart!
Scrappy Project Management® gets down to the real deal. Structured around “the dirty dozen” of project worst practices, this book is about what REALLY happens in the project environment, how to survive it, and how to make sure that your team avoids the predictable and avoidable pitfalls that every project faces.
The converse of the dirty dozen are 12 best practices for project management that have been proven to help leaders steer their teams clear of avoidable disaster and as much as double the chances of project success.