Project managers carry a heavy burden for solving any uncertainties that may be ignored in the project’s lifecycle. Their decisions are always controlled by the connection of time, cost, and quality. Well organized and planned ahead project may fall apart when unexpected things happen. How can you avoid pitfalls created by uncertainty?
The book Managing Project Uncertainty by David Cleden provides useful strategies focused on both hard and soft methods to deal with uncertainty. Keep reading the book review below to find interesting tips to manage project uncertainty.
Table of Contents
The author of this book, David Cleden, lists two main purposes when writing this book. The first one is to compile a diverse set of tools and techniques that will provide a practical way to address all uncertainties that project managers face every day.
The second purpose is to make a clear distinction between the management of uncertainty and the narrow discipline of risk management. Risk and uncertainty are not the same even though they are often used interchangeably. Even though this may seem that there is no clear distinction between uncertainty and risk management since uncertainty is the source of all risk. Nevertheless, they are two different concepts when we speak about project management. The risk management is mostly focused on quantifiable threats and the actions needed to avoid and cope with the consequences. On the other hand, to manage uncertainty requires more subtle approaches because they are less susceptible to analytical tools. In fact, to be able to manage uncertainty requires an alchemistic set of skills: science, instinct, and good fortune.
Moreover, this book covers five key questions:
- Why is there uncertainty in projects?
- How do you spot the uncertainty?
- What can be done to avoid uncertainty?
- What strategies can be used to deal with project uncertainty?
- How can the individuals and the organization learn to cope more effectively in the future?
The idea behind Managing Project Uncertainty is to provide a need to selectively draw upon numerous strategies in any given situations. In fact, it wants to teach project managers to pick up cutting-edge thinking from many disciplines when traditional risk management techniques begin to fail. This combination of techniques and disciplines can be used to face and deal with the project’s uncertainty.
The book is created either for a project management professional or a senior manager that is looking to extend the best practices in their management within an organization. Its purpose is to complement the already established solid foundation in project management basics. But those who are completely new to the project management profession can gain important insights into the challenges that any project may face in the future.
Keep in mind that this book will not discard the experience and knowledge you have gained during the years instead it builds on what you already know.
Well-written and highly comprehensive, this book is a must-read for every project manager.
It will provide you with a clear understanding of the traits, tendencies, timing, and tenacity of uncertainty in projects. The author studies how uncertainty occurs and gives you many strategies that can be immediately put into practice to face risk and uncertainty. Plus, he lists a series of preventive strategies in order to avoid risk and uncertainty. In my opinion, these strategies should be the basis of any project activity for all team members that are involved in the project.
Moreover, managing uncertainty requires more skills than just applying risk management techniques. First of all, you will need to understand how uncertainty arises, how to recognize its different forms, and what strategies can be used to deal with it.
It is a real challenge to be able to make the right decision when you are faced with uncertainty. It is common knowledge that the right decision is only good as the information it is based on. But accurate information is hard to provide, and because of this, all projects are vulnerable to the unknown. Therefore, uncertainty becomes enemy No. 1 of the project manager. No matter how many analyses we made, plans, or quantity, uncertainty always lurks to surprise us with its ambiguity and unpredictability.
But Project Management Uncertainty stands at your service providing many strategies and insights that can improve your project management skills. Plus, you will find figures such as Four Quadrants, Hallmarks of Effective Decision-Making, different types of variables involved in managing uncertainty, and many more.
To buy or download Project Management Uncertainty check out this link.
We hope that this book will help you improve your management skills to avoid risk and uncertainty.
Have you read this book? What is your opinion about it? Feel free to post your comments in the section at the end.
David Cleden is an award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction. As a fiction writer, David won the 2016 James White Award for his short story "Rock, Paper, Incisors" and also the Aeon Award for "When The Last Telepath Left Town" both of which have been translated into Italian and have appeared in the "Mondi Incantati" anthologies for 2016 & 2018. Subsequently, David was a first-place winner in the "Writers of the Future: Volume 35" short story competition with "Dark Equations of the Heart".
He is a Bid Director and consultant with more than 25 years’ experience in the public services IT sector. In addition to writing bids and successfully delivering complex projects for a wide range of commercial clients, he writes widely on a variety of business-related issues. His book, "Bid Writing for Project Managers" is a popular guide to proposal-writing success.
This book review was written by Lidija Magdeska