The best books to help manage projects

Information overload threatens our ability to educate ourselves, leaves us more vulnerable as consumers and less cohesive as a society, and diminishes control of our own lives. As such David Shenk offers numerous “Laws of Data Smog," i.e: Information is now plentiful and taken for granted. I was immediately impressed by his pithy observations: Putting a computer in every classroom is like putting an electric power plant into every home; education cannot be fixed with a digital pipeline of data. Too many experts spoil the clarity, and lead to the paralysis of analysis.

The law of diminishing returns, says Shenk, applied to the growing speed and abundance of information, will produce an infoglut that will no longer add to our quality of life. Infoglut is already cultivating stress, confusion, and, yes, ignorance. I have found this to be too true!

In a glutted environment, he says, the most difficult task is finding a receptive audience. As information volumes increase, our common discourse and shared understanding decrease, and people turn to niche media and specialized knowledge.

Here is something that we've all experienced: Amidst increasing distraction and speediness, beware: Lies and mistruths will move so much faster than the truth, they will too often become the truth. On the web, most roads bypass journalists, reducing the power of the press and enhancing the power of public relations. What can we do? He offers many ideas for readers, that work for me: he suggests sweeping away clutter, resisting advertising, limiting e-mail, turning off the TV, avoiding information iniquity, practicing voluntary simplicity, and reaching across niche boundaries.

James Burke is a genius who had his own PBS series based on his book, Connections. Right from the get-go, he convinced me that one small malfunction can cripple our entire technologically-based system. This interdependence is typical of almost every aspect of life in the modern world.

Burke made me realize that we live surrounded by objects and systems that we take for granted, but they profoundly affect the way we behave, think, work, play and run our lives and those of our children. If you doubt his assertion, he says, look around you. How many machines could you either build yourself or repair if they stopped working? In my case, practically none.

When you start a car, press the button in an elevator, or buy food in a supermarket, you give no thought to the complex devices or systems that make the car move, the elevator rise, and the food appear on the shelves. As such, Connections reinforced for me the notion that the products of technology continually change our lives.

Examples abound: At the simplest level, the availability of transportation has made us physically less fit than our ancestors. Most of the world's population relies on the ability of technology to provide and transport food, which is available only because of the use of fertilizers. The working day is still structured by the demands of the mass production systems.

The objects and systems produced by technology, he observes, operate interdependently and impersonally. If I step across the road into the path of an oncoming vehicle, my life will depend on the accuracy with which the brakes were fitted by someone I don't know and will never meet. Connections makes me think and that makes it a valuable text. Project managers everywhere can benefit.

Success in today’s rapidly changing business world, says Michael LeBoeuf, requires moving quickly. This doesn’t mean pushing yourself and others to work at an over-stressed, breakneck pace. No way. It does mean taking a whole new approach to working, selling, managing, and leading to speed up the business.

Much of what the author writes was new to me: For example, speed improves morale because employees are working for a more successful, responsive company. Speed also forces management to give employees more autonomy and flexibility. Perhaps most important, speed creates an innovative edge. Speeding up (shortening) the product-development cycle enables a business to bring out more new and improved products. Most important, I think, is that the business with a shorter product-development cycle gets products on the market that are way ahead of the competition.

In Fast Forward, I learned that speed pays even when things go wrong! How so? 70% of customers who complain, he says, will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint to their satisfaction. If you resolve it on the spot, 95% will do business with you again.

LeBoeuf also stresses the importance of teaching everyone on your staff how to generate new ideas. Anyone can learn to generate ideas on demand, he says, with the application of a few good idea-generating techniques. Creativity is a normally distributed human ability. Everybody has some. I'm convinced: everyone can learn to produce more good ideas by consciously applying the techniques he offers in the book. Project managers take note!

The authors maintain that everybody experiences flashes of insight: those moments when an "aha!" reaction leaves us feeling enlightened and empowered. I have felt this and you probably have too. Insights are the bits of knowledge in different parts of ourselves and they can be harnessed into a more integrated and effective whole.

Learning To Use What You Already Know explains how you can encourage insight. Consider that each of us knows more than we think we do. Thus we can employ a reflective process, described in the book, that integrates our conscious and unconscious resources, and prompts our perceptions of everything from getting along with coworkers, to being a visionary leader, to coping with technological change.  

Here are what I consider to be some of the book’s amazing takeaways: Life repeats itself until we learn. Lack of fit is not failure. If you get it right the first time, every time, you aren't risking enough. Laughter allows one to suspend judgment. When you develop your creativity, your intellect will follow. And my favorite: Rules are tools, not to be placed in the hands of fools!

I read this book, so short and simple, in one brief sitting, as the author intended, I guess. It is all about change and Spencer Johnson defines the beast through the metaphor of a mouse seeking cheese. He offers key tips: Change happens; they keep moving the cheese. Anticipate the change; get ready for the cheese to move. Monitor change; smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old. Adapt to change quickly; the quicker you let go of old cheese the better. Move; as the cheese moves!

I learned here to savor the advantages and enjoy the taste of new 'cheese,' then, to be ready to change again quickly. Noticing small changes early, he says, helps you to adapt to the bigger changes to come. Being afraid to change, however, is like holding onto the illusion that old cheese is still in place. And what makes people hang onto the illusion? Perhaps it's fear of starvation. 

Here's some wisdom from the book that I especially like: The fastest way to change, if you feel stuck, is to laugh at your own folly, let go, and quickly move on. Happily, when you are ready to move on, sometimes you are startled by what you find, such as the greatest supply of cheese that you have ever encountered. Yum!