I’m fascinated by what happens to books after they’re bought. Are they put on shelves, never even cracked open? Or are dog-earned, coffee-stained and highlighted until the cover falls off? Do they live on as doorstops or part of a makeshift shelf, or lie on the floor collecting dust.

I used to think books should be treated with care and kept in perfect condition, but as I’ve gotten older I find more appeal in signs of use. Nothing honors a thing more than using it well and it should show (Roughly the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi).

Over the last year a few folks have sent me photos of what they’ve really done with the artofpm book. Some are funny, some are sad, but it’s all honest and I love it.

Here are some, but I’d love to see yours: where is the book now? what funny things have you done with it? Post a photo or comment.

Posted in The Art of PM book | 2 Comments »

In the unexplainable department: I have a copy of the artofpm in my office that’s already been personally signed for someone named Edward. I have no idea at this point who Edward was or why I signed a copy for him.

As it’s not much good to the largely non-Edward named population I don’t really know what to do with it. So:

The first person named Edward that leaves a comment gets it sent to them.

Posted in The Art of PM book | 6 Comments »

Are you, or is someone you know, currently working full time at a start-up company? Do you like free copies of bestselling books? Then read on.

I’m trying to learn if anything I said in the art of project management applies well to start-up environments. While some chapters don’t work as well as others, my hypothesis is that much of it holds together for any kind of organization. Decisions, leadership, and chaos are part of all projects, startup or not.

But I want to test the hypothesis instead of pretending I’m right.

I have 5 copies of the book ready to go - if you want one, here’s how you qualify:

1. Leave a comment with your name, or contact me here.
2. Include a link to your start-up’s website. No website, no book.
3. Give me an address to send the book.
4. Swear on your favorite person that you’ll read 4 or more chapters in the next month and send some feedback.

That’s it. I’ll sign each one personally for you and send it on it’s way.
Of couse if you’ve read the book already and work at a start-up, I’d love to hear what you have to say. Depending on what I learn, perhaps there’s an “artofpm for startups” edition in the future.

Posted in The Art of PM book | 23 Comments »

Recent article about the Do-it-yourself MBA movement mentions The art of project management as a popular book among these groups, specifically the Personal MBA run by Josh Kaufman.

Can a personal MBA match the real McCoy?

(Thanks to faisal.com for the link)

Posted in The Art of PM book | 1 Comment »

My first book was published almost a year ago - While no one can predict book sales, that hasn’t stopped people, especially writers, from trying.

Below you’ll find a year’s worth of amazon.com sales data for The art of project management (provided by rankforest.com) with notes on my activities (This starts 4 weeks after the book was in stores because I didn’t know about rankforest until then). There are problems with amazon rankings, but they’re an easy indicator to track.

Here is the promotion rundown from 5/1/2005 to today:

• I used my newsletter, monthly essays and this blog to announce the book and get my writing out there.
• I created a postcard, and distributed it whenever I lectured.
• I did two self-organized book tours: one in the bay area (w/lessons learned) at book launch, and east coast 5 months later.
• I did one comically bad radio interview, two podcasts (at baychi and podtech), several web interviews and one webcast. I said yes to all credible requests (and still do).
• O’Reilly promoted the book in their catalog, website and bestseller list (once it got there), and invited me to write a few pieces for their website. They posted a sample chapter and allowed slashdot to excerpt another. Kathryn Barrett, publicist for O’Reilly, was fantastic, generously sending out reviewer copies to folks willing to write reviews for websites and magazines.
• This blog generates good traffic but most peaks in web traffic were driven by new essays.

Who knows if these efforts help - plenty of books do well without things like this, and many with big promotion budgets do poorly. It’s complex and a topic for another post.

However it happened, the book has been a big success. Thanks to all of you for visiting, reading, buying and spreading the word about the book. Every sale motivates me to work that much harder and write that much more.

The pairing of writing books and being for hire as a trainer/consultant feeds off each other: people who like the book often hire me and people who hire me often buy the book. So for any would-be writers out there, this is a great approach for a first book.

I’m doing well and have signed to write a second book for O’Reilly - I’m on track to put another dent in that shelf.

For fun, comparative data is listed for Malcom Gladwell’s book “Blink”. Not sure what happened to him on 10/16, but it looks like he survived his largest rank-drop: from the teens down to 57.

Posted in On writing, The Art of PM book | 10 Comments »

The nominations are in: The art of project management is a finalist for the 2006 Jolt Awards, sponsored by CMP.

Here are the General book nominations:

• Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become by Peter
  Morville (O’Reilly)
• Best Software Writing by Joel Spolsky (Apress)
• Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy by Ron
  Goldman and Richard P. Gabriel (Morgan Kaufmann)
• Prefactoring by Ken Pugh (O’Reilly)
• Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software
  Project by Karl Fogel (O’Reilly)
• The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun (O’Reilly)
• The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by
  Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Posted in The Art of PM book | 3 Comments »

SlackerManager has a fresh review of art of PM:

This is a really great book and ought to have a permanent place on any manager’s (not just project managers) desk. Highly recommended for managers of all experience levels.

Full review

Posted in The Art of PM book, artofpm reviews | No Comments »

For all you Microsofties, I’m speaking on the main campus next week. If you the have a copy of the book, bring it and I’ll sign it (or anything else you bring) for ya afterwards.

Topic: Why smart people defend bad ideas
Date: Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Time: 12:00 P.M. – 1:30 P.M.
Location: 34/2615 Quinault

Posted in On Tour, The Art of PM book | No Comments »

Earlier today a brief review and chapter excerpt (13: How to make things happen) appeared on slashdot.org.

I’ve been reading a new book from O’Reilly which, despite my intense aversion to books of this type, outshines its class. Scott Berkun, has written The Art of Project Management. While my own review of it is tardy and still forthcoming, he & the fine folks at ORA have sent us an excerpt. Below is Chapter 13 - well worth reading, and getting the book.

Check it out.

Posted in artofpm reviews | 2 Comments »

Still seeing some reviews come in which I’m grateful for, 5 months after the book has been out. Most folks don’t know it but the window for books is small: if it’s not picked up in reviews soon after publication, odds are slim anyone will ever even hear about it.

My own interests aside, any time you write a blog post or amazon review for a book, it makes a huge difference to us authors. Even if sales don’t follow, it’s super validating to any author to hear the book meant something to someone. I hope to write more book reviews myself here.

MSDN Magazine had a short review of artofpm:

Scott gives you project management concepts in simple steps, using lots of examples of successes and failures from his own experiences, and he is always considering the “people” factor. With all the emphasis on tools and process that we have today, it’s refreshing to see a book on project management that spends as much time on human factors as it does on technical tools and metrics.

This book is a candid and honest piece of work written by someone who has really been there, done that, and is willing to share.

Boxes and arrows, a webzine about information architecture and UX, had this review:

This is a comprehensive, how-to book devoid of jargon and theory. The author gives direct advice from his own experience. The real value of this book, though, is that it is not about a single methodology for project management, nor is it just for project managers. Instead, Berkun is able to speak about project management at its highest-level without filtering it through a given approach. It is deep enough to keep seasoned project managers reading, but also appealing to non-project managers. I’d recommend this book to anyone looking to improve general project skills.

Posted in The Art of PM book, artofpm reviews | 1 Comment »

Well, that was fast. The fine folks at CMP and Dr. Dobbs Journal have made this talk available online in under 24hrs.

The Art of Project Management: This event can be viewed on-demand at your convenience.

The original event was broadcast on:
Date: Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Time: 11:00 AM PDT
Duration: 60-minutes

Description: During the session, Scott will present perspectives and techniques for project management from his recently-published book that has already sold over 20,000 copies. Learn from this veteran manager of software and web development how to plan, manage and lead projects. Scott goes beyond the book, talking about the fine print of leadership, attention/intuition/conviction, and tactics for working with others.

Posted in On Tour, The Art of PM book | No Comments »

Just wanted to thank everyone that watched the broadcast online - thanks for tuning in. I had fun and hopefully kept you awake, if not entertained. We had almost 500 people, which I’m told is a record.

In a few days the ondemand version of the program will be up here - so anyone can watch it at any time. I’ll post when it’s ready.

Posted in On Tour, The Art of PM book | 4 Comments »