People Skills for Project Managers

This book is really a must ! It covers motivation quite extensively by presenting various models that give different and complementary perspectives (Maslow's, age dependent, generation driven, professional development related). It also presents the classic Myers-Brigg's personality types and links these personality types to motivation factors which makes this knowledge practical. I appreciated the career tips through the book , e.g. the 2-minute introduction. This book is easy to read and provides a lot of tips from real-life experience.

This book is a consolidation of many of the concepts on dealing with people issues that I had already been exposed to during my career (i.e. Myers-Briggs, "groupthink") as well as new people management concepts and skills that I had not been exposed to (i.e. "career anchors" , advice on how to handle situations like traumatic events that impact team members). It uses vignettes to illustrate how these skills and concepts can be applied in real work situations. What I found especially interesting was the section that was outside the realm of text book theory presentation where, I assume, Ginger Levin documented her journey through the world of project management. It was a valuable "lessons learned" review of her experiences and illustrates that honing your people management skills is always going to be a continuous process. Those individual who are at the early stages of their project management careers will find the section "Career Management for the Project Manager: The Project That Never Ends!" particularly useful because it highlights people skill issues that you must consider in order to advance in your career. A section that is useful to all project managers, no matter what stage in their career they are, is "Chapter 7 Project Manager: Know Thyself, Heal Thyself", because being a project manager is always going to come with some level of stress that you need to learn to deal with. "People Skills for Project Managers" is a valuable addition to your project management reference library. I am sure I will refer back to it in the future.

The authors of "People Skills for Project Managers" have combined their formidable talents (he is a management-consultant psychologist; she is a project manager tuned consultant with extensive experience in "people issues") to produce this highly-readable book. It is easy to understand and follow, yet thorough and well-researched. People skills are the KEY to project manager success. By developing these skills, and learning to effectively apply them, a PM can avoid pitfalls that arise in working with people and their accompanying problems. There are numerous vignettes based on real-life situations and dilemmas and useful tips on how one might resolve the problems. "People Skills for Project Managers" is a goldmine of information. A valuable resource for any PM. My highest recommendation.