Jimali Software Engineering

Having recently completed the PRINCE2® Foundations Certification, I started looking for books that would help me expand my knowledge and put what I'd learned into practice. I came across this book on Amazon.com and although there weren't any posted reviews I decided to purchase the book.

When I flipped through the book my initial thoughts were "Bugger! Its a book on using Project". The title had led me to believe that it would be more PRINCE2® centric. I decided to press ahead and read the book anyway.

I'm glad I did.

The book takes the reader through using Microsoft® Project in detail. I found the authors writing style easy to read and understand. Generally speaking the quality of the text was high, although there were a few spelling errors.

I've been using Project for some time although I don't consider myself to be an expert. I obtained a better understanding of how to use it more effectively through reading this book, and "playing" around with the software. I have previously used Primavera® SureTrak and found its ability to organise the schedule for reporting to be quite good, but I'd never figured out how to do it in Project (nor tried that hard for that matter). Consequently I found the chapters on Filtering, and Grouping and Outlining to be very useful.

Whilst most of the book is dedicated to teaching the reader how to use MS Project, the author includes suggestions for how to customise the product to support PRINCE® projects based on his own experience. I found this information to be quite useful, although in a couple of instances the customisation was so obvious that I'd managed to miss seeing it. The customisations combined with the chapter on grouping and outlining made the book worthwhile for me.

What I liked:

• Easy to read;
• Lots of tips based on the authors experience;
• Explainations of the differences between MS Project and other tools such as Primavera;
• Explained how to map PRINCE2 concepts such as Product Based Planning onto Project;
• Explans the differences between the functionality provided by the different versions of Project;

What I disliked:

• The book primarily focussed on using Microsoft® Project not PRINCE2 as the title implies;

Recommendation:

I'd recommend this book for people wanting to learn how to use Microsoft® Project more effectively regardless of whether you plan to use it within a PRINCE2® project. I think the title could do with rewording, but all in all the is well written and contains lots of useful information. This is probably not the book for very experienced MS Project users as the vast majority of the book is dedicated to using Project rather than controlling a PRINCE2® project using it.