MAD-Insights: Roman’s Top Books for Project Managers

Joseph Heagney, Fundamentals of Project Management, 4th Edition

A classic that tells what project management is in 200 pages. If you are a beginner UM and you are not told what is there for, you can take this book, read it in the evening and understand who these people are in the project, what they are for, what their main tasks are and what they want from you - this is general information, but at the start, it is extremely necessary. Also useful for those who came to IT from another field, or previously worked in IT in related positions, and now wants to move to LM - I highly recommend. For beginners - a mandatory book!

Basic principles of project management (and what it is at all), which in each project have stakeholders (and most importantly - how to communicate with them), how to build a team and make an optimal working schedule for it, how to manage cost, how to evaluate progress - that is, information without which it is impossible to imagine a project manager.  The book focuses well and helps to scatter the fog that every new project seems to be surrounded by.

PMI PMBOK (Body of knowledge) explained

In the USA, there is a PMI: Project Management Institute - a reputable organization in the world that develops standards and carries out accreditation in the field of project management. PMI released PMBOK (Body of Knowledge) - the quintessence of knowledge on project management. The book describes all five groups of project management processes, describes as deeply as possible the essence and purpose of each, as well as their integration with each other. The work is very voluminous and quite difficult to understand, requires maximum concentration and readiness of the brain for transformation, but if you don't like it, it will take your competence to a new level, definitely.

John Doerr, Measure What Matters

Here it is worth saying a few words about the author. John Dorre is a legendary venture capital investor, one of the first to invest in Google and Amazon, chairman of the board of venture capital company Kleiner Perkins. Known for the introduction of OKR (Objectives and Key Results) in major league companies - thanks to this system, Intel and Google have grown significantly, also among the adepts - Slack, Spotify, Twitter, Dropbox, LinkedIn. 

In "Measure what Matters", the author describes very qualitatively and with examples what OKR is - how to use them correctly at the level of companies, departments and even individuals. In the professional plane, the book is interesting for those who already slightly goes beyond project management and want to see the picture more widely. In the plane, the personal OKR system is useful to adapt to your own life and spread out for personal purposes - this perfectly helps to get rid of illusions and look at things realistically. 

Jason Fried, Rework

The book, which encouraged many people to reconsider life priorities, turned upside down the classic approaches to planning and organizing work, as well as their own lives. This light yet extremely powerful text, giving a new perspective on the world, makes you doubt the seemingly impeccably logical postulates and believe a little in the impossible. 

Sometimes we take great care of some things only because it is customary to take care of them, but in fact, they do not affect our lives in any way. The book teaches you to be honest with yourself, respect success, not look for excuses and remember that even a company of 14 people living on different continents can make a product for three million users around the world. 

And that much of what we are used to considering impossible is not really the case.

Robin Sharma, The 5 AM Club

One of the few authors about self-development in my reading preferences. It's not just a book about the benefits of early rises - it completely changed my attitude to motivation by showing new cause-and-effect relationships. It's about how one change in life automatically tightens up others, how to cope with your own resistance to positive changes, how you stand in your way to your own goals and how to stop interfering with yourself. And start small - it's ok! 

It would seem that the early rise does not determine the content of the whole day, but it is not quite so, otherwise, the most successful people on the planet would not be followers of this brilliant idea. The habit of waking up at 5 am forms discipline, teaches you to keep priorities in focus and keep the goal, despite a million reasons to persuade yourself that this is not the way you need it (although my option is still at 6, it is better to fit into the schedule and makes you strive for more). It's the best character training I know. 

Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

It will be interesting and applied not only for start-ups but for everyone who is responsible for the ultimate efficiency of the company. After this book, you stop relying on intuitive sensations in the project, and you translate everything into a clear methodology because it turns out that you can manage even what you previously felt completely beyond your influence. Quickly make decisions, quickly test, quickly respond to feedback from the real market - Eric Rees emphasizes that it is efficiency that can transfer the startup to the next stage of development.

I highly recommend managers of all levels and in general to everyone whose field is business: it perfectly expands the horizons and forms the right angle of view on what an effective business is. 

Jim C Collins, Good to Great 

Classics that everyone should read -  start-ups and experienced entrepreneurs, marketers and specialists in the field of business development, technical specialists and project managers.  This is not just the personal opinion of the author, not supported by anything but his authority - this is a full-fledged study conducted according to all the rules of scientific work. How to build work inside the business union, so that it is effective, what qualities should be cultivated within the team, why, in the end, someone manages to consolidate their position in the market, and someone is waiting for surrender. The book perfectly shifts the angle of view and focuses on the result rather than the process. 

"Good to Great" is among the 25 most influential books on business and management according to Time magazine - and I think this honourable place is absolutely fair. 

Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure

Code of Honor and daily behaviour guide for samurai. There is zero pragmatism, refined intuitive and irrational philosophy. The content of this book for many years was kept secret from a wide range of readers and was available only to the chosen one, but the time and ideas of teaching not only became the property of Japanese culture but also gained wide popularity.

It is very interesting to impose the peculiarities of the life of ancient Japan on our reality. The book teaches you not to rush, be prepared for everything, maintain coolness in any circumstances, train endurance, accept reality as it is, and know: whatever happens, you will decide it. The ideal textbook for both samurai and modern leaders.