Gower Handbook of Project Management

Citation

Carroll, J.M. (2009), "Gower Handbook of Project Management", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 159-160. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538370910930581

The fourth edition of the Gower Handbook of Project Management, edited by Rodney Turner provides a valuable resource for project managers. This new edition, published in November 2007, continues in the vein of previous editions by providing an extremely comprehensive reference across many of the core project management topics. At 940 pages, the Handbook is a substantial piece of work that spans 40 chapters across four major sections: projects, performance, process and people. In the preface, the editor notes that the aim of this edition was to produce a handbook, unlike the previous edition that was more encyclopaedic in breadth. The target audience remains the same: practising project managers, people studying for project management professional exams and those seeking certification. In a number of ways this book is similar in scope and scale to Morris, P.W.G. and Pinto, J.K. (Eds) (2004) The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects, Wiley, New York, NY, 1440 p.

The Handbook has been significantly redesigned to accommodate both the growth in the topic since the 3rd edition was published in 2000 and the refined aim, to cover key project management areas rather than the whole field. It has contributions from 34 authors drawn from project management practice, diverse academic disciplines, consulting and research who provide multiple perspectives on project management.

The popularity of the Handbook is indicated by its multiple editions and the spin‐off publications (People in Project Management and Contracting for Project Management as well as foreign‐language versions of the Handbook). The scope and comprehensiveness of coverage in the Handbook makes it a valuable resource for practising project managers. The structuring of the book into four major themes (Part 1 – Projects, Part II – Performance, Part III – Process and Part IV – People) presents a refreshing alternative to the PMBoK, although it may present problems for those studying for certification or professional exams who try to map the Handbook to the knowledge areas in the PMBoK.

The sheer mass of material covered by the Handbook leads to a number of issues. Firstly, a handbook should provide easy access to information. Finding information on a specific topic is enabled by a detailed Contents section at the start of the Handbook that lists the chapter title and authors as well as the subsections within each chapter; the Contents are supplemented an accurate and easily‐accessed Index. However, the format of the book (large print on small pages) and its consequent size (900 plus pages) means that the book is substantial to carry and reading information is not easy, as the book does not readily lie flat. Perhaps any future editions could be printed in large‐book format with less pages and a greater ability to lie it flat.

Secondly, one of the downsides of the “omnibus” approach, where a large, single publication covers such a breadth of topics with contributions from a range of authors, is that there will be some unevenness in the contents. As the editor notes in the Preface, the handbook aims to provide a range of perspectives on project management; as project management is a social construct, contributions are not right or wrong. However, the target audience may find that some chapters are more useful than others. Many chapters are thorough, detailed and well‐written but I found that some chapters were superficial. For example, in the discussion of quality, it is argued that “In the Total Quality Management days of the 1980s, the customer was king. Whatever trivial whim they have, give it to them … . The customer would complain it did not work, and the engineer would say ‘That is what you asked for, the customer is king. I gave you what you asked for.’“ No only is this a sweeping generalisation but also it is not valuable in understanding the genesis of quality management. Also, in the discussion of project modelling, the author argues that modelling is important “in order for the project team to carry out rational, coherent decision‐making … ”. The definition of modelling as necessarily involving “a formal, theoretically based language of concepts … ” unnecessarily restricts the nature of PM modelling and its diverse applications in both research and practice. Thus, the handbook does not aim to be a definitive reference but rather as noted by the editor, a source of diverse and often refreshing perspectives on modern‐day project management practice.

A final comment. Given the breadth of the scope of the Handbook, I believe a comprehensive Glossary would be a valuable addition, to provide a succinct definition of the many essential project management terms and concepts covered in the handbook; its value for those studying for certification or professional exams would be significant. An additional benefit of compendium books of this nature is that each chapter provides useful references for further reading so for those undertaking a literature review the references themselves provide a good starting point for journals and other books to follow up on.