Sam Buah - The Non-Project Managers Guide to Project Management

To my parents Mr & Mrs. J.E Buah, you raised me up so I can be the best version of myself, I remember the many years of sacrifice and huge investment into my education. Thank you.

Also, to my sister, Gladys Buah. You have always believed in my ability even when I did not see it myself. Thank you for many years of sacrifice. I would not have been here without your help.

And to you, my little brother Jason Buah and your wife, Enjema, you both look up to me in many ways, so I hope this book will be an inspiration to you. Keep pressing on. All things are possible.

And to all those who have a dream and aspiration, keep believing and pressing. It takes time but will certainly happen if you dont give up.

Can one eat an elephant whole? Sometimes, notably for those outside the profession, project management appears to make as much sense as this question. There is a kind of wisdom available for those willing to invest the time in such conundrums of course, but it is wisdom absolutely essential for anyone who wants to make a go of project management. And its the kind of wisdom out of which Sam Buah has written this most illuminating and engaging of books about a topic which is, frankly Hows your project management? not exactly something which strikes most people as a good conversation starter. You can forget PRINCE2! Thats a formal qualification, a show window in which to display status and project certified reassurance an absolutely essential resource to have at your disposal. But lets get behind the public front to look at what is really needed of a project manager. Lets take a look at those things you always wanted to know about project management but were afraid to ask.

This book will teach you all you need to know in order to begin project management. For those with some experience, it will help advance or improve your mastery of this devilishly tricky management specialism. And its a pleasure to read. You will want to spend time with Sam. He has the professional and life experience, and the rare combination of practical knowledge, academic expertise, patience and guile, that is the hallmark of people who get things done. He has worked on big projects and small projects. He can put a bridge up, build an airport, and take one down.

I was once told that a project manager is someone who does nothing but without whom nothing would get done. Its another one of those Zen-like koans that bears fruit only slowly and after much experience, mistake-making, and long drawn-out thought and reflection. The problem is that there is a rich gamut of specialist and arcane vocabulary surrounding project management that is intimidating and incomprehensible but behind which the young and incompetent typically hide their lack of expertise. Have you got your product breakdown structure? you will hear them say; Why not adopt the arrow-diagrammed method on your critical path structure?. Suits you, sir! Or, Youll probably need change control for that. Perhaps its best to get yourself a PESTLE analysis done? More often than not its flimflam, snake oil, mantra, hustle or gyp. The art of the grifter. You know these people snooping around the corridors of corporate power, collars up, ears buried in their iPhone, whispering, black-market spivs and spin doctors.

Sam explains each item of project management speak in an easy and accessible manner from which it is quick to learn and memorise. The trick here is that Sam is able to talk in two languages, or to two audiences, at once those with considerable project management experience and those who know nothing about it. Maybe you need to deal with project managers. Or you are thinking about exploring the possibility of becoming a project manager. This is the book for you. Whether you are buying a car, planning a vacation or building an international space station, you will need to be a very good project manager. I think this is what the reader will find most engaging about this book, whether you know anything or nothing about project management.

It is a pleasure to write this foreword for Sam. I was asked to write it because I once spent two and a half years doing an anthropological study of project managers at Manchester Airport Group, where Sam also works. In the kind of fieldwork I do, one has to try and acquire the skills of those one is studying. This meant I had to pass the PRINCE2 project management exams! A professor! I was teased. Youll pass that with flying colours. I am here to tell you I barely managed to scrape a pass and that after spending weeks and weeks of sleepless nights reading the PRINCE2 manual. And yet, back at university I am alone in having that qualification, even amongst those who are academic experts in the field. Some colleagues, who shall remain nameless, profess project management by day but go home to houses falling down, with half-finished timbers, faulty air-handling units, mechanical and electrical scope creep, and voids instead of soffits. How much they could learn from this book! Its another elephant in the room that those who claim expertise in project management are amongst the worst practitioners or educators.

You will learn much from this book, and if youre lucky enough you will work out in your own way why the elephant is an endangered species and what you can do about that as a project manager.

Damian ODoherty

Professor of Management and Organisation

Alliance Manchester Business School

University of Manchester

The writing of this book would not have been possible without the effort and assistance of so many individuals. I have learnt from each one of them through our conversations and from my own observations.

Ultimately, I thank my immediate family for believing and supporting the vision of writing this book. You are the ones who felt the direct impact while I spent long hours and sacrificed every little time I should have spent with you to write this book. Special thanks go to my wife Victoria and my children Anna-Darlene, Andrew, Joel and Jesse. You have been of great help on this journey, especially you, my adorable twins, Joel and Jesse. You never ceased to show interest in the book from the first day you found out. I will always remember your trademark query, Daddy, have you finished the book? and my response was always, Nearly finished. Now I can proudly say my work is done.

And to all of you who played a role in diverse ways in the writing of this book, I am forever grateful. The list is endless, hence if I ever spoke to you about this book, please note that you are the very person I say a big thank you to.