This book is in it's second incarnation from author Scott Berkun. The original book "The Art of Project Management", in the author's own words, "Sold lots of copies. It made several bestseller lists, was nominated for awards, and earned enough attention to send its author around the world to talk about ideas from the book."

Mr Berkun, who used to work for Microsoft, has aimed his book at experienced team leaders and managers, new team leaders and managers, individual programmers and testers, other contributors to projects, students of business management and product design or software engineering. In short, just about anyone who in the course of their work needs to organise, time manage or just run a project.

I like the author's style. I like the way he explains what to read and how to travel through his book. He told me "You are not stupid" and I appreciated that. He gave me a history of project management, just so I'd know why I should learn about it, by asking me to think about how the pyramids or the roman aquaducts were constructed and the project management that must have gone on behind those scenes. And, he gave me good reason to read through his text because scattered in amongst the boring detail (eh, it's project management after all) were some little comic gems to keep me awake. On top of all that he put in exercises at the end of each chapter to reinforce my learning and make me apply what I'd learnt to my own work environment. Thank you Mr Berkun, I think your book's a gem.

So, what would urge an owner of the first book to purchase this second edition? Again, to quote the author:

• the text is revised for clarity and concision. It's a more confident, fluff-free book.
• the addition of more than 120 thought-provoking exercises, appearing at the end of every chapter.
• by popular demand endnotes were promoted to footnotes, appearing within the chapter texts.
• there is a new discussion guide to help you form groups to keep learning.

Good Project Management and attention to detail in a Project can make or break the outcome. There are tips, tricks and good advice in this book ... like ... "You can blame people who knock things over in the dark, or you can begin to light candles. You're only at fault if you know about the problem and choose to do nothing." In "What to do when things go wrong" the advice is 1. calm down 2. evaluate the problem and 3. calm down again. Good advice and very amusing. The book earns a double thumbs up from me, and it's not leaving my desk.