254 Book review / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 253–256
will hardly be the first choice of students and I suspect
that the principal resting place of this impressive hard-
back book will be on the shelves of libraries, where it
will become a useful reference resource. However, there
are other versions. One of these is a CD-ROM, which
includes an intranet license from the publisher to allow
its contents to be accessed by all interested company
staff. In spite of its high price, I judge that the most use-
ful format is the loose-leaf edition. Lecturers and train-
ing professionals will find that the included photocopy
doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2004.07.004
John M. Nicholas, Project Management for Business
and Engineering, second ed., Elsevier, Butterworth–
Heinemann, Burlington, MA, USA, ISBN 0-7506-
7824-0, p. 603 (paperback), £29.99
The jacket of this heavy paperback carries a blurb
which includes the following declaration: ÔThis book
encompasses the full range of project management –
everything from origins, philosophy, and methodology
to actual applications. Nicholas describes concepts and
techniques, such as project initiation and proposals,
scope and task definition, scheduling, budgeting, risk
analysis, control, project organization, and the often
overlooked ‘‘people’’ side – project leadership, team
building, conflict, and stress managementÕ. Many pub-
lishers make extravagant claims for their products but
this example is substantially accurate.
A good introductory chapter is written in fine style.
This explains that the book is a mix of the Ôbusiness side
of project managementÕ and the Ôhuman and organiza-
tion sideÕ. Professor Nicholas writes that his earlier prac-
tical project management experience included R&D
projects in the aviation industry and software applica-
tions projects in banking. Currently he teaches project
management at Loyola University, Chicago, where he
has been based for more than 10 years. The author owns
that he has drawn not only from all this experience, but
also from the published works of many other authors
and suggestions from colleagues and reviewers. Thus,
this work is a compilation of experience from many
sources. It offers nothing new or startling, but gains its
strength from the richness of these sources and the
authorÕs skill in presenting the material in a clearly writ-
ten and practical way.
The introductory chapter is followed by 16 further
chapters which form the main body of the text. These
are arranged in four parts. Everything is adequately
illustrated throughout with numerous tables and dia-
grams and the book contains many case studies. Almost
every chapter follows the same pattern, in which the
main subject text is followed by a chapter summary, re-
rights are valuable, allowing sections to be copied and
distributed freely to students as course handouts. The
accuracy and clarity of the text are ideal for that pur-
pose.
Dennis Lock
29 Burston Drive, Park street
St. Albans, Herts AL2 2HR, UK
Tel.: +44 1727 87 3246
E-mail address: dennis.lock@ntl.com
view questions, questions about a chapter case study,
further case studies, and ÔendnotesÕ. These endnotes in-
clude, sometimes with comments, a bibliographical list
of the many references used. There are three appendices,
the first two of which I feel could easily and with benefit
have been integrated into the main chapters.
There is no glossary of project management terms
and no separate bibliography, but there is a good index
of all the authors cited throughout the 17 chapters (giv-
ing just the authorsÕ names and page references). The
book ends with a fairly comprehensive general index.
Case examples and case studies are scattered liberally
throughout the work and some of these are developed
through more than one chapter. One project study, the
Logon Project, is used throughout the book to demon-
strate various methodologies and this projectÕs very de-
tailed ÔLogical On-line System Project Master PlanÕ is
presented as the final appendix. Not all these cases are
listed in the general index. It might be helpful in future
editions to provide a separate index for all the case
examples and studies, especially since this large book
is not particularly easy to navigate and the reader who
loses his or her place will spend some time in finding it
again.
Part I, Philosophy and Concepts, comprises two
chapters which discuss the various forms that project
management can take and contrasts these with other,
nonproject, forms of management. The systems ap-
proach to project management is dealt with at some
length, and there is a fairly substantial introduction to
project organization (a subject dealt with more fully in
Part IV). As in other parts of the book, there is a copi-
ous supply of real life project examples. These examples
are drawn from widely different business areas and from
projects of different shapes and sizes.
Part II, again comprising two chapters, outlines the
systems development cycle of a project. Many writers
would call this the project life cycle. However, that can
mislead because the true project life cycle does not end
until a project is scrapped at the end of its useful oper-
ational life, so I consider NicholsonÕs title to be more
 Book review / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 253–256
appropriate. The author first guides us through the con-
cept, proposal and contracting stages. Appendix B,
Types of Contracts, could have been included here.
Then, perhaps a little late in the sequence, project defini-
tion is detailed. This part of the book concludes by
describing the execution and operation stages of the sys-
tems development cycle. Case illustrations are drawn
from service organizations and government programmes
as well as from industrial organizations.
The eight chapters of Part III, Systems and Proce-
dures, form the largest part of this book. The first of
these chapters deals with Ôplanning fundamentalsÕ. It in-
cludes a good description of the initial planning pro-
cesses, including work breakdown and organization
breakdown structures, before introducing planning and
scheduling using charts. Two following chapters give a
very good account of network analysis methods, ranging
from activity-on-arrow and activity-on-node logic dia-
grams to variants such as PERT and GERT. Resource
scheduling and levelling are included. All these methods
are well described with clear examples.
A chapter on cost estimating and budgeting explains
sensibly how costs are estimated, how errors arise, and
deals well with project cost structures. I agree, for exam-
ple, with the advice given here that Ôthe project manager
should approve bottom–up estimates for work pack-
ages, but functional units should approve top–down
estimates for the work expected of themÕ. Development
of time-phased budgets is covered in this chapter along
with cash flow schedules. There is a short section on
project cost accounting and management information
systems.
The chapter on risk management follows the familiar,
logical sequence of risk identification, assessment, prior-
itization and response planning. A supplement to this
chapter includes even more risk analysis methods.
Again, this is all dealt with in a very practical and clear
way although, there is nothing in the risk response plan-
ning section on the possibility of risk transference
through insurance.
A project control chapter relies very much on the
systems approach, in which data are collected, ana-
lysed, interpreted and used in forecasting. This chapter,
not surprisingly, is the home for earned value analysis
and performance analysis. There is mention of scope
control and a good section on controlling changes. De-
tailed case studies are given. However, there is insuffi-
cient stress placed on the fact that these procedures,
no matter how well implemented and how good the
data, are all simply analytical and predictive. They
are not in themselves control measures, but only a step
towards control. Control must itself come from the
readiness of managers to take appropriate action as
soon as any variance is predicted. So this chapter
describes a good basis for control, without dealing suf-
ficiently with control itself.
255
Another chapter deals in greater depth with project
management information systems, and I was pleased
to find that the author has included examples from sev-
eral computer-based systems in addition to the ubiqui-
tous Microsoft Project. However, a reference in the
first, introductory chapter to Ôthe Microsoft Project disk
included with this bookÕ appears to be an error, since my
review copy had no such disk and no trace of ever hav-
ing had one. Artemis, Primavera and Welcom products
are among the packages illustrated and all the computer
screen prints are clearly produced, benefiting from the
large (254 mm · 204 mm) page format. There is, wisely,
no attempt to recommend any particular package, but
more could have been given on the methods for specify-
ing an organizationÕs project management needs as the
basis for choosing one (in the manner of managing
any major project purchase using a specification and
bid analysis procedure). A separate section is devoted
to Web-based project management. The final chapter
in Part III expands on the processes of project evalua-
tion during and after a project and there is much on re-
view meetings and reporting. After a section on project
termination, there is a short piece on project extensions,
which might more logically fit in the earlier chapter that
dealt with project changes and changes in scope.
Part IV, Organization Behavior, contains four final
chapters, the first of which (Chapter 14) discusses pure
project teams, the project matrix, and problems of inte-
grating small sub-units within an organization as well as
integration across different companies participating in
larger projects. This discussion on organizations is pre-
sented with sound observations on the advantages and
disadvantages of the team and matrix. Joint ventures
and consortia are not given specific mention. Chapter
14 then proceeds into two sideline topics not often con-
sidered to be mainstream project management. The first
of these is concurrent engineering, which I was pleased
to find included and know to be a working philosophy
that can benefit all the participants, including the cus-
tomer. However, the second of these sideline topics is
quality function deployment, which occupies an eight-
page section. This last section does have some value in
allowing the customerÕs needs to be taken into account
but here, as in the remainder of the book, less attention
is given to defining what is meant by stakeholders in the
wider sense and the difficulty in satisfying all their needs
(there is one paragraph on this in Chapter 15).
Most of Chapter 15 describes the roles of people in
project management and includes advice on recruiting
the project manager, complete with a collage of sample
newspaper advertisements. This is a good, exhaustive
chapter that also deals with roles outside the project
team, not forgetting top management. The next chapter
(16) continues the focus on people in projects with a
discussion on leadership and management styles, prob-
lems in teams, team building and inter-group problems.
256 Book review / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 253–256
Chapter 16 ends with a long discussion about manag-
ing conflict and stress. The last chapter in this book
(Chapter 17) deals effectively and in some detail with
project failures, project successes, and factors that
can lead to either of these results. Project failure is first
defined and then possible causes of failure are de-
scribed in detail. Similarly, project success is defined,
and then factors for project success are detailed.
Finally, there is a section that gives a ÔModel and Pro-
cedure for Analyzing Project PerformanceÕ, in which
the causes of failure and success are compared on a
force field analysis chart.
Purchased materials and services account for a sub-
stantial proportion of project costs. Delays in obtaining
materials and components can add weeks, months or
even years to the duration of a project. Yet here is an-
other otherwise good book that makes the common error
of ignoring the purchasing function and materials man-
agement. There is no reference to materials nonconfo-
rmities or shortages as possible causes of project
failure. The only reference to materials, purchasing and
the supply chain that I could find in the general index
was Ôprocurement managementÕ, which led to a brief ref-
erence in the context of project feasibility studies and
proposals.
doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2004.12.001
Purchasing and materials management aside, this is a
valuable book at a very keen price. To quote again from
the jacket blurb, it Ôis intended for business analysts,
engineers, system developers, systems analysts, and oth-
ers just getting started in project management, and for
managers and administrators with little project manage-
ment trainingÕ. I am not sure about all those analysts,
but it would certainly be of use to practising and emerg-
ing project managers. This is a work that goes far be-
yond the requirements of a textbook for MSc or MBA
students on management courses where project manage-
ment is just one of many modules – with the short time
usually available for reading they would be over-
whelmed. It should find a place among students taking
higher degrees where project management is the princi-
pal subject. University lecturers on all postgraduate
management programmes will welcome the huge fund
of case studies that can be extracted and used for group
debates and coursework assignments.
Dennis Lock
29 Burston Drive, Park Street
St Albans, Herts AL2 2HR, UK
Tel.: +44 1727 873246
E-mail address: dennis.lock@ntlworld.com