Total Project Control: A Manager's Guide to Integrated Project Planning, Measuring, and Tracking (Operations Management Series) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Devaux states in the preface ... "that TPC views the entire project process, from initial conception through delivery to the customer, as a coherent whole. It offers a major improvement over traditional project management..." This appears to be restating the obvious. What professional project management process and manager would not consider all the external and internal impacts on the project success?
The book suggests that professional project managers "don't" address projects as a whole. No doubt there are examples of failure, but are these the outcome of not addressing the project as a whole? Terry Williams' text provides many references for the analysis of project failures.
It is also suggested that "traditional project management" neglects this "whole." Is this neglect a result of the failure to use the tools or training that project managers already have? Is it a failure to use the standard processes - PMBOK for example? Do project managers really need a new method, or do they simply need to use the methods, processes, and frameworks already in place as a profession. Since there obvious needs for improvement in managing project, hopefully this book will answer that question.
At a detailed level, DIPP (Devaux Index of Project Performance) and other "home brew" indices, offer little in terms of newness or business value, beyond estimates already in place. Expected Monetary Value (EMV) and "real options" theory are mature performance assessment processes. Devaux takes these concepts and uses the Estimate to Complete (ETC) in the denominator to construct his index - DIPP. DIPP is not a well behaved indicator though, generating a "divide by zero" error when the project nears its completion. This is not desirable behavior near the end of a project where careful "leading indicators" are needed to produce a "soft landing."
Another major disappointment, as mentioned above, is the complete lack of a bibliography or reference materials. It is unfathomable in today's mature project management profession that Devaux would have no documented basis for his ideas. To this point there is no reference to the Expected Monetary Value (EMV) concept or risk management using EMV. Both are mature processes in project portfolio management and the risk management associated with making decision choices in the presence of statistical uncertainty.
The core flaw in the DIPP concept is that it does not consider the sunk costs of a project in the estimate of the "project profit." By ignoring the sunk cost, or at least by not insisting it be considered, Devaux creates a unstable index of the benefits of the project. By using only the Estimate To Complete (ETC) and the Expected Monetary Value (EMV) produced by the project, the past is ignored. "Real Options" theory is a much better starting point for the goal suggested by Devaux.
For any predictor of the future, it's critical to understand the concept of a posterior statistic - one in which a revised probability is obtained after receiving new information. Instead of ignoring the past sunk costs, it should be a source of information used to forecast future outcomes.
For $89.00 I can't recommend the book. At this price point there are more mainstream works with a solid academic and field experience background.

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Product Description:
New metrics for assessing the performance and profitability of individual or multiple projects-written by the creator of the Total Project Control method.
"Critical path method needed a shot in the arm and Devaux delivers it in Total Project Control. His new book is an invaluable and much-needed advance in the art and practice of project management. Every project manager (and software developer) should read this book to understand what project management is all about."-Joel Koppelman, President, Primavera Systems, Inc.
"Devaux's Total Project Control introduces a welcome approach for managing dynamic projects from start to finish."-Janet M. Baker, PhD, Chairman and CEO, Dragon Systems, Inc.
"Finally, a major shift from traditional project management theory. Devaux slams through decades of cost/schedule fixation and completes the picture. The value concepts in Total Project Control will launch both the art and the science of project planning into mainstream business thinking."-Chip Drapeau, President and CEO, Project Software & Development, Inc.
"Total Project Control represents a comprehensive approach for orchestrating and evaluating complex projects."-Alan Trefler, CEO, Pegasystems, Inc.
"Total Project Control describes essential new tools for the project management 'power user' that are not found in your favorite project planning software. These tools will prove to be indispensable for the manager who must objectively balance complex multiproject resources."-Robert Virag, Senior Director, Research and Development, Mallinckrodt Inc.
"In Total Project Control Stephen Devaux delivers a major breakthrough-all of the tools and understanding necessary to manage enterprise-wide resources in any project-driven company."-Dr. Priscilla A. Glidden V.P. of Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness, Abt Associates, Inc.

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