Skip to Content
The Art of Project Management
book

The Art of Project Management

by Scott Berkun
April 2005
Intermediate to advanced
400 pages
12h 4m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from The Art of Project Management

16.6. Summary

  • Politics are a natural consequence of human nature. When people work together in groups, there is a limited amount of authority, which must be distributed across different people with different desires and motivations.

  • All leaders have political constraints. Every executive, CEO, or president has peers or superiors who limit their ability to make decisions. In general, the more power a person has, the more complex the constraints are that they must work within.

  • There are many different kinds of political power, including rewards, coercion, knowledge, referent, and influence.

  • Power is misused when it's applied in ways that do not serve the project goals. A lack of clarity around goals, unclear resource allocation or decision-making processes, or misunderstandings can contribute to the misuse of power.

  • To solve political problems, clarify what you need. Identify who has it, and then assess how you might be able to get it.

  • If you are involved in project management, you are defining a political playing field around you. It's up to you to decide how insane or fair it is.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Project Management

Project Management

Jeffrey Pinto
Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 8th Edition

Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 8th Edition

Jack R. Meredith, Samuel J. Mantel Jr.

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596007868Catalog PageErrata