12/13/15

The Essentials of Project Management, 4th Edition

By Dennis Lock
(Review by R. Max Wideman, FPMI)
The views expressed in this article are strictly those of Max Wideman.
The contents of this book under review are the copyright property of author Dennis Lock.
Published here January 2016
Introduction
Author Dennis Lock is no stranger to these pages. In past years we have published reviews of several of
his books including in particular: Project Management Tenth Edition.1 We mention this book in
particular because as Dennis says in his Preface:
"The first edition of this book resulted from a suggestion from Gower2 that I might
produce a prcis of my larger work, Project Management. This recognized that not all
students and practicing project managers needed the comprehensive coverage of the
larger work.
I have always been aware of the need to keep this book of Essentials in step with its
mother text and other project management development. So this fourth edition is the
junior complement to the tenth edition of Project Management, which was published in
2013. It is intended for practising managers, and for students where project management
is one module in their degree syllabus."
Further, Dennis concludes his Preface with these words:
"I am always grateful to serious reviewers and I am particular indebted this time to Max
Wideman for reviewing two of my other recent books thoroughly and sympathetically.
His comments on those works led me to make some corrections in this revised text."
Thank you Dennis for this public recognition, which is much appreciated.
But with such an accolade in public print, I must now be careful to avoid any suggestion of collegial
back scratching, whether good or otherwise. So this time, contrary to usual practice, we'll skip the "What
we liked" and "Downside" sections and simply make comment on a few items that we found of
particular interest.
The target audience for this work is, of course, anyone who is interested or already involved in serious
project management of whatever area of application. Even those whose primary interest is in pursuing
an "Agile" approach, mainly in Information Technology projects, will find a lot to learn from the book's
broad but lightly-handled coverage.
This book is well written in a clear style. The text is augmented with ample diagrams, figures and tables
to ensure the reader's understanding and thus makes for easy reading. True that the text is a digest of a
much larger work and might therefore be classified as "Introductory", nevertheless it provides sound
basic advice across a whole range of project management art.
About the author
Dennis Lock is a freelance writer who specializes in project management. His wide industrial experience
has included successful management positions in sub-miniature electronics, defence systems, heavy
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engineering and international mining. He has fulfilled consultancy assignments in Britain and over seas,
and in more recent years has taught project management to masters degree students as an external
lecturer at two British universities. Dennis is a Fellow of APM, Fellow of the Institute of Management
Services and a Member of the Chartered Management Institute. He has written or edited over 60
management books, mostly for Gower Publishing Limited.
Book Structure
The content of this book is set out in thirteen chapters and one Appendix as follows:
Preface
1. Introduction to Projects and their Management
2. Defining the Project Task
3. Estimating the Project Costs
4. Managing Risk
5. Organizing the Project
6. Work Breakdown Structures
7. Planning the Timescale
8. Scheduling Project Resources
9. Implementing the Project Plan
10. Managing Purchasing
11. Managing Changes
12. Managing Costs
13. Corporate Managers' Support for the Project Manager
Selected Bibliography
The book has a total of 213 pages and the Appendix provides a useful and wide-ranging set of references
but the book does not include a Glossary of Terms.
An important observation about this book in general is that the majority of the author's background has
been with organizations that buy-in product development services under contract. That is to say, projects
are executed by contractors. Thus the author is comfortable using the word "contractor" to refer to the
performing organization, even though that "performing organization" is simply a group of people drawn
from the organization's internal resources. Here is what Dennis has to say about this organizational
arrangement:3
"Many projects are carried out by a contractor for an external organization (the
customer). The customer and contract agree terms and prices in a contract. However, this
arrangement is clouded for some management change projects, where much of the work
is conducted by employees of the organization itself. Then the organization is both
contractor and its own customer. For simplicity, I shall use the term contractor
throughout this book to describe whoever carries out the project work and customer to
describe the owner of the project, regardless of whether the customer and contractor
reside in the same organization."
This strategy by the author certainly simplifies the contents of the book. Unfortunately, where projects
are conducted "in-house", typically the staff is on the corporate pay role and their time is not specifically
allocated to projects but rather to other headings of more interest to corporate finance. Hence, gathering
project production cost data is not seen as a necessity and consequently not seen as a constraint on the
work, as it is when the work is done under contract.
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Perhaps that is why Agile Project Management is so popular, and more appropriate, for in-house project
work, especially where information technology is concerned.
Pearls of Wisdom In general
It is said, "A picture is worth a thousand words". This figure comes close:4

Figure 1: Typical life cycle (life history) of a large project

Note that this is a large project covering an eight-year period, and in the author's mind "Project
Management" is called up only over a short period between milestone: "6 Authorization" and milestone:
"13 Handover". This stance is not unusual. However, the "Project" itself starts at milestone "1 Original
Concept". That's when serious money starts flowing, and those expenditures may well be capitalized as a
part of the project cost, at least partially.
If this is true, then shouldn't activities 2 through 5 also be "project managed"?
Indeed, the author cites the case of implementing large-scale organizational change initiatives, where
staff resist change, have concerns over possible redundancies, or simply resent coping with the teething
problems that inevitably arise. But as Dennis observes:5
"In recent years these difficulties have led to new ways of assessing and managing the
benefits realization of management of change and IT projects. It is now recognized that
the benefits realization process should start during early project definition by establishing
benchmarks that can be put in place in the business plan. These benchmarks have some
similarity with the milestones set in the project execution plans of all projects, but for
management change and IT projects there are two important differences:
1. The most important benchmarks often occur some time after initial handover . . .
2. Each benchmark must be directly associated with a cash inflow, cost saving or
other real benefit that can be tracked to a favorable entry in the company's
accounts or management reports."
There's nothing like optimism! What if the project is an "enabler" project, just one steppingstone on the
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way to a larger end goal? Or maybe it is a part of a group of projects that are all necessary for the whole
system to work. Who is to say what benefit is attributable to which project? Besides, who is collecting
that kind of data in the first place? Collection of benefits data and allocation to corresponding projects is
fraught with difficulties.
In this book, Dennis postulates four main project types:6
1. Civil engineering, construction, petrochemical, mining and quarrying projects
2. Manufacturing projects
3. Management and business change projects
4. Scientific research projects
Each type is described in some detail. However, the author warns the reader that: "This book is generally
concerned with projects that can be defined, as described in the [descriptions of the] first three
categories listed."7
Pearls of wisdom Specific techniques
The technique of Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) is probably one of the most important in project
management. Dennis describes the WBS Concept, suggests alternative patterns, and provides examples
in easily understood terms, together with logical coding systems for larger projects.8 The WBS is the
prerequisite to satisfactory Planning and Scheduling.
As an example of poor time scaling, he observes:9
"Whenever any job has to be finished within a time deadline, it is advisable to have some
idea of the relationship between the time needed and the time available. This is true for
any project, whether a dinner is being prepared, or a motorway constructed. In the first
case one would be ill advised to tell guests 'Dinner is at seven but the potatoes will not
be ready until 7:30.'"
Estimating, essentially for costing and scheduling in the course of planning and scheduling, is generally
accepted as a fundamental skill for acceptable project management. Where this is not the case, and cost
and time estimating take a back seat on a project, it may be claimed that what is going on is not project
management at all, but rather product development management. This situation is most prevalent in the
case of in-house projects for the reasons mentioned earlier.
Dennis devotes several chapters to these and related topics of estimating, but first he takes aim directly
at estimators and their skills. As he says: "Project cost estimating, particularly for labour times, is not an
exact science."10 Consequently there tends to be "Optimistic Estimators; Pessimistic Estimators; and
Inconsistent Estimators."11 Conceptually, "There is a possibility of finding a person capable of providing
estimates that prove to be consistently accurate. This possibility is so remote that it can almost be
discounted."12 Bottom line; know your estimators' strengths and weaknesses.
But estimating on a project is not a full time activity, so where should these expert folks reside? Dennis
has the answer of course. As he says:13
"Unless the organization is too small to support the additional expense, it makes sense to
set up a central project management support or project services group, usually called a
project management office.

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This is staffed with people (not too many!) who are capable of the day-to-day chores of
planning; resource scheduling, cost estimating, work progressing, cost and progress
reporting and general supervision of the company's project management computer
applications."
On the subject of Managing Risk, Dennis opens this chapter with the observation: "Everything we do,
from getting out of bed in the morning to returning there at night, carries risk."14 He might have added
that there is also a risk of being in bed, but let's not go there. Projects are susceptible to particular risks
that Dennis then describes in general terms, followed by the current standard approach to Managing
Risks in projects.15
It is not until Chapter 9, however, that we get to actually "Implementing the Project Plan".16 Hopefully
all of the likely problems have been anticipated by this time, but not necessarily. As Dennis observes:17
"Even when a clear technical specification has been prepared [How many times is that?!]
there are often many loose ends to be tied up before actual work can start. The extent and
nature of these preliminary activities naturally depend on the type and size of project."
Nevertheless, problems will be encountered, especially those that require fast action and innovative
solutions. Hopefully, the project manager will take the time to write up the challenge, the adopted
solution, and report the resulting success. And even more hopefully, this report will find its way into the
project's final "Lessons Learned" report. However, such reports are rarely couched in terms that are
useful to project managers on subsequent projects even assuming that these reports are pulled out and
studied.
Dennis Lock is a great man for Checklists, checklists that cover anything and everything that is likely to
be repetitive, checklists that list a set of relevant questions and imply the answers that will pre-empt
information requirements. What better place then for aggregating Lessons Learned, suitably converted
into Q&As, and adding them to the relevant checklist, e.g., Project Startup, "so that lessons learned on
each project are remembered and put to use on projects that follow?"18
Summary
As we have attempted to show, Dennis Lock's book The Essentials of Project Management does indeed
cover the Essentials of Project Management. As well as the copious illustrations, the text is also helped
along with many short case examples taken from every day life. It does all this in a way that will be
enlightening to the new comer as much as a useful memory jogger for those practicing project managers
with experience but who need a helpful reminder from time to time.
In short, the book is full of good advice and is well worth keeping close by on the bookshelf.
R. Max Wideman
Fellow, PMI

Lock, Dennis, Project Management Tenth Edition, Gower Publishing Ltd, Surrey, England, 2013; Naked Project
Management, the Bare Facts, (ditto, 2013); and Handbook of People in Project Management, (ditto, 2013).
2
Gower is the publisher
3
Lock, Dennis, The Essentials of Project Management Fourth Edition, Gower Publishing Ltd, Surrey, England,
2014, p3
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Ibid, p5, Figure 1.2 in the book

Ibid, p11
6
Ibid, p2
7
Ibid, p3
8
Ibid, Chapter 6 pp67-81
9
Ibid, 84
10
Ibid, p35
11
Ibid, pp35-36
12
Ibid, p36
13
Ibid, p65
14
Ibid, p44
15
Ibid, Chapter 4, pp43-50
16
This observation is not intended to be derogatory. Many books on project management deal only with the
planning of same, and never get to advice on actually managing the work.
17
Ibid, 124
18
Ibid, p128
5

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