Acknowledgements

I first met the Management Concepts project management and publications teams at the 1999 Project Management Institute convention in Philadelphia, where I was signing my then-new Juggler’s Guide to Managing Multiple Projects. Ted Leemann, then head of the Project Management Division, was already using the book as a text for Management Concepts’ “Managing Multiple Projects and Geographically Dispersed Projects” course, and Cathy Kreyche, then senior editor, talked with me about doing a book for the company. This was the start of a long and fruitful relationship.

The present book owes a huge debt to the energy and efforts of Wen Liang of Management Concepts East Asia, and without him, would likely not exist, or at best would lag several years behind its current release date. Jack Knowles, Executive Director, Publishing, and Myra Strauss, Managing Editor, have shown exceptional confidence and trust, and provided strong support at every stage.

The incomparable Richard Vail, project management trainer par excellence, continues to share generously of his time and talent. My literary agents Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen continue to provide strategic and tactical advice, direction, gentle and not-so-gentle nudges as necessary, and warm friendship besides. My wife, first reader, and frequent collaborator Deborah Dobson, an organizational development expert without peer in my experience, helps keep me on track and always practical. Joshua Gilder of Northrup Grumman (and previously the Reagan White House) shared stories and discussed the concepts in this book on a variety of different levels.

Grant Canfield, architect and project manager, M + W Zander, San Francisco, read the manuscript and made many helpful comments. He also shared many insights about project management in the architectural and construction trades. Ted Leemann went through line-by-line in what is probably the deepest, most thorough, and most analytical critique I’ve ever received on a manuscript, for which I am tremendously grateful. All errors and misjudgments remaining, of course, are my own.