Review: Karl’s The Super-Good Project Planner for Technical Consultants

Let’s face it, projects are what IT is all about regardless of whether you manage 5 workstations or 5,000. If you’re successful to a good degree you’re likely running several projects at the same time and tracking those can become difficult. Fear not, Karl Palachuk comes to the rescue with his latest e-book: The Super-Good Project Planner For Technical Consultants.

What’s in it..

Let’s hope that the picture is indeed worth a thousand words..

And there you go – 133 pages of The Project Book, telling you how to manage the 20 pages of the Project Binder word document. The Project Book is broken down into six chapters covering introduction, project management for SMB consultants, project binder, binder forms, “running” a project and finally sample projects and some closing thoughts. If you’ve never seen any of Karl’s work before he is really good at simplifying exactly whats at hand:

A project is any undertaking that requires more than two steps that can’t be completed at the same time.

 I assure you that the other 133 pages employ the same level of simplicity to make even the most complex projects easy to document and most importantly, easy to control. In chapter four Karl wraps it all up into the actual process of defining and starting a project. Included are plenty of forms, documents as well as questions and actions you need to consider at each step as you move through the project. More specifically:

1. Project Description

2. Define Goals of the Project

3. Define Where the Project is Today

4. Define Where You Want To Be

5. Define All Stages and Steps Needed

6. Final Check-Off for Project Plan

7. Project Evaluation

Of course each of those points could take you hours or days to complete but they serve a very important purpose – they let you control what you do, how you do it, when you do it, at what time you’re complete and knowing exactly where you happen to be at a time. The art is not in the obvious (above) the art is in having all of this put together in a way that you can manipulate it a la carte as you go about your day to day job.

What is perhaps more important than anything else is the steps above are accounted for, so you bill exactly for what you do and it is clear to both the client and the consultant/contractor/employee where the project is.

More projects, more pre-filled templates, more suggestions and ideas on how to go about project management.

The cherry on top..

Half way through the project guide, which at this point shows you how to manage web site moving projects and Veritas projects, Karl departs into sample projects. For example, moving a web site from SBS to a hosting service. Then off to switching to a new ISP. Bringing email in house…

Do any of these sound like the projects you’ve done a few hundred times already?

Now quick – how many of those went off perfectly and exactly as you expected them?

There you go. That is the whole point. The more successful you get, the more busy you get, the more employees you end up getting involved in your day to day operations, the more important project management becomes. Actually, the more important the act of establishing your project management process becomes, and this is why Karl again knocks it out of the park for the SBS consultants.

The Price

The incredibly outrageous $79.99. Believe me, it’s worth it. I am not just telling you this because I get $0.00 commission from selling this book, I am telling you this because I am trying to help you save your time and your effort and get your business more organized.

What is the cost of dropping the ball? Looking like an amateur that is just winging it?

The Bad & The Ugly

Before you get your hopes up about this e-book being all you will ever need to know about projects, management, documentation and more… slow down. There are no chapters in this book on how to manage a project with your favourite PSA, there are no excessive references to implementing this in Microsoft Project, tying it into accounting…

… it is simply a guide on how the projects are established, identified, documented and managed. Which tool, which accounting practice, what language or approach you take is up to you. Karl just gives you a kick in the butt and an awesome starting point to use NOW. Open the project_binder.doc, change the names to fit your company and start filling in the blanks.

Conclusion

I often talk about being a professional. The core of professionalism, aside from honesty, is accountability. How can you be accountable for a project if you don’t have it clearly defined? How can you tell where you are in the project if you don’t know where you started, where the end is and what the next step will be?

This is what Karl and the Super Good Project Planner (lets face it, project management guide) are about. It’s $80, the best money you’ll send this week, it will pay for itself the first time you use it and I’ll be darned if you don’t find more billable time with it or at least save yourself time providing ongoing support for that project down the road.