ISQS 5359: Project Management
Assignment 2
Scrappy Project Management
Jeffrey P. Morris
R00844481
12/12/2010
Assignment 2
ISQS 5359: Project Management
Scrappy Project Management by Kimberly Wiefling was in my opinion a good read, but
seemed too disorganized for a project management expert. To extend on my disorganized
explanation, it seemed that this book was a combination of various blog posts by the author.
Generally, a blog has short little posts based on an idea or opinion of a specific topic and this
was exactly the same layout of the book. The best thing about the book was the real life
comparisons to explain a technique.
As mentioned in earlier papers, my big project for the semester is implementing a new
structure for the non-profit organization I ran. Scrappy Project Management recommended two
techniques when dealing with structure: flexibility and prioritization. “To be successful in
today’s business environment, we need to be like Gumby – flexible and adaptable to the everevolving landscape in which we operate (Wiefling 38)”. This makes sense for an organization of
any size, as you need to be able to adapt to things that are constantly changing. Originally, I
setup a very functional organization, which did not work very well because all the decisions
ended up on the President’s shoulders. After reading this paragraph, I modified the structure
slightly, where we could adjust for changes more easily – without the President’s approval.
Additionally, it was mention that “Setting priorities is one of the most clarifying things
that a leader can do for an organization (Wiefling 68)”. In the prior paper, I mentioned that I
had difficulties getting individuals to do things and did not understand what I was doing wrong.
The problem was the priorities were not clearly stated to my members, which was my failure.
How could I possible expect members to get a whole list of tasks completed, when they did not
realize which ones were the most important? So to remedy this situation, my core management
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team first made a list of tasks that needed to be completed and then we sorted them based on
priority. While this list was just realized several weeks ago, it seems to be working fairly well as
individuals know that “Policies and Procedures” is more important than “T-Shirt Designs”.
Overall, these two tips regarding organizations were very helpful and will be used for years to
come.
Another interesting aspect of Scrappy Project Management was how to deal with
individuals you are managing. Again, there were two instances that I found helpful. “No is the
answer that any manager worth their salt is supposed to give to at least the first and second
requests”. Sure, this seems quite harsh, but in all honestly, most employees ask for quite a few
things that are not mandatory for them to be successful. This helps you minimize the amount of
unnecessary requests you approve. This is good advice as it helps you prevent approving
unnecessary requests from employees. If they need the resources, they will come back with
more justification, giving you another chance to rectify the situation. While I have not had a
chance to use this technique, it makes sense why it will work. The chapter on rewards was very
useful to me as well.
Rewarding employees for a job well done (or just having completed the project) is
something that I have always struggled with while managing teams. I have always been the
type of individual who enjoys all work and no play, or at least that is what my fellow co-workers
tell me all the time. Wiefling points out that any kind of reward for your employees is an
important aspect of the project. One comment I found very interesting was “Reward is a
double-edged sword: what gets rewarded is what gets done (Wiefling 118). The example the
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author uses is if the number of calls per hours is what gets rewarded, you might have undesired
results such as employees trying to end calls as soon as possible rather than solving the issue,
which should be the metric. I appreciate the author adding in this caveat to look after, as it
definitely makes sense that this could become a problem done the road.
There were several aspects of the book, which I did not feel was a waste of time, but
more annoying than anything. First, the author decided to add in random references to other
books and movies. If you did not know the reference, it distracted you from the text of the
book, which does not seem very practical for a book intended to spread knowledge. Second,
the author used some foul language throughout the book and made several religious
references, such as people in hell asking for ice water. While it provided a good reference to
explain what the author was trying to prove – something that is not going to happen – again it
seemed unnecessary and distracted me.
Overall, I would give Scrappy Project Management a five on a scale of ten, as it provided
several good life lessons with very few chapters that were not beneficial to the reader. There
seemed to be a good combination of project management specific information, but there was
also a lot of information about managing any team in generally. This information honestly
seemed more practice than the project management aspect, which is why this book received a
slightly higher score. Lastly, the book was a little disorganized and included some inappropriate
language in my opinion, but this was easy to get over considering the overall information
provided to the user. However, unlike the first book, I would not call Wiefling an Expert.
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Works Cited
Wiefling, Kimberly. Scrappy Project Management: The 12 Predictable and Avoidable Pitfalls That Every
Project Faces. Silicon Valley: Scrappy About, 2007.
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