It takes three to tango

Three books / three reviews!

In the past few years, I have written three books on Project Management and Control (PM), published by Springer, that each focus on the PM topic from a different angle: one is about PM research, another is a student handbook and finally there is one that gives a summary of formulas, calculations and illustrations.

This blog is not about the specific details and focus of each book, and more information can be found here. Instead, it’s about what others have to tell about them. Yes, indeed, the review process.

Unlike the review process of journal publications, reviews of books come afterwards, by readers who like or dislike what they have read. As an academic, that is a very strange process, since a publication (of a journal paper) mostly means that the most difficult and often time consuming part of the research (i.e. the blind review process) is finished. It means that there is no discussion anymore: the paper is published, the quality is evaluated, the research can now motivate other to do better. For a book, there is no such process, or at least it is not as hard as for a journal. However, readers often feel the urge to review the book once it is available. So a book review is more like an expression of a reader why he recommends, or not, this book to a bigger audience. One review process is not like the other.

Personally, I find it always interesting but sometimes hard to read reviews. It’s often so true, it’s often so honest, but also, it’s often so personal. If the review is about your own book, it’s ever harder. It’s like holding your breath for a moment, reading the review as quickly as possible to see what they have to tell about your work. And then, after reading, breathing in and out again, more quietly in case of a good review, or is very small chunks, upset with what you’ve read, in case the criticism overshadows the praise. It’s not easy to read a review…

So this is how I deal with these kind of reviews: In case the reviewer mentions weak points or parts for improvements, I immediately disagree, then after some time I admit the reviewer has a point, followed by trying to learn something from it. When I finally draw my conclusions and know how to improve the next book, I close the review and never read it again. In case of a good review, things are slightly different. In this case, I read the review, and read it again, and again, and again, mostly just before I go home from work such that I can tell at home that “it was a great day”.

That’s why you won’t read bad reviews here. Fortunately, I haven’t found any yet, but even if I did, I wouldn’t remember where exactly I’ve read them. I haven’t even done any effort to do an intensive search for reviews, but I accidentally received exactly 3 reviews for 3 books. One review per book. Nice for a blog, so here you have them:

• Review on the latest Integrated Project Management and Control book. 
• Review on the Dynamic Scheduling student handbook. 
• Review on the Measuring Time research book. 

By the way, I also want to mention that Glen Alleman refers to one of these books as one of his favourites. Thanks Glen, you make my day!