10 Best Project Management Books for every Project Manager’s bookshelf:

• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge

• Project Management Absolute Beginner’s Guide

• Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook

• Strategic Project Management Made Simple

• The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management

• Doing Agile Right

• Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager

• Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

• Project Management Lite

• Making Things Happen

Hey there! Today's global business landscape is quite dynamic, offering both hurdles and opportunities for companies. To stay ahead in this fiercely competitive environment, it's crucial for a company to effectively link its projects with its business objectives and ensure timely and cost-effective delivery. While scheduling and communication remain vital skills, the field of project management is continually evolving.

Whether you're running a lean startup or managing a market-leading enterprise, it's essential for project managers to stay up-to-date and enhance their expertise. One way to do this is by having access to the right project management books. These valuable resources can serve as your trusted companions, providing you with the knowledge and insights necessary to excel in your role and drive growth.

By reading project management books, you can tap into a wealth of wisdom accumulated by experts in the field. These books cover various aspects of project management, offering practical tips, best practices, and real-world examples. They provide you with a solid foundation and equip you with the necessary tools to tackle the challenges you may encounter along the way.

Moreover, project management books are not static; they evolve along with the discipline itself. They adapt to the changing needs and emerging trends in the business world, ensuring that you stay updated with the latest practices and methodologies. By embracing these advancements, you can remain at the forefront of project management and adapt your strategies accordingly.

So, whether you're a seasoned project manager or just starting your journey in the field, make sure to have a collection of project management books within your reach. They will be your trusted companions, guiding you through the ever-evolving landscape of project management, and empowering you to achieve success in this challenging yet rewarding domain.

Keep reading for a full summary of each of the recommended books. And please leave your comments below, for others in the community if these reads have helped you in your career journey in the past.

Remember just one book a month can dramatically accelerate your learning. Trust me I’ve done it.

Have a great Weekend!

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Seventh Edition and The Standard for Project Management

PMBOK® Guide is the go-to resource for project management practitioners. The project management profession has significantly evolved due to emerging technology, new approaches and rapid market changes. Reflecting this evolution, The Standard for Project Management enumerates 12 principles of project management and the PMBOK® Guide – Seventh Edition is structured around eight project performance domains.

This edition is designed to address practitioners’ current and future needs and to help them be more proactive, innovative and nimble in enabling desired project outcomes.

This edition of the PMBOK® Guide:

• Reflects the full range of development approaches (predictive, adaptive, hybrid, etc.);

• Provides an entire section devoted to tailoring the development approach and processes;

• Includes an expanded list of models, methods, and artifacts;

• Focuses on not just delivering project outputs but also enabling outcomes; and

• Integrates with PMIstandards+™ for information and standards application content based on project type, development approach, and industry sector.

Project Management Absolute Beginner's Guide 5th Edition

Succeed as a project manager, even if you've never run a project before! This book is the fastest way to master every project management task, from upfront budgeting and scheduling through execution, managing teams through closing projects, and learning from experience. Updated with more insights from the front lines, including agile approaches, dealing with security and privacy priorities, and leading remote/virtual teams, along with the latest on Microsoft Project and PMI standards and certifications and a special bonus chapter on preparing for the new PMP certification. This book will show you exactly how to get the job done, one incredibly clear and easy step at a time

Project management has never, ever been this simple!

This is today's best beginner's guide to modern project management--simple, practical instructions for succeeding with every task you'll need to perform!

* Master the key skills and qualities every project manager needs
* Learn how to lead projects, not just "manage" them
* Avoid 15 most common mistakes new project managers make
* Learn from troubled, successful, and "recovered" projects
* Apply agile, hybrid, and traditional project management approaches
* Learn the differences between a project manager, Scrum master, and product owner
* Learn how DevOps and DevSecOps impact the project manager
* Set the stage for success by effectively defining your project
* Build a usable project plan and an accurate work breakdown structure (WBS)
* Create budgets and schedules that help you manage risk
* Use powerful control and reporting techniques, including earned value management
* Smoothly manage project changes, issues, risks, deliverables, and quality
* Manage project communications and stakeholder expectations
* Organize and lead high-performance project teams
* Manage cross-functional, cross-cultural, and virtual projects
* Get started with agile and "critical chain" project management
* Gain key insights that will accelerate your learning curve
* Learn how to respond to real-life situations, not just what they teach you in school.

Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook: How to Launch, Lead, and Sponsor Successful Projects 

The one primer you need to launch, lead, and sponsor successful projects.

We're now living in the project economy. The number of projects initiated in all sectors has skyrocketed, and project management skills have become essential for every leader and manager. Still, project failure rates remain extremely high. Why? Leaders oversee too many projects and have too little visibility into them. Project managers struggle to translate their hands-on, technical knowledge up to senior management. The result? Worthy projects are starved of time and resources and fail to deliver benefits, while too much investment goes into the wrong projects. To compete in the project economy, you need to close this gap. The HBR Project Management Handbook shows you how.

In this comprehensive guide, project management expert Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez presents a new and simple framework that will increase any project's likelihood of success. Packed with case studies from many industries worldwide, it will teach you how to manage your organization's projects, strategic programs, and agile initiatives more effectively and push the best ones ahead to completion. Timeless yet forward-looking, this book will help you win in the project-driven world.

In the HBR Project Management Handbook you'll find:

• Everything you need to know about project management in practical, nontechnical language

• A definitive taxonomy of project types, from product launches to digital transformations to megaprojects

• A road map for becoming an effective project leader and executive sponsor

• A new, simple, and universal project framework, the Project Canvas, that breaks down any project into essential building blocks that can be easily understood by all project stakeholders

• Original concepts and exclusive case studies from public- and private-sector organizations worldwide

  You'll learn:

  • A common language for project managers and executives to run successful projects across your organization

  • When to use agile, traditional, or hybrid methods in your projects

  • The twelve principles of successful projects, including purpose, agility, and a focus on outcomes

  • Techniques for selecting and advancing the best projects and managing a strategic and balanced project portfolio

  • How today's projects will help address some of the most pressing global trends, including automation, sustainability, diversity, and crisis management

  • Why project management needed to be reinvented and what the future holds

    HBR Handbooks provide ambitious professionals with the frameworks, advice, and tools they need to excel in their careers. With step-by-step guidance, time-honed best practices, and real-life stories, each comprehensive volume helps you to stand out from the pack—whatever your role.

Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Solution Tools for Leaders and Teams, 2nd Edition

Learn to plan and execute projects in any organization with this practical and insightful resource

The comprehensively updated and revised edition of Strategic Project Management Made Simple cements this series' status as the leading resource for anyone looking for step-by-step guidance on project design and action initiatives.

Written by celebrated management consultant Terry Schmidt, this book fully covers the necessity of systems thinking and the logical framework approach to solve today's challenging problems. Strategic Project Management Made Simple also includes: an expanded section on turning ideas, problems, and opportunities into projects; a newly created chapter on managing your "inner game" to achieve project excellence; fresh case studies that cover how to pivot your business to meet changing needs; and a new approach, Iterating to Excellence, to create your Minimum Viable Project and produce solutions smoother and faster.

Strategic Project Management Made Simple, Revised and Updated is an indispensable volume for leaders and workers seeking to transform their approach to planning, driving, and executing projects in their organizations.

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management: The Comprehensive, Easy-to-Read Handbook for Beginners and Pros

The all-inclusive guide to exceptional project management that is trusted by hundreds of thousands of readers―now updated and revised

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management: The Comprehensive, Easy to Read Handbook for Beginners and Pros, 6th Edition is a comprehensive guide to real-world project management methods, tools, and techniques. Practical, easy-to-use, and deeply thorough, this book gives you the answers you need now. You'll find cutting-edge ideas and hard-won wisdom of one of the field's leading experts, delivered in short, lively segments that address common management issues. Brief descriptions of important concepts, tips on real-world applications, and compact case studies illustrate the most sought-after skills and pitfalls you should watch out for. This sixth edition now includes: 

• A brand-new chapter on project quality

• A new chapter on managing media, entertainment, and creative projects

• A new chapter on the project manager's #1 priority: leadership

• A new chapter with the most current practices in Change Management

• Current PMP certification study tips

Readers of The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management also receive access to new video resources available at the author's website.

The book teaches readers how to manage and deliver projects on-time and on-budget by applying the practical strategies and concrete solutions found within. Whether the challenge is finding the right project sponsor, clarifying project objectives, or setting realistic schedules and budget projections, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management shows you what you need to know, the best way to do it, and what to watch out for along the way.

Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos

Agile has the power to transform work--but only if it's implemented the right way.

For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack.

Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way.

The key, they argue, is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, and at the same time innovate. Agile, done well, enables vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to reap its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise.

Agile isn't a goal in itself; it's a means to becoming a high-performance operation. Doing Agile Right is a must-have guide for any company trying to make the transition--or trying to sustain high agility.

Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager

In today’s workplace, employees are routinely expected to coordinate and manage projects. Yet, chances are, you aren’t formally trained in managing projects—you’re an unofficial project manager

FranklinCovey experts Kory Kogon, Suzette Blakemore, and James Wood understand the importance of leadership in project completion and explain that people are crucial in the formula for success.

Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager offers practical, real-world insights for effective project management and guides you through the essentials of the people and project management process:

Initiate
Plan
Execute
Monitor/Control
Close

Unofficial project managers in any arena will benefit from the accessible, engaging real-life anecdotes, memorable “Project Management Proverbs,” and quick reviews at the end of each chapter.

If you’re struggling to keep your projects organized, this book is for you. If you manage projects without the benefit of a team, this book is also for you. Change the way you think about project management—"project manager" may not be your official title or necessarily your dream job, but with the right strategies, you can excel.

Scrum: The art of doing twice the work in half the time

For those who believe that there must be a more agile and efficient way for people to get things done, here is a brilliantly discursive, thought-provoking book about the leadership and management process that is changing the way we live

In the future, historians may look back on human progress and draw a sharp line designating “before Scrum” and “after Scrum.” Scrum is that ground-breaking. It already drives most of the world’s top technology companies. And now it’s starting to spread to every domain where leaders wrestle with complex projects.

If you’ve ever been startled by how fast the world is changing, Scrum is one of the reasons why. Productivity gains of as much as 1200% have been recorded, and there’s no more lucid – or compelling – explainer of Scrum and its bright promise than Jeff Sutherland, the man who put together the first Scrum team more than twenty years ago.

The thorny problem Jeff began tackling back then boils down to this: people are spectacularly bad at doing things with agility and efficiency. Best laid plans go up in smoke. Teams often work at cross purposes to each other. And when the pressure rises, unhappiness soars. Drawing on his experience as a West Point-educated fighter pilot, biometrics expert, early innovator of ATM technology, and V.P. of engineering or CTO at eleven different technology companies, Jeff began challenging those dysfunctional realities, looking for solutions that would have global impact.

In this book you’ll journey to Scrum’s front lines where Jeff’s system of deep accountability, team interaction, and constant iterative improvement is, among other feats, bringing the FBI into the 21st century, perfecting the design of an affordable 140 mile per hour/100 mile per gallon car, helping NPR report fast-moving action in the Middle East, changing the way pharmacists interact with patients, reducing poverty in the Third World, and even helping people plan their weddings and accomplish weekend chores.

Woven with insights from martial arts, judicial decision making, advanced aerial combat, robotics, and many other disciplines, Scrum is consistently riveting. But the most important reason to read this book is that it may just help you achieve what others consider unachievable – whether it be inventing a trailblazing technology, devising a new system of education, pioneering a way to feed the hungry, or, closer to home, a building a foundation for your family to thrive and prosper.

Project Management Lite

There is no shortage of books on project management, yet most of those guides are weighed down with tiresome project management-speak and heavy process. This easy-to-use, step-by-step, plain English guide to project management shows readers how to hit ground running and nail the completion of projects.

For beginners who find themselves in charge of a project but have no clue where to start or those who are struggling or feel overwhelmed, Project Management Lite focuses less on the theory and more on the action with simple worksheets and checklists.

Author Juana Clark Craig, PMP, draws on over twenty-five years of project management experience gained while working in Fortune 500 companies to deliver a minimalistic approach to managing your projects without the mumbo-jumbo of traditional project management techniques.

Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

In the updated edition of this critically acclaimed and bestselling book, Microsoft project veteran Scott Berkun offers a collection of essays on field-tested philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. Each essay distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice, and the new edition now adds more value for leaders and managers of projects everywhere. Based on his nine years of experience as a program manager for Internet Explorer and lead program manager for Windows and MSN, Berkun explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. Making Things Happen doesn't cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy. Unlike other project management books, Berkun offers personal essays in a comfortable style and easy tone that emulate the relationship of a wise project manager who gives good, entertaining and passionate advice to those who ask. Topics in this new edition include:

• How to make things happen

• Making good decisions

• Specifications and requirements

• Ideas and what to do with them

• How not to annoy people

• Leadership and trust

• The truth about making dates

• What to do when things go wrong

Complete with a new forward from the author and a discussion guide for forming reading groups/teams, Making Things Happen offers in-depth exercises to help you apply lessons from the book to your job. It is inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, and definitely the one book that you and your team need to have within arm's reach throughout the life of your project. Coming from the rare perspective of someone who fought difficult battles on Microsoft's biggest projects and taught project design and management for MSTE, Microsoft's internal best practices group, this is valuable advice indeed. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.