CMI recently reviewed "Project Team Dynamics".  Here's what they had to say:

 

Improving team performance must be one of the hottest management topics of all time, with almost every manager searching for the secret at some time or other in their working lives. Unfortunately there is no single secret to developing exceptional team performance, just the application of well-known approaches to good people management. These approaches are all quite simple to understand, but certainly not quite so easy to apply.

Lisa DiTullio’s book “Project Team Dynamics” is an excellent outline of best practice in forming, developing and running a team. In the first half of the book she covers all the essential steps to establishing an effective team; defining requirements, clarifying goals, identifying appropriate behaviours, agreeing the rules and allocating responsibilities.

In the second half of the book DiTullio moves on to the business of making the team work, looking at issues like conflict management, making effective decisions, effective communication, and managing productive meetings.

While there is little new ground broken in this book, it is a superb outline of the right way to run a team of any sort. It is the type of book all new managers should read and keep to hand throughout their working lives.

The author is a firm believer in keeping things simple, and here writing style reflects this. She writes with a clear lucid style that makes everything seem so easy and straightforward! The book also contains checklists and templates that can be used as aide-memoirs to take the reader through the various processes involved.

Reviewed by David Stephens FCMI