Irish International Project Manager Scores Success

Using the game of golf to illustrate a flexible nine-step approach to managing projects, "Keeping Score: Project Management for the Pros" is a unique book for project team members and team leaders, as well as sponsors and senior executives.

Step inside the pages of Keeping Score: Project Management for the Pros, where the worlds of golf and project management come together compellingly and provocatively. From a board room in New Jersey to a golf course in Cork, Ireland, you will follow a  trio of characters as they attempt to integrate three different PM perspectives into one inclusive, convergent approach.

The book sets out a dialogue between three main schools of thought in facing the future of project management. Bob Johnson represents a system or process-centred approach, Edward Smyth represents a personality-centred approach, and finally, Louise O’ Higgins brings an academic and theoretical approach. Together, they are challenged to create a project management framework or approach to assist a company in urgent need of help. Each character in this business novel sets out a case to include their ideas and beliefs in the final format. Fortunately, all are keen golfers and find comfort and interesting parallels in the game to help with their conflicts, communication, and even the very structure of the final approach to project management.

Over rounds of golf and hours at the whiteboard, they discover parallels between the step-by-step structure of project management and the hole-by-hole nature of golf. Whether you are an executive, a professional project manager or someone who occasionally manages projects, Keeping Score offers valuable lessons and clever insights that you can implement in almost any work environment.

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Frank Ryle (B.E. C Eng, FIEI, PMP) worked for Arup International in Russia, Australia, PNG, Ireland, UK and the USA where he was responsible for project management. He also worked for Cadbury Schweppes from 1995 to 1997 as a construction manager and as the first production manager for their new Chocolate factory in Russia. He has made a Fellow of the Irish Engineering Institute in 1993 and a PMP in 1999. He currently works with the International Institute for Learning (IIL) and has trained over 10,000 students in 22 countries across a wide range of industries in organisations such as Goldman Sachs, UBS, E&Y, SAP, Murex, DB, SITA and others. He is married with two children and lives between London and Princeton and is a passionate teacher and single figure golfer.