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http://www.amazon.com/How-Doctors-Think-Jerome-Groopman/dp/0547053649

“How Doctors Think” is a series of anecdotes by various doctors, interviewed by the authour, with the underlying theme of when/why/how doctors can make mistakes.

In the sense that it gave me insight into what really goes on behind the appearance of infallible expert, the book was fascinating. The authour talks about why doctors sometimes give you a multitude of answers, misdiagnose, rush, or don’t seem to care, by giving you the doctors’ perspective on the situation.

There are two aspects I didn’t care for, both closely related. Mind you, I got the book for insight into the doctor’s life and nothing more.

The first is the advice to the patients, where the authour tries to advise patients on what they can do to “help” the doctor avoid misdiagnosis. Encouraging patients to question the doctor or try to coach lateral thinking won’t be effective for all doctor-patient relationships or situations. I happen to like asking doctors questions, for my own edification, but I don’t know if that would work for everyone.

The second is the apparent theme to doctors, to be aware of potential for cognitive errors, and examples of how other doctors handle themselves to reduce the chances of those cognitive errors. Mildly intersting, but too much time spent on it considering I’m not a doctor and I imagine most readers wouldn’t be either?

Overall, though, I learned a lot about life in a doctor’s coat, and that makes it a great book for me.

I certainly tried to understand project management. And to the degree that my goal was simply to understand more about what and why project managers do what they do, I was successful.

A couple hundred pages in, however, I find myself trying to read faster to get through the pages more quickly. When I realized what I was doing, it became clear I should just give up on this book and move on.

It may be I don’t like the Head First approach; the free wheeling mind maps, the puzzle exercises, and the repetition of concepts are the antithesis of the dense and compact style I prefer.

It could also be that I find the full project management process as described by the PMP to be about as practical and memorable as the full software engineering process described by the RUP. A coworker in project management related a view that the PMP is a collection of tools, any of which – but not always all – might be applied to any given project. That’s certainly similar to how few people use the complete RUP, but class diagrams, sequence diagrams, and use cases are ubiquitous.

So… any aspiring project managers want to borrow a highly rated PMP book?

After reading about the joys of international food, it’s time to turn to less flavourful material.

From Amazon:

Head First PMP offers 100% coverage of The PMBOK(R) Guide principles and certification objectives in a way that’s engaging, not tedious. This book helps you prepare for the PMP certification exam with a unique method that goes beyond answers to specific questions and makes you think about the big picture of project management. By putting project management concepts into context, you will be able to understand, remember, and apply them-not just on the exam, but also on the job.

I have no interest in being a project manager, but as a software architect I butt heads with them on a frequent enough occasion that it’s worth making the effort to understand where they’re coming from. I’ve also heard some good things about the Head First series of books – I picked up their version of Design Patterns as well – and wanted to see whether their “engaging” method was better than other books I’ve read.

I’m about 100 pages in so far, and it’s certainly leisurely reading. With the amount of diagrams and redundancy, one can go pretty fast.