Why Good Projects Go Bad

In the author's earlier book, Sometimes You Manage The Project And Sometimes It Manages You, he discussed managing a project for those who were not project managers. At the end of that book, he stated that you could address any issues or problems from that initial planning process in scheduled status meetings for the project. You should use those meetings to modify the project plan and put the project back on track among other things. That is true. That advice iwas simpler than it should have been however. In reality, as part of the initial planning process you should apply best practices at each step of planning a project to prevent any future issues or problems. The earlier you prevent or address an issue or problem the better. This earlier addressing is generally less expensive and time consuming. Some issues are always going to be over-looked and some problems are always going to be unexpected, but a goal of initial project planning should be to identify them in advance and prevent them or minimize their impact. 
The intent of this book is therefore twofold. If you have read the earlier book, then this book helps you make better decisions at each step of the managing of a project as described in it. If you have not read the earlier book, then this book still helps you with thinking about those things that you should consider in managing a project in order to prevent issues and problems. After reading this book, you will be able to ask project managers and yourself questions that are more relevant and prevent or address problems or issues. The hope is that you can do that before they arise. Unlike the first book which flowed through the project definition, this book looks at issues within each area and is by nature more fragmented in that the reasons here tend to affect the area for that chapter.