Race Through the Forest by Timthy L. Johnson

This "must read" is for those that want to get things done "on mission, on time, and on budget."
- William F. "Woody" Faulk, Vice President, Brand Development, Chick-fil-A, Inc.

Johnson has captured the true essence of business woes in a fashion that is humorous, enlightening, and most important, applicable.
- Norman J. Kirk, Superintendent of Network Operations, Union Pacific Railroad

Tim Johnson has found a way to make project management seem FUN! For experienced project managers, the tools inside this book can help you keep your projects on track in a non-threatening way. For project participants, this book will help you understand why your PMs are asking for updates as often as they do. And for new project managers, this book is a must-have primer that you can carry in your back pocket for instant advice. Well done!
- Philip R. Gerbyshak, author of 10 Ways to Make It Great!

This is a wonderful book! Timothy uses the "story" -- probably the best teaching vehicle ever devised -- to delightfully convey the challenges and pitfalls of successfully managed projects. The characters are a real hoot: Barry Tortisse, Been Theer, Dun Thaat are just a few of them. My favorite line in this fable: "So, no more putting sales people in project management positions."  My personal key learning item: I had never fully appreciated the importance of the Business Case in the context of project management.   Are you a project manager? It may not say that on your business card, but I'll bet you're involved in making things happen within your enterprise. This book can help you in one (or both) of two major ways: 1) you'll learn how to contribute more effectively; and, 2) if you're currently "getting in the way of things getting done," you'll learn how to stop being such an impediment.
- Roger von Oech, author of A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative and A Kick in the Seat of the Pants: Using Your Explorer, Artist, Judge & Warrior to be More Creative

Author Johnson's fable pitting opposing management styles against one another illustrates with allegorical panache, the results of well executed project oversight. Beware the "Biffster" that awaits managers ignorant of how to effectively plan.
- Nick Wynen, Engineer

I have been reading Timothy Johnsons  new book, Race Through the Forest. Johnson is a project manager and author of the blog Carpe Factum. In Race Through the Forest, Johnson uses a modern day Aesop’s fable to explain the benefits of project management. The book follows Barry Tortisse and Biff Haire as they manage huge competing corporate projects. The tale highlights the benefits of proper project management and warns of the grave consequences of implementing projects without it . Johnson’s book is a quick, enlightening read, offering an excellent primer on the benefits of project management. For anyone interested in getting their ESI management project started, Race Through the Forest provides insight on why project management is critical to any such implementation.
- Brett J. Trout, author of BlawgIT.

Project management and planning errors are often an important cause of the failures described in this blog, so I read the recent book Race Through the Forest with great interest. The book was written by Timothy L. Johnson, author of the respected and popular project management blog Carpe Factum. Timothy is a consultant who also teaches courses in the MBA program at Drake University.
Race Through the Forest offers many project management lessons, using an unusual writing and teaching approach. Instead of being a dry project management textbook, it is written as a short novel - in fact, the book is subtitled A Project Management Fable. This novel is carefully crafted to present project management issues in a readable, light, and engaging format.
The book starts by establishing the context, which consists of two sisters running a well-established business called Forest Industries. The sisters make a “bet the company” wager, creating two competitive teams to design and build the next-generation product for the company. One team uses careful project management and planning, with all the attendant delays and management frustrations associated with formal techniques. The other team dives in quickly, hoping against hope to achieve immediate results. Without giving away the story, let’s just say the book traces both teams as they struggle to build their product.
Along the way, Timothy seamlessly weaves in project management lessons, teaching through an engaging and easy-to-read writing style. In a sense, the book is similar to a business school case study only on a larger scale. Timothy is an expert in the field and I enjoyed reading the book.
- Michael Krigsman, author of Rearranging the Deck Chairs: An Online Forum About Software Implementation Failures

One of my favourite Project Management Blogs is Carpe Factum run by Timothy Johnson. Timothy’s blog discuss’s all kinds of topics but essentially he focuses on the dry subject of Project Management (my passion). Timothy has a good blog writing style and manages to make often quite serious points in an interesting and humorous way. Bearing in mind the subject of his Blog this is a real challenge!
In between client meetings today, I managed to read the whole book in Mc’ee Dees (Mac Donald’s) during an extended lunch. So if you’re a busy professional and rarely have time to read books this is one for you.
The fable, without giving too much away, is about a company with a history of failed projects and a distrust of existing project management and their associated methods. The board directors of this company needed a specific IT system delivered to their business which would ensure the future survival of the company for the next 5 to 10 years. This system had to be custom made and despite a history of project failure, the board directors decided to build this system internally. However, for special reasons (detailed in the book) they decided to set-up two competing project teams with separate project managers to build independently the same IT system. This seemed very reminiscent of Steve Jobs (Apple Computing) who in the early days ran Apple development projects using concurrent and competing project teams....
This book is quick, low-tech and jargon free fable explaining the essence of good Project Management and a must read!
- Kevin Brady of Clarety Consultancy

Timothy L. Johnson's Blog

Other Books by Timothy L. Johnson