Construction projects can and should be routinely successful. Failed projects should be as rare as projects destroyed by natural disaster. 

   However, many projects are attempted in ways that make failure all but certain. If you accept failure as normal, "project management" can make a career of managing that failure. (Failing projects take more management time, which means more management fees.) With this approach, the efforts of competent, skilled, hard working, well meaning people can be wasted. Slow motion and well-documented failure will be the usual outcome. This approach is similar to "get rich quick schemes" and "weight loss without exer-cise programs," and it is just as effective.

   This book describes a different approach. It makes success the normal outcome for construction proj-ects. The approach starts with an attitude and a point of view—believing project success is possible and choosing it. Next, the approach adds a little humility—to see the world as it is, not as you wish it were. Finally, add facts, followed by knowledge, and then judgment. Management tools work within, and only within, this framework to successfully organize this effort. 

  These facts and knowledge are known by few, but are not hard to understand. The contents of this book provides information that will place you in the top few percent of people in the building business— including those with years of schooling and fancy degrees and certificates. Ordinary people, who think right and keep trying, achieve extraordinary things everyday. This book shows you how.