In Projectland, Knowing the Players is Essential ​ Because people will make or break your success on a project, it's worth investing the time to get the people part right. And just like any game, you need to know the roles and rules to win. After reading this book, you will: - Understand why Projectland is different from business-as-usual - Speak the language of professional project managers related to roles and responsibilities on projects - Recognize key project roles and where you fit in Projectland - Organize stakeholders into fun categories that will aid your communication strategies - Know what to do to get the right people in the right roles and focused on the win Through clever animal avatars and colorful stories, you'll gain practical insights about the players you'll face. Plus, by magnifying your people power, you will exponentially improve your ability to navigate the tricky terrain of Projectland with confidence. ​ Dawn Mahan, PMP is an award-winning consultant, sought-after international speaker, C-suite advisor, inventor of ProjectFlo®, founder of PMOtraining.com, and has trained thousands of professionals around the world.

In Projectland, anthropologist Holly High combines an engaging first-person narrative of her fieldwork with a political ethnography of Laos, more than forty years after the establishment of the Lao PDR and more than seven decades since socialist ideologues first “liberated” parts of upland country. In a remote village of Kandon, High finds that although socialism has declined significantly as an economic model, it is ascendant and thriving in the culture of politics and the politics of culture. Kandon is remarkable by any account. The villagers are ethnic Kantu (Katu), an ethnicity associated by early ethnographers above all with human sacrifice. They had repelled French control, and as the war went on, the revolutionary forces of Sekong were headquartered in Kandon territories. In 1996, Kandon village moved and resettled in a plateau area. “New Kandon” has become Sekong Province’s first certified “Culture Village,” the nation’s very first “Open Defecation Free and Model Health Village,” and the president of Laos personally granted the village a Labor Flag and Medal. High provides a unique and timely assessment of the Lao Party-state’s resettlement politics, and she recounts with skillful nuance the stories that are often cast into shadows by the usual focus on New Kandon as a success. Her book follows the lives of a small group of villagers who returned to the old village in the mountains, effectively defying policy but, in their words, obeying the presence that animates the land there. Revealing her sensibility with tremendous composure, High tells the experiences of women who, bound by steep bride-prices to often violent marriages, have tasted little of the socialist project of equality, unity, and independence. These women spoke to the author of “necessities” as a limit to their own lives. In a context where the state has defined the legitimate forms of success and agency, “necessity” emerged as a means of framing one’s life as nonconforming but also nonagentive.