Solid book! Leading Impactful Teams is packed with real strategies for leading projects without letting stress take over. James Louttit focuses on building trust, clear communication, and setting teams up for real, lasting success. He breaks down tough leadership moments in a way that feels doable, not overwhelming. If you want a guide that’s both practical and actually encouraging, this book delivers.

James Louttit's Leading Impactful Teams, is a humanizing approach towards project management. He showcases excellent strategies to improve communication between team members and underscores why these strategies help improve the project. The illustrations and personal anecdotes add to the narrative. Overall, it was an excellent book on project management and a great resource for project managers to have on hand. As well as anyone who wants to lead an impactful team in this modern landscape.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Rating: 4 Stars 🌟

Category: Business, Management & Leadership

This book gives excellent advice on project management. I like the personal experience stories that Louttit uses to express the concepts he is trying to relay. They give a creative visualization, a great way to learn about something for visual learners.

I especially loved the quote;

'The value of something rarely bears any relation to the effort required to complete it.'

One key thing that this book helps to do is to effectively structure your tasks into 'Important' vs 'Urgent' groups. He uses several great Matrix charts to visualize his thoughts and also debunks a few common industry standards by showing their inefficiencies while rewriting some to capture the changing work environments of the 21st century.

For example, in the Louttit Matrix, he suggests that for project managers who handle teams, we need to move from being WOLFs to being EWEs to be able to effectively prioritize our work. This is important to be able to prioritize the task for effective and efficient project estimation.

WOLFs stands for Working On the Latest Fires

EWEs stands for Easily working effectively.

This book isn’t just about theories. It’s packed with real stories, practical ideas, and plenty of illustrations to bring the insights to life.

His practical toolboxes are easy to understand and can be saved for use later when working in your own teams. Every page goes beyond concepts to show how things actually play out in real projects.

This was one business book that I found easy to read (though I had to take 'day breaks' just to let the ideas and learnings sink in :) ).


My Recommendation

If you're an entrepreneur or project manager navigating dynamic teams and an environment with ever-changing stakeholder demands, this book is for you. Leading Impactful Teams offers practical strategies for maintaining structure, reducing stress, and driving success—even when priorities shift unexpectedly.

It's one of my top 10 reads this year! Highly recommend grabbing a copy.

Leading Impactful Teams: Achieving Low-Stress Success in Project Management by James Louttit (Perfect Paperback – January 29, 2024)

In Leading Impactful Teams, James Louttit presents a practical and insightful guide for project managers, IT leaders, and executives who want to drive successful outcomes while maintaining a balanced, low-stress environment. As a Senior IT Technology Executive, I found this book particularly valuable for its structured approach to managing complex projects, helping ensure that teams remain engaged, efficient, and aligned with organizational goals.

Louttit organizes the book around fundamental project management elements—Scope, Prioritization, Time, Cost, Quality, Risks, Team, and Stakeholders—providing clear strategies for each. Unlike traditional PM literature, which often focuses on rigid methodologies, Leading Impactful Teams emphasizes adaptability and the human side of leadership. The author integrates real-world experiences and case studies to illustrate key points, helping readers to be able to anticipate potential project issues and proactively address challenges.

One of the book’s strengths is its emphasis on stress reduction and maintaining a sustainable work culture. Many leaders struggle to balance performance expectations with team well-being, but Louttit offers practical methods to foster collaboration and resilience. His writing style, combined with over 50 imaginative illustrations, makes complex concepts easy to understand, allowing both new and experienced leaders to apply the principles immediately.

For IT executives managing enterprise-level projects, this book serves as a practical reference for enhancing cross-functional teamwork, mitigating risks, and improving stakeholder alignment. It provides a fresh perspective on leadership, one that prioritizes both results and the well-being of teams, a balance that is often overlooked in high-pressure environments.

In my opinion, Leading Impactful Teams is a must-read for professionals looking to refine their leadership approach, streamline project execution, and cultivate high-performing teams without giving in to stress and burnout. Louttit’s insights align well with modern project management best practices, making this book a valuable addition to any IT leader’s library.

Leading Impactful Teams was an excellent read. I liked the fact that James not only wrote about project management, strategies, tools and tips for being a successful project manager but he was practical and real. He included some of his personal challenges, failures and issues that the average PM will face and how to manoeuvre them. Happy to have read it and would encourage new and seasoned PMs to read it.

I thought this book was insightful and I learned some new concepts that I will be taking back to my job. I thought that James outlined his concepts in an easy to understand format. I loved the point he made about calculating work. If the task is going to take 8 hours to complete, don't say it will be completed in one day. You are setting your team and the project up for failure because you will likely get 4 hours of focused work on the project in a day because we are constantly interrupted by emails, questions, meetings, etc.

My current boss talks about burn down charts all the time and thanks to James, I finally understand what he is talking about! I didn't realize that he was taking this term from his engineering role and the numerous projects he had to lead.

This book does something well, which is to summarise the most valuable lessons for leading teams, project and time management.
I am sure this will be enjoyed more by those new to leading teams.

The first 1/4 of the book you read repeatedly about how you x,y,z will be covered in more detail “later in the book”.
Some parts were interesting 101s to a topic, while others seemed rather unnecessary - like reading about the author’s love for post-its and getting pages of instructions on how to detach and stick post-its. If that was meant to be funny, I didn’t really find it so.

Overall a decent intro to PM, but if you’re experienced, the book just refreshes certain motions rather than teaching you something new.

A wonderful, motivational book that will help you connect with your Project management team. Whether you're a new team lead or experienced, this book is recommended to all.

“Leading Impactful Teams” by James Louttit is a comprehensive guide aimed at project managers and team leaders who seek to enhance their leadership skills while maintaining a low-stress environment. The book emphasizes the importance of effective team dynamics, communication, and strategic planning in achieving project success.

Louttit explores the intricacies of team interactions and how they influence project outcomes. He provides insights into building trust among team members, fostering collaboration, and leveraging individual strengths to create a cohesive unit.

Effective communication is highlighted as a cornerstone of successful project management. The author discusses various communication styles and techniques that can be employed to ensure clarity, reduce misunderstandings, and promote open dialogue within teams

A significant focus of the book is on achieving success without succumbing to stress. Louttit offers practical strategies for managing stress both at the individual and team levels, including time management techniques, mindfulness practices, and creating a supportive work environment.

The book delves into different leadership approaches that can be adopted depending on the team’s needs and project requirements. Louttit encourages leaders to be adaptable and responsive to their team’s dynamics while maintaining a clear vision for project goals.

Louttit outlines best practices for planning projects effectively, including setting realistic timelines, defining roles and responsibilities clearly, and utilizing tools that facilitate tracking progress without overwhelming the team.

As someone studying for the PMP, this book provides a great visual base for anyone wanting to get started in project management. It's not so much about the program or test, but about real-world applications, tips and tricks, and techniques for maintaining scope, schedule, and budget. The illustrations are one of my favorites parts of this book.

Having been involved in numerous projects in past careers, it's so easy to get bogged down in the 'messy middle' of a project through a lack of clear vision and execution of the right tasks.
James provides lots of really insightful tips and techniques on how to structure a project using a variety of 'lenses' to keep things on track - scope, prioritisation, time, cost, quality, risks, team and stakeholders. Evaluating a project though these lenses means you're taking all aspects into consideration and ensuring all your bases are covered.
James' book takes a holistic approach to project management while taking account of all the moving parts of a project. Staying alert for risks and issues, ensuring your team (and the stakeholders) are all on the same page in terms of the goal in mind, and understanding the scope of the project means there is less room for error, and hopefully laying the ground work for a project that is completed on time and within budget.

This is a really good book with some useful tips!
Definitely recommend reading it if you’re looking for some new ideas to help with leading a successful team!

This was a great book. Anyone who has ever created a team to complete projects knows they are often unsuccessful. This book will change that.