Project Management in Practice: (Delisted)

The updated 6th Edition of Project Management in Practice provides streamlined coverage with an applied approach, focusing on the essentials of project management. This concise, hands-on text is ideal for a one semester project management course, or as a module on project management. This textbook is organized around the project management life cycle, and provides students with essential project management concepts while addressing an important area of industry growth: the use of projects to achieve the strategic goals of organizations.

Table of Contents:
1 The World of Project Management 1 1.1 What Is a Project? 1 Trends in Project Management 3 1.2 Project Management vs. General Management 4 Major Differences 4 Negotiation 5 1.3 What Is Managed? The Three Goals of a Project 7 1.4 The Life Cycles of Projects 10 1.5 Selecting Projects to Meet Organizational Objectives 11 Nonnumeric Selection Methods 12 Numeric Selection Methods 13 1.6 The Project Portfolio Process 22 Step 1: Establish a Project Council 23 Step 2: Identify Project Categories and Criteria 23 Step 3: Collect Project Data 25 Step 4: Assess Resource Availability 25 Step 5: Reduce the Project and Criteria Set 25 Step 6: Prioritize the Projects within Categories 26 Step 7: Select the Projects to Be Funded and Held in Reserve 26 Step 8: Implement the Process 26 1.7 The Materials in this Text 27 Review Questions 29 Discussion Questions 29 Problems 30 Incident for Discussion 31 Case: United Screen Printers 31 Case: Handstar Inc. 32 Bibliography 34 2 The Manager, the Organization, and the Team 35 2.1 The PM’s Roles 36 Facilitator 36 Communicator 38 Virtual Project Manager 39 Meetings, Convener and Chair 40 2.2 The PM’s Responsibilities to the Project 41 Acquiring Resources 41 Fighting Fires and Obstacles 42 Leadership and Making Trade-Offs 42 Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Persuasion 43 2.3 Selection of a Project Manager 44 Credibility 44 Sensitivity 45 Leadership, Style, Ethics 45 2.4 Project Management as a Profession 47 2.5 F itting Projects Into the Parent Organization 48 More on “Why Projects?” 48 Pure Project Organization 50 Functional Project Organization 51 Matrix Project Organization 52 Mixed Organizational Systems 55 The Project Management Office and Project Maturity 55 2.6 The Project Team 57 Matrix Team Problems 58 Intrateam Conflict 59 2.7 Multidisciplinary Teams—Balancing Pleasure and Pain 62 Integration Management 63 Interface Coordination—Interface Management 64 The Design Structure Matrix 65 Comments on Empowerment and Work Teams 66 Review Questions 69 Discussion Questions 69 Incidents for Discussion 70 Case: The Quantum Bank 70 Case: Southern Care Hospital 72 Bibliography 73 3 Project Activity and Risk Planning 76 3.1 The Basis of a Project Plan—The “Project Charter” 76 3.2 The Planning Process—Overview 79 3.3 The Planning Process—Nuts and Bolts 81 The Launch Meeting—and Subsequent Meetings 81 Sorting Out the Project—The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 83 Extensions of the Everyday WBS 85 3.4 More on the Work Breakdown Structure and Other Aids 92 The Raci Matrix 92 A Whole-Brain Approach to Project Planning 94 3.5 R isk Management 97 Risk Management Planning 98 Risk Identification and Qualitative Risk Analysis 98 Quantitative Risk Analysis 99 Risk Response Planning 102 Risk Monitoring and Control 103 Review Questions 104 Discussion Questions 104 Problems 105 Incidents for Discussion 106 Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility—1 106 Case: John Wiley & Sons 108 Case: Samson University 109 Bibliography 110 4 Budgeting the Project 112 4.1 Methods of Budgeting 113 Top-Down Budgeting 115 Bottom-Up Budgeting 116 4.2 C ost Estimating 117 Work Element Costing 117 The Impact of Budget Cuts 118 An Aside 119 Activity vs. Program Budgeting 121 4.3 Improving Cost Estimates 122 Forms 123 Learning Curves 123 Tracking Signals 126 Other Factors 128 4.4 Budget Uncertainty and Project Risk Management 130 Budget Uncertainty 130 Project Budgeting in Practice 133 4.5 Project Risk Simulation with Crystal Ball® 134 Considering Disaster 143 Review Questions 144 Discussion Questions 144 Problems 144 Incidents for Discussion 146 Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Project Budget Development—2 147 Case: Photstat Inc. 149 Case: Building the Geddy’s Dream House 149 Bibliography 151 5 Scheduling the Project 152 5.1 Pert and Cpm Networks 153 The Language of PERT/CPM 153 Building the Network 154 Finding the Critical Path and Critical Time 156 Calculating Activity Slack 158 Doing It the Easy Way—Microsoft Project (MSP) 159 5.2 Project Uncertainty and Risk Management 162 Calculating Probabilistic Activity Times 162 The Probabilistic Network, an Example 163 Once More the Easy Way 165 The Probability of Completing the Project on Time 166 Selecting Risk and Finding D 172 The Case of the Unreasonable Boss 172 The Problem with Mergers 173 5.3 Simulation 174 Incorporating Costs into the Simulation Analysis 177 Traditional Statistics vs. Simulation 179 5.4 The Gantt Chart 181 The Chart 181 5.5 Extensions to Pert/Cpm 186 Precedence Diagramming 186 Final Thoughts on the Use of These Tools 187 Review Questions 189 Discussion Questions 189 Problems 189 Discussion Problem 191 Incidents for Discussion 192 Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Program Plan—3 193 Case: NutriStar 196 Case: Launching E-Collar 197 Bibliography 199 6 Allocating Resources to the Project 200 6.1 Expediting a Project 201 The Critical Path Method 201 Fast-Tracking a Project 205 Project Expediting in Practice 205 6.2 Resource Loading 207 The Charismatic VP 212 6.3 Resource Leveling 213 Resource Loading/Leveling and Uncertainty 219 6.4 Allocating Scarce Resources to Projects 221 Some Comments about Constrained Resources 222 Some Priority Rules 222 6.5 Allocating Scarce Resources to Several Projects 223 Criteria of Priority Rules 225 The Basic Approach 225 Resource Allocation and the Project Life Cycle 226 6.6 Goldratt’s Critical Chain 227 Estimating Task Times 230 The Effect of Not Reporting Early Activity Completion 231 Multitasking 231 Common Chain of Events 234 The Critical Chain 235 Review Questions 236 Discussion Questions 237 Problems 237 Incidents for Discussion 238 Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Resource Usage—4 239 Case: Charter Financial Bank 241 Case: Rand Contractors 242 Bibliography 243 7 Monitoring and Controlling the Project 244 7.1 The Plan-Monitor-Control Cycle 244 Designing the Monitoring System 246 7.2 Data Collection and Reporting 247 Data Collecting 247 Data Analysis 248 Reporting and Report Types 249 Meetings 251 Virtual Meetings, Reports, and Project Management 252 7.3 E arned Value 253 7.4 Project Control 260 Purposes of Control 261 7.5 D esigning the Control System 262 Types of Control Systems 264 Tools for Control 266 7.6 Scope Creep and Change Control 269 Review Questions 271 Discussion Questions 271 Problems 272 Incidents for Discussion 273 Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Case—5 274 Case: Palmstar Enterprises, Inc. 277 Case: Peak Lighting, Inc. 277 Bibliography 279 8 Evaluating and Terminating the Project 280 8.1 Evaluation 280 Evaluation Criteria 281 Measurement 282 8.2 Project Auditing 283 The Audit Process 283 The Audit Report 285 8.3 Project Termination 288 When to Terminate a Project 288 Types of Project Termination 289 The Termination Process 290 The Project Final Report 292 Review Questions 293 Discussion Questions 293 Incidents for Discussion 294 Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Case—6 294 Case: Datatech 297 Case: Ivory Tower Systems 298 Bibliography 300 Appendix: Probability and Statistics 301 A.1 Probability 301 Subjective Probability 302 Logical Probability 302 Experimental Probability 302 A.2 Event Relationships and Probability Laws 302 The Multiplication Rule 303 The Addition Rule 304 A.3 Statistics 304 Descriptive versus Inferential Statistics 305 Measures of Central Tendency 306 Measures of Dispersion 307 Inferential Statistics 308 Standard Probability Distributions 309 Bibliography 310 Index 311