Project Management Simulation with PTB Project Team Builder

"The Project Team Builder (PTB) meets the need for an effective teaching and training tool of project management. The software introduces the user to the full dynamics of project planning, monitoring and control, moving scenario-wise from the easy, fundamental issues to the more involved, complex ones. Based on a sound conceptual foundation, it provides the ideal individual and team training support for bringing projects to completion effectively and efficiently in a dynamic stochastic environment. Highly recommended". (Willy Herroelen, Emeritus Professor of Operations Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). "The Engineering Project Management School of the Israeli Electric Company (IEC) used the Project Team Builder simulator developed at the Technion. Using PTB, it was possible to practice risk management when uncertainty is presented in resources availability, duration of activities and cash flow. The challenges presented to the students increased motivation. The quality of the learning process, as well as the end results, was excellent." (Sergio Klik, Director, Engineering Project Management School, The Israeli Electric Company). "PTB takes an important step in the right direction. It employs simulation in order to put the student in the real situation where he has to plan and execute projects by handling all issues at once. In particular, it puts the student in a situation where his project is exposed to risk. By this, the student has to combine the isolated and simplified views on projects, and he learns that risk can materialize and that he has to plan and execute the project accordingly. This is a very important aspect of project management which is learnt by doing (and failing) and which has not been delivered this way before." (Rainer Kolisch, Professor of Operations Management, TUM School of Management, Technische Universitat Munchen). A video tutorial of the Project Team Builder (PTB) simulator is available at our associated website. The tutorial presents the PTB version that comes with the book and demonstrates the use of PTB for training and for teaching.

Table of Contents:
Introduction.- The Project Team Builder (PTB).- The PTB Video Tutorials.- The PTB User Manual.- The Tutorial Scenarios.- The Advanced Scenarios.- Using PTB with Microsoft Project.- Using PTB with Some Simple Project Management Tools and Techniques.

About the Author :
Avraham Shtub is the Sharon and Stephen Seiden professor of Project Management in the Industrial Engineering and Management faculty at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He was formerly the Associate Dean, head of the MBA program. Professor Avraham Shtub has a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology (1974), an MBA from Tel Aviv University (1978) and a Ph.D in Management Science and Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington (1982). He is the recipient of the Institute of Industrial Engineering 1995 "Book of the Year Award" for his Book Project Management: Engineering, Technology and Implementation (co-authored with John Bard and Shlomo Globerson), Prentice Hall, 1994. He is the recipient of the Production Operations Management Society 2002 Wick Skinner Teaching Innovation Achievements Award for the book: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): The Dynamics of Operations Management, Kluwer. He has been a consultant to industry in the areas of project management, risk management, and the design of production - operation systems. He was invited to speak at special seminars on these topics in Europe, China, North America and South America. He was a visiting Professor at the Sasin Graduate School of Management Chulalongkorn University Thailand (the Kellogg MBA program) and at the Owen Graduate School of Management of Vanderbilt University.