Creating An Environment For Successful Projects 3rd Edition

Since it was first published in 1997, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects has become a landmark work that shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice. This second edition offers solid, results-oriented advice on how upper management can create an environment that supports the success of special projects and the development of new products. The book also includes a wealth of examples from the authors' workshop participants and readers of the first edition who have successfully implemented these concepts within their organizations. New in the second edition: Ideas and practices about portfolio management to achieve greater overall success from a portfolio of projects Advice for helping project teams come together to become more effective Information for developing the chief project officer Suggestions for implementing project management information systems More descriptions about organizations and people who have used these principles to develop vastly improved environments

Now in its third edition, this project management classic has been updated with an array of field-tested tools to help upper management ensure the success of projects within organizations. For over twenty years, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects has been a staple for upper managers who want to help projects succeed. This new edition includes case studies from companies that have successfully applied the approach, along with practical tools such as templates, surveys, and benchmark reports for savvy leaders who want to ensure project success throughout their organizations. The insights in this book will help management speed projects along instead of getting in their way. All too often, well-intentioned managers put roadblocks in the team's way instead of empowering them with the tools they need to succeed. This approach to project environments, grounded in decades of research and practice, will help you make your organization the most project-friendly it's ever been. Organizational changes rarely work unless upper management is heavily involved. Although project managers are most closely responsible for the success of projects, upper managers are the ones who ultimately create an environment that supports those projects. The way upper managers define, structure, and act toward projects has an important effect on the success or failure of those projects and, consequently, the success or failure of the organization. This book helps all managers understand the need for project management changes and shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice.

Now in its third edition, this project management classic has been updated with an array of field-tested tools to help upper management ensure the success of projects within organizations. For over twenty years, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects has been a staple for upper managers who want to help projects succeed. This new edition includes case studies from companies that have successfully applied the approach, along with practical tools such as templates, surveys, and benchmark reports for savvy leaders who want to ensure project success throughout their organizations. The insights in this book will help management speed projects along instead of getting in their way. All too often, well-intentioned managers put roadblocks in the team's way instead of empowering them with the tools they need to succeed. This approach to project environments, grounded in decades of research and practice, will help you make your organization the most project-friendly it's ever been. Organizational changes rarely work unless upper management is heavily involved. Although project managers are most closely responsible for the success of projects, upper managers are the ones who ultimately create an environment that supports those projects. The way upper managers define, structure, and act toward projects has an important effect on the success or failure of those projects and, consequently, the success or failure of the organization. This book helps all managers understand the need for project management changes and shows how to develop project management as an organizational practice.

Ensure the success of your company's special projects Crisp execution of projects is critical to the survival of today's organizations. This practical book is filled with ideas and examples that will teach you how to build project management competence in your organization. --Lewis E. Platt, chairman, president and CEO, Hewlett-Packard Company Finally, a book that fills the void on how to develop project management as an organizational practice. Using the enviable processes already in place at Hewlett-Packard and other progressive companies as touchstones, Graham and Englund serve up solid, results-oriented advice on how upper management can create an environment that supports the success of special projects, especially the development of new products. Building on an incisive examination of the critical role upper-tier management plays in the overall success of projects, the authors show managers exactly what they must do to support the process and implement project management as an organization-wide directive. Packed with leading-edge, real-world examples, a sample project review and other tools, this book will help your organization make and sustain the cultural changes that encourage a project manager's best work.

The Complete Project Manager, 2nd Edition updates a respected textbook on project management soft skills to include project management's most vital new trends: agile methods, delivering business value, respecting ethics, and managing diversity. This is a classic, bestselling, practical guide that addresses the "soft" project management skills that are so essential to successful project, program, and portfolio management. Through a storytelling approach, the authors explain the necessary skills and how to use them to create an environment that supports project success. They demonstrate both the "why" and the "how" of creatively applying soft project management skills in the areas of leadership, conflict resolution, negotiations, change management, and more. This second edition features new sections on ethics, business analysis, agile project management, managing across generations and between cultures, and more. Skills like leadership, negotiations, conflict management, and navigating organizational politics have always been important for project managers who want to succeed. Now the authors show how you can adjust and hone those skills given the forces and trends in today's business world.

“Robert Wysocki does it again, and again. He has evolved from a project management expert and guru to the preeminent thought leader on managing complexity in the 21st century! Wysocki’s approach is to use an adaptive framework and decision-making tool which includes a robust project management methodology that seamlessly integrates change, and can be applied to all types of projects across industries. This adaptive complex project framework is aligned with the most contemporary principles of innovation, agility, and lean approaches to change, and represents the most advanced thinking in applied complex project management to date.” —Kathleen Hass, Project Management and Business Analysis Practice Leader, Consultant, and PMI award-winning author of Managing Complex Projects: A New Model With technology continuing to invade the business world and the convergence of complexity, uncertainty, and constant change, a whole new class of projects has emerged for which traditional project management models such as Waterfall are totally insufficient. These are called complex projects. Extreme Project Management models and a variety of Agile Project Management models such as Scrum, Rational Unified Process, Feature-Driven Development, and Dynamic Systems Development Method have emerged, but project failure rates have not been measurably reduced. Effective Complex Project Management offers a proven solution to managing any project that must succeed in the face of organizational complexity and market uncertainty, in the form of an adaptive complex project framework. Developed, refined, and validated through 20+ years of client experiences and feedback from project management thought leaders, this framework and robust methodology has demonstrated a favorable impact on project and program management success rates. Dr. Wysocki demonstrates that for program and project managers to be consistently successful in managing complex projects, they need to include in their project management portfolio of processes an adaptive framework that continuously analyzes and adapts to changing and modifying conditions even to the point of changing project management models mid-project. The author’s adaptive complex project framework is currently the only robust tool to offer an orderly approach to do just that. When applied and managed correctly, this intuitive framework that proceeds from ideation to set-up to execution has proven to deliver on the purpose of programs and projects without fail, in the form of desired business value.

The second edition of Project Sponsorship—which includes an Appendix with new case studies, expanded assessment tools, and templates—shows how project sponsors and project managers can develop the skills they need to manage successful projects. Randall L. Englund and Alfonso Bucero—experts in the field of project management—have written the definitive guide for educating all stakeholders on the nature of project sponsorship. They describe in detail the responsibilities of the project sponsor, from communications and liaison, selection and training, problem solving, mentoring, and feedback, to the review of project execution. The project sponsor and manager learn how to negotiate effectively with each other and the project team to achieve their commitments.