Managing Projects Large And Small

Managing Projects Large and Small: The Fundamental Skills for Delivering on Cost and On Time When it comes to project management, success lies in the details. This book walks managers through every step of project oversight from start to finish. Thanks to the book's comprehensive information on everything from planning and budgeting to team building and after-project reviews, managers will master the discipline and skills they need to achieve stellar results without wasting time and money. The Harvard Business Essentials series is for managers at all levels but is especially relevant for new managers. It offers on-the-spot guidance, coaching, and tools on the most relevant topics in business. Each book includes the critical information that managers need on a given topic-from budgeting to hiring to communication to strategy-and offers interactive tools and worksheets that translate advice into action. Providing ready answers to day-to-day issues, these guides make sound, trusted mentoring advice available whenever managers need it. Other Books in the HBE Series: Managing Change and Transition Hiring and Keeping the Best People Finance for Managers Business Communications Innovation Negotiation

When it comes to project management, success lies in the details. This book walks managers through every step of project oversight from start to finish. Thanks to the book's comprehensive information on everything from planning and budgeting to team building and after-project reviews, managers will master the discipline and skills they need to achieve stellar results without wasting time and money.

Dealing effectively with uncertainty requires today's project manager to be familiar with a broad spectrum of strategies, encompassing both 'hard' and 'soft' methods. This theme of unified thinking (i.e. the need to selectively draw upon a wide range of strategies in any given situation) will differentiate the book from its contemporaries. By picking up where traditional risk management techniques begin to fail, it brings together leading-edge thinking from a variety of disciplines and shows how these techniques can be used to conquer uncertainty in projects. The ability to make good decisions when faced with uncertainty is the real challenge. It is a universal truth that a decision is only as good as the information it is based on. But good information is often hard to come by, and all projects are vulnerable to the unknown and the unknowable. Thus, uncertainty becomes the sworn enemy of the project manager. Wherever we try to analyse, quantify, plan and act, uncertainty lies in wait to surprise us with its ambiguity and unpredictability. It lurks in every stage of the project lifecycle: in the planning (how long will this really take?), the initiation (this isn't the situation I expected!), the execution (who could have foreseen that happening?), and even the completion of a project (where are the expected benefits?). But managing uncertainty is a lot more than just applying risk management techniques. It requires a deep appreciation of how uncertainty arises and, by recognising its different guises, the appropriate strategies can be formulated. If we can learn how to reduce uncertainty, we can make better management decisions and increase the chances of the project succeeding. This book addresses five key questions: ¢ Why is there uncertainty in projects? ¢ How do you spot the symptoms of uncertainty, preferably at an early stage? ¢ What can be done to avoid uncertainty? ¢ What strategies can be used to deal with project uncertainty? ¢ How can both the individual and the organisation learn to cope more effectively in the future? The reader is assumed to be a either a project management professional, or a senior manager looking for ways to improve project management strategy within their organisation. As such, a foundation in project management basics is assumed, although not essential. The book then builds on this by exposing new ideas and concepts, and shows how these can be harnessed to tackle uncertainty in its many guises.

Focuses on the diagnosis and resolution of difficult problems whether in large or small and complex projects. The intent is to help corporate executives and project management practitioners apply proven processes, methodologies, systems, structures and tools to rally the information and the resources required for better decisions, faster delivery, and improved results.

When it comes to project management, success lies in the details. This book walks managers through every step of project oversight from start to finish. Thanks to the book's comprehensive information on everything from planning and budgeting to team building and after-project reviews, managers will master the discipline and skills they need to achieve stellar results without wasting time and money.

For organizations to thrive, indeed to survive, in today's global economy, we must find ways to dramatically improve the performance of large-scale projects. Applying the concepts of complexity theory can complement conventional project management approaches and enable us to adapt to the unrelenting change that we ignore at our own peril. Managing Complex Projects: A New Model offers an innovative way of looking at projects and treating them as complex adaptive systems. Applying the principles of complexity thinking will enable project managers and leadership teams to manage large-scale initiatives successfully. • Explore how complexity thinking can be used to find new, creative ways to think about and manage projects • Diagnose complexity on a wide range of projects — from small, independent, short projects to highly complex, longer projects • Understand and manage the complexity of the business problem, opportunity, solution, and other dimensions that come into play when managing large-scale efforts Use the Project Complexity Model to determine the most effective approach to managing all aspects of a project based on the level of complexity involved.

A practical handbook for career project managers and those involved intermittently with projects throughout their career. Brief and visually led, Managing Project Delivery gets to the point, giving you the knowledge and confidence to manage project benefits and increase the certainty of success. Focused on the needs of engineering and technical Project Managers, but generic enough to support projects in other areas such as business change, IT and product development. Supported by downloadable on-line project benefits management tool templates that enable the techniques developed in the book to be applied in practice. Comprehensive real world case studies demonstrate the use of tools. Successful projects are the basis for the business many successful organisations, but many professionals lack the basic skills required to manage projects successfully. This book shows how to maximise the outcomes of projects and to ensure that the benefits arising from projects -- large or small -- are fully realized by the business. This key outcome can be easily overlooked or sidelined by the need to keep projects on track. Managing Project Delivery provides simple yet powerful tools to ensure that projects deliver on their goals in a controlled and accountable manner. It is the first of four project management titles that separately build skills and together provide a powerful project management resource. * A practical handbook for career project managers and those involved intermittently with projects throughout their career. * Brief and visually led, Managing Project Delivery gets to the point, giving you the knowledge and confidence to deliver projects and increase the certainty of success. * Focused on the needs of both engineering and technical Project Managers, but generic enough to support projects in other areas such as business change, IT and product development. * Supported by downloadable on-line project delivery tool templates that enable the techniques developed in the book to be applied in practice. * Comprehensive real world case studies demonstrate the use of tools. * Project delivery is the third stage of the project lifecycle. This book shows how to maintain control and forecast the project outcome. Provides expert advice, tried-and-tested techniques and a delivery toolkit to address: • Business alignment • Value delivery • Control and forecasting