The Complex Project Toolkit

The essential guide for project managers and leaders.Project managers are often responsible for big teams and millions (sometimes billions) of dollars to deliver successful outcomes on time and within budget. But the reality is, most complex projects don't live up to their promise - they often fail, under-deliver or get delivered but burn out everyone in the process. Author and experienced project manager, Kieran Duck, argues that this is because the normal approach to project management doesn't work when projects are complex. The traditional emphasis on certainty and predictability comes from an industrial era where the focus was on controlling resources and effort. These days projects are unpredictable, they are emergent and performance relies on the opinions of key stakeholders and team members.The Complex Project Toolkit provides a way through this. Based on the concepts of design thinking, this comprehensive toolkit adds to existing project management approaches with new mindsets, practices and skills that will lift the performance of your most ambitious projects and improve the experience for everyone involved.

This book provides you with the tools required to approach and manage projects. These effective skills will impact positively on the success of both the projects you are involved with and of your organization. Key features * A practical handbook for both career project managers and those involved intermittently with projects throughout their career * Provides simple step-by-step tools for understanding and managing each of the project value-add stages: - Developing a business case - Robust planning - Staying in control - Delivering benefits * Focused on the needs of engineering and other technical project managers, but generic enough to support projects in other areas * Brief and visually led, the Toolkit is designed to get you up and running fast and to increase the certainty of a positive project outcome from day one * Comprehensive real world case studies demonstrate the use of tools Project Management Toolkit introduces the whole project life-cycle. It is the first of four project management titles that separately build skills in critical PM areas and together provide a powerful project management resource. Focused on the needs of engineering and other technical project managers, this book recognises that most non-routine work completed by an organization is a project A practical, hands-on guide to aid those tasked with real industry projects – not a lengthy theoretical textbook, it gets to the point and delivers REAL benefits The book is suitable for both career project managers and those involved with projects intermittently

Project Management is fast becoming one of the most sought-after skills across industries and job functions. Many professionals are attracted to project management as a career choice. Knowing how to implement a tried and tested approach the complements all popular methodologies such as PRINCE2, Agile and the PMI’s PMBOK, is essential for all project managers. Based on Emanuela’s internationally best-selling course “Practical Project Management”, this book condenses best practice project management methods into a practical and useful guide. Learn from her real-world experience and get started on your projects with a comprehensive set of tools and templates covering the entire project life cycle. Armed with the benefits of the various methods and tools, you should be able to convince colleagues of their importance to deliver projects successfully. If you aim to complete a project qualification such as PRINCE2 or the PMI’s PMP, this book is highly recommended as pre-reading to first understand all key project management concepts and their practical implementation. This book introduces you to the concept of project management and walks you through the full project life cycle. It follows a logical thinking approach and provides worked examples. If you follow Emanuela’s teaching in this book, you will be equipped to deliver projects more confidently, professionally and successfully. You will learn how to adapt the approach to different types of projects in terms of their nature and complexity. Templates in this book include a: · Project Brief · Project Business Case · Project Plan · Governance Structure · Responsibility Matrix · Risks Management Log · Stakeholder Mapping · Project Communication Plan · Project Actions Tracker and Gantt Chart · Task Dependency Mapping · Budget Breakdown and Tracker · Kick-Off Meeting Agenda · Scope Change Management Log · Issues Management Log · Status Report · Benefits Realisation Review · Lesson Learnt Log · Project Manager Skills Self-Assessment EMANUELA is a performance improvement consultant with over 20 years’ experience in project management. She has trained over 5,000 people on the subject around the world and understands how to explain complex topics simply. Whether training in-person or virtually, she engages individuals and teams with energy, enthusiasm, and passion for continuous improvement. Emanuela's books are all practical, relevant and useful.

Written by one of the nation's most highly regarded project management mentors, The Complete Project Management Methodology and Toolkit provides a combined project and business management solution that any can be readily applied in any industry by both novice and certified project managers. Aligned with common business practices, Gerald Hill's method shows how to keep on schedule, maintain areas of responsibility, and evaluate a job's progress from conception to completion. The text also offers a methodology implementation guide that gives additional insight into the recommended activities that can be customized to meet the needs of individual organizations.

Addressing the unique difficulties involved in day-to-day project management communication, The Project Manager's Communication Toolkit provides proven methods for creating clear and effective communications-including text-based plans, reports, messages, and presentations. It examines the many tools available and goes beyond traditional coverage to

Traditional project management approaches assume that project contexts are unchanging and key factors, though complicated, are reducible to unambiguous elements for management and control. Whilst this assumption has simplified the task for writers and educators, it is increasingly being recognised that these techniques do not work in projects which may be described as complex (due to their size, technical difficulties, conflicting environmental and political constraints or poorly understood or shared goals). Tools for Complex Projects draws on research in the areas of project management, complexity theory and systems thinking to provide a ready reference for understanding and managing the increasing complexity of projects and programmes. The main part of the book provides a series of fourteen project tools. Some of these tools may be used at the level of the whole project life-cycle. Others may be applied ad hoc at any time. In each case, the authors provide: detailed guidelines for using the tool, information on its purpose and the types of complexity for which it is most appropriate, the theoretical background to the tool, a practical example of its use, and any necessary words of caution. This is an example of advanced project management at work; sophisticated tools that require a level of project and management expertise and offer rigorous and highly practical methods for understanding, structuring and managing the most complex of projects.

Performance Coaching for Complex Projects recognises a world of complex undertakings for which the common transactional mindsets and methodologies will not produce the required results. The author advocates, instead, the novel concept that the project manager or team leader should coach the team as part of their role. Managing complexity requires greater use of influence and less reliance on coercion. Learning how to recognise the clues that reveal personal preferences, character traits and motivations will allow you to communicate in a way that recognises how different team members see the world. Team coaching helps the project team work together to think through their issues and then collectively implement the solution. Tony Llewellyn has structured his book in two parts. Part I looks at the challenges of complexity and makes the case for a shift from a transactional directive mindset to a transformational coaching philosophy. Part II introduces a model of project team coaching including the processes and methodologies that have been shown to be effective in improving team performance. Complex projects are invariably messy, not least because of the human factors associated with them. Performance Coaching for Complex Projects is essential reading for anyone responsible for managing in uncertain, challenging and changing environments.

This book enhances learning about complex project management principles and practices through the introduction and discussion of a portfolio of tools presented as an evolving toolbox. Throughout the book, industry practitioners examine the toolsets that are part of the toolbox to develop a broader understanding of complex project management challenges and the available tools to address them. This approach establishes a dynamic, structured platform for a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the modern, rapidly changing, multifaceted business environment to teach the next generation of project managers to successfully cope with the ever increasing complexity of the 21st century.