The Entrepreneurial Project Manager

Doing more with less is a skill mastered by entrepreneurs. Budgets are tight, deadlines are short, and time is of the essence. Entrepreneurial project managers use these parameters to their benefit. Hurdling over obstacles with the bare minimum of effort makes their projects and teams stand out. Focusing inward to develop the skills and mindset necessary to accomplish anything with anyone sets an entrepreneurial project manager apart from the group. This book builds on the basics of project management knowledge with tools and techniques to get you as well as your projects and teams performing on an advanced level. No matter your industry or experience level, this book gives you practical ways to improve any project. More importantly, it shows how you can improve your own performance. The biggest improvements a project manager can make are about him- or herself. Personal limitations can be the hardest obstacle to overcome, and this book explains how to overcome them. The techniques have been tried and tested by the author who shares them with you in this book. Whether in your projects or career, all the right things can be said and done, yet the results are always unpredictable. We all have little control over events. This book’s tools and techniques give you the ability to handle anything that may come your way. Entrepreneurs are constantly changing and adapting to the world around them. They must stay cutting-edge to make their businesses thrive. This book explains how to take a cutting-edge approach to project management. The goal is to take your technical skills as a project manager, add the elements of an entrepreneur, and create a high-powered team around you as well as become the best project manager you can be.

Valuable business skills from a leading project management expert To make the leap from average to superior, you must develop the skills to manage each project like a small business. The Business-Savvy Project Manager thoroughly explains key concepts, principles, and tools for project managers to provide organizations with superior return-oninvestment and top performance. From portfolio management and strategic alignment to calculation of economic metrics and effective use of both financial and nonfinancial criteria in project proposals, it gives you the business savvy for top-level performance and certain career success.

Doing more with less is a skill mastered by entrepreneurs. Budgets are tight, deadlines are short, and time is of the essence. Entrepreneurial project managers use these parameters to their benefit. Hurdling over obstacles with the bare minimum of effort makes their projects and teams stand out. Focusing inward to develop the skills and mindset necessary to accomplish anything with anyone sets an entrepreneurial project manager apart from the group. This book builds on the basics of project management knowledge with tools and techniques to get you as well as your projects and teams performing on an advanced level. No matter your industry or experience level, this book gives you practical ways to improve any project. More importantly, it shows how you can improve your own performance. The biggest improvements a project manager can make are about him- or herself. Personal limitations can be the hardest obstacle to overcome, and this book explains how to overcome them. The techniques have been tried and tested by the author who shares them with you in this book. Whether in your projects or career, all the right things can be said and done, yet the results are always unpredictable. We all have little control over events. This book’s tools and techniques give you the ability to handle anything that may come your way. Entrepreneurs are constantly changing and adapting to the world around them. They must stay cutting-edge to make their businesses thrive. This book explains how to take a cutting-edge approach to project management. The goal is to take your technical skills as a project manager, add the elements of an entrepreneur, and create a high-powered team around you as well as become the best project manager you can be.

Roughly half of all project managers have to lead customer projects as profit centers on contractor side with two big objectives: making the customer happy and bringing money home. Customer projects are a high-risk business on both sides, customers and contractors, but the dynamics of this business have so far been mostly ignored in literature. The book is intended to fill this gap. The book helps project managers better understand the dynamics of customer projects under contract from business development through handover and find solutions for common problems. A central aspect is international contract laws, an often underestimated factor in projects.

A breakthrough game plan illustrating the need for better collaboration between Project Managers and Business Analysts In The Business Analyst/Project Manager, author Robert Wysocki draws on his forty-five years of professional experience as a PM/BA to shed light on the similarities and differences of the roles and responsibilities of these two positions, the need for greater collaboration, and how to staff a project with one or both of these professionals. Examines the boundaries and interactions between the BA and the PM Looks at how to identify the skill sets needed to make the project a success The typical relationship of the BA and PM across the project management life cycle Making the best configuration of leadership assignments based on project characteristics Where the responsibilities of the BA leave off and the PM's begins and where the two have collaborative responsibilities How to use a PM/BA to enhance project performance How to foster a "dual career path" for PM/BAs development The in-depth discussion of the synergies between the two roles and the advantages of a combined PM/BA makes The Business Analyst/Project Manager a valuable contribution in your ability to be successful on the complex projects of the 21st century.

Project managers are no longer judged by the technical success oftheir projects alone. They're also held accountable for theircontributions to the company's financial goals. Yet most projectmanagers don't have the business knowledge necessary to makeproject-based decisions that lead to bottom-line success. In thisbook, Dennis Cohen and Robert Graham, both former universityprofessors and experienced project management consultants, providethe skills that, until now, could only be gained through a graduatedegree and years of hands-on experience. Cohen and Graham walk project managers through basic businessconcepts such as value creation, accounting and finance, strategy,and marketing. They connect these concepts to the decisions projectmanagers face every day. And they make it easy to apply theresulting solutions on the job through a unique business systemscalculator. Readers can use the online calculator in conjunctionwith the book to understand how different project variables affectbusiness outcomes, to determine the overall impact of proposedproject changes, and to evaluate the economic results of manydecisions they make. Cohen and Graham's principles apply equally to projects inbusiness, non-profit, and government organizations. And each one isillustrated through case studies drawn from a range of industries,including pharmaceuticals, the technology sector, even thewinemaking business. Whether the mandate is to get new products tomarket, improve the infrastructure, or better serve customers andclients, this book teaches project managers how to make day-to-daydecisions from an upper-management perspective. And it provides ablueprint for planning and pitching potential projects thatdemonstrates a higher level of business savvy.

Project management can help companies become more efficient and profitable. But as a seasoned project management consultant, educator, and writer, author Joseph Phillips teaches that the how of successful project management looks different for every business. Grounded in years of his real-world experience, Project Management for Small Business introduces readers to the core principles and techniques of project management adapted and simplified to be most effective for smaller enterprises. With repeatable practices for planning, executing, and controlling projects in an environment where one team member may be wearing multiple hats, this practical how-to helps you avoid the potentially devastating effects of wasted time and materials. Among many other useful skills, you’ll learn how to define project requirements and scope; create a project schedule based on resource availability; estimate and budget for project costs, identify and minimize project risks; manage workflow; communicate effectively; and control project change. Classic project management models often prove too cumbersome for smaller businesses with limited staff resources, tight budgets, and next to no time to devote to learning a complex new system. Project Management for Small Business skips the complicated theory and goes straight to the heart of what it really takes to make a project--and your business--a success.

No longer restricted to the engineering industry, project management has at long last crossed over to mainstream business. Project Management for Business Professionals is the definitive reference on the essentials of contemporary project management. Featured here are some of the foremost practitioners and researchers from academia, consulting, and private industry, sharing their various areas of project management expertise and providing a wide range of perspectives on everything from risk management to resource planning to ethics management. Focusing on both the technical and human sides of the field, this unique resource follows the main points of the "project management body of knowledge"-the certification standard of the Project Management Institute. The experts address the procedures and processes for planning and managing projects and explore project team/group dynamics, examining the interpersonal relations and the political and organizational considerations that can impact a project.