Project Management Essentials, Fourth Edition: A Quick and Easy Guide to the Most Important Concepts and Best Practices for Managing Your Projects Right - Softcover

Athayde, William P.; Elswick, Ruth; Lombard, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1938548973 ISBN 13: 9781938548970

Publisher: Maven House, 2019

Synopsis

If you’re new to project management or need to refresh your knowledge, Project Management Essentials, Fourth Edition is the quickest and easiest way to learn how to manage projects successfully. The concepts presented are not rocket science. They are all common sense. Yet they require knowledge and discipline – a framework to manage projects right and the will to adhere to it. If you consistently use the simple tools and templates provided you’ll succeed. It’s as simple as that. In this book you’ll discover:

• The key skills and knowledge you’ll need to be an effective project manager
• How to create an effective charter to start your project off right
• Guidelines for building a usable project plan
• Tips for breaking your project work into manageable pieces
• Techniques for accurately estimating project cost and schedule
• Help in building a team and different leadership styles you might apply to manage them
• Strategies to deal with conflicts, change, uncertainty, and risk
• How to report on the progress of the project and keep everyone concerned happy

Project Management Essentials is purposefully written in short, clear chapters to make project management more easily understood. The authors, all valued senior faculty of PM College, bring both their business experience and their academic background to make these chapters come alive.

This updated edition offers even more templates and content than the widely used earlier editions and complies with the latest project management standard, the PMBOK® Guide Sixth Edition.

About this title

About the Authors

WILLIAM P. ATHAYDE, J.D., PMP, Senior Instructor, PM College. As a senior faculty member of the PM College, Bill’s responsibilities include classroom and virtual training, course development, and consulting on training issues as well as project management. Bill gained his project management experience working in oil spill and hazardous materials remediation projects, construction, systems development and integration, and as the program manager of a team composed of 120 representatives of fourteen federal agencies, six state governments, and industry. He also served as COO of a 165-person environmental services company in Virginia. Bill has authored various papers and spoken on disaster recovery planning and operations, project and program team dynamics, CAMEO (Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations), and emergency response. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

RUTH ELSWICK, PMP, Senior Instructor, PM College. In addition to teaching the PM College curriculum, Ruth contributes her extensive project management experience in curriculum development and instructor mentoring. Ruth gained her project management experience working in FDA-regulated industries. She has held various project management positions for major pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device organizations. These positions included managing a multi-million-dollar global biotech start-up as well as establishing a project office and the implementation of a project selection process. Ruth also currently serves as an adjunct professor in project management at Florida International University.

PAUL LOMBARD, PMP, a Library of Congress registered expert in Project Management, has over 25 years’ experience in the project management space and is the owner of Global Training Group, LLC, a strategic program and project training and consulting company in Virginia Beach Virginia. Paul’s responsibilities include classroom facilitation, course development, and project and quality management consulting and instructor mentorship. Paul gained his project management experience as a project and program manager for the U.S. government. He has also worked with many for profit and non-governmental not-for-profit organizations around the world since leaving government. He is a certified master trainer and curriculum developer and has developed numerous on-site and distance-learning training courses in project management, leadership, team skills, core facilitation, quality management, program management, complex project management, and strategic management. Paul was awarded a Distinguished Civil Service Medal for his project work while assigned as an internal consultant to the Department of the Navy.

DEBORAH BIGELOW CRAWFORD, PMP, President, PM College. Debbie is responsible for the fiscal management and quality assurance of the PM College program. Her previous experience as Executive Director of the Project Management Institute (PMI) has given her the expertise to manage and develop new initiatives and programs for this fast-paced and innovative project management training company. Debbie also serves as Executive Vice President of Project Management Solutions, Inc. (PM Solutions). She has served as a contributing editor to PM Network, Chief Project Officer, and Optimize magazines and has published numerous papers in PMI’s Congress Proceedings and presented internationally on a wide range of project management issues.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

FROM CHAPTER 2: INITIATING THE PROJECT

What is Project Initiation?

Initiation simply means starting from the beginning with the tools that you need. Imagine a contractor arriving at a customer's lot to start building a custom home ― with no blueprints, no signed contract, no site survey, and not sure yet whether the client wants a one- or two-story house. Ludicrous? Obviously, yet many projects are started with no charter, no clear goal, no boundaries defined, no idea of who the stakeholders are, and few client requirements. Initiation simply means having all the information you need to start the project off in the right direction.

The Project Charter

Creating a project charter is the first step in the right approach to managing a project. It formally announces that a project or phase has begun. It also serves to document the initial requirements that, if met, will satisfy the stakeholder's needs and expectations. The project charter, issued by a project sponsor, project management office, or portfolio steering committee, gives the project manager authority to apply resources to project activities. In the absence of a formal project selection process, the project manager may develop the project charter and give it to the sponsor for signature and transmission. Without this authority, the project manager may have difficulty in obtaining human resources or even funding. The important point to understand about chartering is that it links the project to the ongoing work of the organization. (See Exhibit 2-1 for a list of project charter elements with definitions and instructions on what information is needed to create the charter.)

There’s no set format for a charter; it may be a formal document, a contract, or even an email. Inputs to the charter (information needed to help you create the charter) may include such items as:

• The business case for undertaking the project, including a description of expected outcomes.
• The benefits management plan that defines the processes to create and sustain the project benefits.
• Current enterprise environmental factors, such as the structure and culture of the organization, market conditions, and existing resources.
• Existing organizational process assets, such as formal and informal plans, processes, policies, and procedures currently used by the organization.
• Agreements to define initial project intentions. Agreements may be in the form of contracts, memorandums of understanding (MOUs), and other documents. Agreements may be written or verbal.

The information gathered from these items, aided by expert judgment in assessing the inputs, will help the project manager begin documenting the business objectives and customer needs that the project is intended to satisfy and how the product, service, or result delivered will satisfy those needs. This project charter will also list the stakeholders involved in the project, outline constraints that might limit the project team’s options, and provide a detailed description of the scope of the project.

EXHIBIT 2-1: SUGGESTED ELEMENTS OF A PROJECT CHARTER (NOT INCLUSIVE)

Project Name
Enter a brief name to describe the project.

Project Sponsor
This generally is the executive of the business area for which the project is being undertaken. This person is responsible for budgeting the funds to undertake the project and has final authority to approve project completion.

Business Area Project Manager
This is the primary business area liaison with the project manager. This person is responsible for the business unit's project-related activities.

Project Manager – Responsibility and Authority Level
This is the person responsible for planning and managing the project.

Key Stakeholder List
Identify the major stakeholders who will have the biggest impact, interest, etc. on the project.

Business background
Give an overview of the business reasons for the project.

Project Purpose
Using business terminology, give a general description of the project scope (provide details in the following sections). Indicate both what is within the anticipated scope and what is outside the scope. Consider these topics:

• Systems
• Infrastructure
• Communications
• Business locations

Project Exit Criteria
The conditions to be met in order to close, or cancel, the project or phase.

Project Approval Requirements
Description of project success, who makes the decision on project success, and who signs off.

High-Level Requirements (Deliverables)
List the specific, expected project deliverables and how these will meet the objectives. The deliverables should be as tangible as possible.

Summary Milestone Schedule
Major time frames.

Overall Project Risk
Uncertainty on the project as a whole.

Excerpted from Project Management Essentials, Fourth Edition by William P. Athayde, Ruth Elswick, and Paul Lombard; Edited by Deborah Bigelow Crawford. Copyright ©2018 by Project Management Solutions, Inc. Published by Maven House Press, Palmyra, VA. Used with permission. All rights reserved. http://mavenhousepress.com.

Edition details

• Publisher: Maven House
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1938548973
• ISBN 13: 9781938548970
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Crawford Deborah Bigelow