Project Management in Practice, Sixth Edition

Book Preface

Amazingly, the use of projects and project management continues to accelerate in our global societies. With the addition of Agile, project management is now also being used for dynamic, “quasi” projects: initiatives where the scope, budget, and deadline are changing constantly. One of the more interesting areas of growth, however, has been in the use of projects for achieving the strategic goals of organizations through the use of sponsors, portfolio management, project management offices, and program managers. The exponential growth of membership in the Project Management Institute (PMI) is further convincing evidence, as are the sales of computer software devoted to project management. Several societal forces are driving this growth, and many economic factors are reinforcing it. We describe all these in Chapter 1 of this book. A secondary effect has also been a major contributor to the use of project management. As the use of projects has grown, its very success as a way of getting all kinds of activities carried out successfully has become well established, especially when a tight budget or timeline, or both, were involved. The result has been a striking increase in the use of projects to accomplish jobs that in the past would simply have been turned over to someone with the comment, “Take care of it.” What happened then was that some individual undertook to carry out the job with little or no planning, minimal assistance, few resources, and often with only a vague notion of what was really wanted. Some of these projects were large, but most were quite small. Some were complex, but most were relatively straightforward. Some required the full panoply of project management techniques, but most did not. All of them, however, had to be managed and thus required a great many people to take on the role of project manager in spite of little or no education in project management. One result was rising demand for education in project management. The number of college courses grew apace, as did the number of consulting firms offering seminars and workshops. Perhaps most striking was the growth in educational opportunities through post‐secondary schools offering “short courses”—schools such as DeVry Institute, and ITT. In addition, short courses were offered by colleges, such as the University of Phoenix, and community colleges concentrating on both part‐time and full‐time education for individuals already in the work force. Communications from some instructors in these institutions told us that they would like a textbook that was shorter and focused more directly on the “technical” aspects of project management than those currently available. They were willing to forego most of the theoretical aspects of management, particularly if such were not directly tied to practice. Their students, who were not apt to take advanced course work in project management, had little use for understanding the historical development of the field nor the latest academic research. Finally, instructors asked for increased use of project management application software, though they added that they did not want a replacement for the many excellent “step‐by‐step” and
“computing‐for‐dummies” types of books that were readily available. They wanted the emphasis to be on managing projects, and not on managing project management software. These requests sounded sensible to us, and we have tried to write such a book.

orgAnizAtion And content

With few exceptions, both readers and instructors are most comfortable with project management texts that are organized around the project life cycle, and this book is so organized. In Chapter 1 we start by defining a project and differentiating project management from general management. After discussing the project life cycle, we cover project selection, the project management office, and the project portfolio. We feel strongly that project managers who understand why a project was selected by senior management also understand the firm’s objectives for the project. Understanding those things, we know, will be of value in making the inevitable trade‐offs between time, budget, and the specified output of the project, as well as how to handle the inevitable risks that will arise to threaten the project. Chapter 2 is devoted to the various roles the project manager must play and to the skills required to play them effectively. In addition, we cover the various ways in which projects can be organized. The nature of project teams, including multidisciplinary teams, and the behavioral aspects of projects are also discussed. Project and risk planning, budgeting, and scheduling are covered in Chapters 3 to 5. Planning the project initiates our discussion in Chapter 3, where we introduce the work breakdown structure and other planning aids such as the RACI matrix, and end with a thorough discussion and illustration of risk management planning. Project budgeting is then described in Chapter 4 where we introduce the use of simulation through software such as Crystal Ball® to analyze financial risk. Risk analysis using Oracle’s Crystal Ball® (CB) simulations is demonstrated in several chapters with detailed instructions on building and solving simulation models. Software is used throughout the book, where relevant, to illustrate the use and power of such software to aid in managing projects. Chapter 5 initially uses standard manual methods for building project schedules, and Microsoft Project® (MSP) is then demonstrated for doing the same thing. Chapter 6 deals with resource allocation problems in a multiproject setting. A major section of this chapter is devoted to the insights of E. Goldratt in his book Critical Chain.* Chapter 7 concerns monitoring and controlling the project, especially through the use of earned value analysis, which is covered in detail. The final chapter deals with auditing, evaluating, and closing the project. Interest in risk management has grown rapidly in recent years, but the subject gets only minimal attention in most introductory level project management textbooks. We deal with risk throughout this book, introducing methods of risk management and analysis where relevant to the subject at hand. For example, simulation is used in Chapter 4 for solving a project budgeting problem, in Chapter 5 on a scheduling problem, and in Chapter 6 for examining the impact of a generally accepted assumption about probabilistic project schedules that is usually false, and also to test the usually false assumption that multitasking is an efficient way to improve productivity. We are certainly aware that no text on project management could be structured to reflect the chaos that seems to surround some projects throughout their lives, and a vast majority of projects now and then. The organization of this book reflects a tidiness and sense of order that is nonexistent in reality. Nonetheless, we make repeated references to the technical, interpersonal, and organizational glitches that impact the true day‐to‐day life of the project manager.