Project Management in Practice

Chapter 1: The World of Project Management

• • 1.1 What is a Project?
• • 1.1.1 Trends in Project Management
• • 1.2 Project Management Versus General Management
• • 1.2.1 Major Differences
• • 1.2.2 Negotiation
• • 1.3 Agile Project Management
• • 1.4 What is Managed? The Three Goals of a Project
• • 1.5 The Life Cycles of Projects
• • 1.6 Selecting Projects to Meet Organizational Objectives
• • 1.6.1 Nonnumeric Selection Methods
• • 1.6.2 Numeric Selection Methods
• • 1.7 The Project Portfolio Process
• • 1.8 The Materials in this Text
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Exercises
• • Incident for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility—1
• • Case: Handstar Inc.
• • Bibliography

Chapter 2: The Manager the Organization and the Team

• • 2.1 The PM’s Roles
• • 2.1.1 Facilitator
• • 2.1.2 Communicator
• • 2.1.3 Virtual Project Manager
• • 2.1.4 Meetings, Convener, and Chair
• • 2.2 The PM’s Responsibilities to the Project
• • 2.2.1 Acquiring Resources
• • 2.2.2 Fighting Fires and Obstacles
• • 2.2.3 Leadership
• • 2.2.4 Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Persuasion
• • 2.3 Selection of a Project Manager
• • 2.3.1 Credibility
• • 2.3.2 Sensitivity
• • 2.3.3 Leadership Style Ethics
• • 2.3.4 Ability to Handle Stress
• • 2.4 Project Management as a Profession
• • 2.5 Fitting Projects into the Parent Organization
• • 2.5.1 Pure Project Organization
• • 2.5.2 Functional Project Organization
• • 2.5.3 Matrix Project Organization
• • 2.5.4 Mixed Organizational Systems
• • 2.5.5 The Project Management Office and Project Maturity
• • 2.6 The Project Team
• • 2.6.1 Matrix Team Problems
• • 2.6.2 Intrateam Conflict
• • 2.6.3 Integration Management
• • 2.7 Agile Team Roles
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Incidents for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility—2
• • Case: The Quantum Bank
• • Case: Southern Care Hospital
• • Bibliography

Chapter 3: Project Activity and Risk Planning

• • 3.1 From the Project Charter to the Project Plan
• • 3.2 The Planning Process—Overview
• • 3.3 The Planning Process—Nuts and Bolts
• • 3.3.1 The Launch Meeting—and Subsequent Meetings
• • 3.3.2 Sorting Out the Project—The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• • 3.3.3 Extensions of the Everyday WBS
• • 3.4 More on the Work Breakdown Structure and Other Aids
• • 3.4.1 The RACI Matrix
• • 3.4.2 A Whole-Brain Approach to Project Planning
• • 3.4.3 The Design Structure Matrix
• • 3.5 Project Planning with Scrum
• • 3.5.1 Scrum Artifacts Supporting Project Planning
• • 3.5.2 Scrum Events for Project Planning
• • 3.5.3 Risk Management with Scrum
• • 3.6 Risk Management
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Exercises
• • Incidents for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility—3
• • Case: John Wiley & Sons
• • Case: Samson University
• • Bibliography

Chapter 4: Budgeting the Project

• • 4.1 Methods of Budgeting
• • 4.1.1 Top-Down Budgeting
• • 4.1.2 Bottom-Up Budgeting
• • 4.1.3 Budgeting With Agile
• • 4.2 Cost Estimating
• • 4.2.1 Work Element Costing
• • 4.2.2 The Impact of Budget Cuts
• • 4.2.3 An Aside
• • 4.2.4 Activity Versus Program Budgeting
• • 4.3 Improving Cost Estimates
• • 4.3.1 Forms
• • 4.3.2 Learning Curves
• • 4.3.3 Other Factors
• • 4.4 Budget Uncertainty and Project Risk Management
• • 4.4.1 Budget Uncertainty
• • 4.4.2 Project Budgeting in Practice
• • 4.5 Project Risk Simulation with Crystal Ball®
• • 4.5.1 Considering Disaster
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Exercises
• • Incidents for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Project Budget Development—4
• • Case: Photstat Inc.
• • Case: Building the Geddy’s dream house
• • Bibliography

Chapter 5: Scheduling the Project

• • 5.1 PERT and CPM Networks
• • 5.1.1 The Language of PERT/CPM
• • 5.1.2 Building the Network
• • 5.1.3 Finding the Critical Path and Critical Time
• • 5.1.4 Calculating Activity Slack
• • 5.1.5 Doing It the Easy Way—Microsoft Project (MSP)
• • 5.2 Project Uncertainty and Risk Management
• • 5.2.1 Calculating Probabilistic Activity Times
• • 5.2.2 The Probabilistic Network, An Example
• • 5.2.3 Once More the Easy Way
• • 5.2.4 The Probability of Completing the Project on Time
• • 5.2.5 Selecting Risk and Finding D
• • 5.2.6 The Case of the Unreasonable Boss
• • 5.2.7 A Potential Problem: Path Mergers
• • 5.3 Simulation
• • 5.3.1 Incorporating Costs into the Simulation Analysis
• • 5.3.2 Traditional Statistics Versus Simulation
• • 5.3.3 Some Common Issues
• • 5.3.4 Simulation
• • 5.4 The Gantt Chart
• • 5.4.1 The Chart
• • 5.5 Extensions to PERT/CPM
• • 5.5.1 Precedence Diagramming
• • 5.5.2 Final Thoughts on the Use of These Tools
• • 5.6 Scheduling with Scrum
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Exercises
• • Discussion Exercise
• • Incidents for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Program Plan—5
• • Case: NutriStar
• • Case: Launching E-Collar
• • Bibliography

Chapter 6: Allocating Resources to the Project

• • 6.1 Expediting a Project
• • 6.1.1 The Critical Path Method
• • 6.1.2 Crashing a Project With Excel
• • 6.1.3 Fast-Tracking a Project
• • 6.1.4 Project Expediting in Practice
• • 6.2 Resource Loading
• • 6.2.1 The Charismatic VP
• • 6.3 Resource Leveling
• • 6.3.1 Resource Loading/Leveling and Uncertainty
• • 6.4 Allocating Scarce Resources to Projects
• • 6.4.1 Some Comments About Constrained Resources
• • 6.4.2 Some Priority Rules
• • 6.5 Allocating Scarce Resources to Several Projects
• • 6.5.1 Criteria of Priority Rules
• • 6.5.2 The Basic Approach
• • 6.5.3 Resource Allocation and the Project Life Cycle
• • 6.6 Goldratt’s Critical Chain
• • 6.6.1 Estimating Task Times
• • 6.6.2 The Effect of Not Reporting Early Activity Completion
• • 6.6.3 Multitasking
• • 6.6.4 Common Chain of Events
• • 6.6.5 The Critical Chain
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Exercises
• • Incidents for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Resource Usage—6
• • Case: Charter Financial Bank
• • Case: Rand Contractors
• • Bibliography

Chapter 7: Monitoring and Controlling the Project

• • 7.1 The Plan–Monitor–Control Cycle
• • 7.1.1 Designing the Monitoring System
• • 7.2 Data Collection and Reporting
• • 7.2.1 Data Analysis
• • 7.2.2 Reporting and Report Types
• • 7.2.3 Meetings
• • 7.2.4 Virtual Meetings, Reports, and Project Management
• • 7.3 Earned Value
• • 7.4 Project Control
• • 7.4.1 Purposes of Control
• • 7.5 Designing the Control System
• • 7.5.1 Types of Control Systems
• • 7.5.2 Tools for Control
• • 7.6 Scope Creep and Change Control
• • 7.7 Agile Approaches for Project Monitoring and Control
• • 7.7.1 Agile Tools for Tracking Project Progress
• • 7.7.2 Scrum Events for Project Control
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Exercises
• • Incidents for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Updates—7
• • Case: Palmstar Enterprises, Inc.
• • Case: Peak Lighting, Inc.
• • Bibliography

Chapter 8: Evaluating and Closing the Project

• • 8.1 Evaluation
• • 8.1.1 Evaluation Criteria
• • 8.1.2 Measurement
• • 8.2 Project Auditing
• • 8.2.1 The Audit Process
• • 8.2.2 The Audit Report
• • 8.3 Project Closure
• • 8.3.1 When to Close a Project
• • 8.3.2 Types of Project Closure
• • 8.3.3 The Closure Process
• • 8.3.4 The Project Plan Closeout Report
• • 8.4 Benefits Realization
• • Review Questions
• • Discussion Questions
• • Incidents for Discussion
• • Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Audit—8
• • Case: Datatech
• • Case: Ivory Tower Systems
• • Bibliography

Chapter Appendix: Appendix