Chock-full of know-how and experience, and written in a style that is both rigorous and refreshingly light on jargon, The Performance Papers is an invaluable handbook for leaders who practise - or aspire to - the art of general management.

Continuous improvements in project portfolio management have allowed for optimized strategic planning and business process improvement. This not only leads to more streamlined processes, methods, and technologies, but it increases the overall productivity of companies. Project Portfolio Management Strategies for Effective Organizational Operations is a key resource on the latest advances and research regarding strategic initiatives for portfolio and program management. Highlighting multidisciplinary studies on value creation, portfolio governance and communication, and integrated circular models, this publication is an ideal reference source for professionals, researchers, business managers, consultants, and university students in economics, management, and engineering.

Practical Project Management is a realistic and easy-to-follow guide to managing projects for voluntary organisations. It will help you shape and structure the passion that drives your work in order to achieve positive results. The book leads you through the key stages of project management from preparation to delivery and discusses the activities and decisions you will need to succeed. It covers: * Key tools and models for project planning * Resource management and risk control * Budget planning and dealing with finances * Project evaluation and assessing social benefit Incorporating down-to-earth examples and case studies, this book is essential for everyone involved in project management for the voluntary sector and vital to those who are new to this area.

This volume in the Business Analysis Professional Development Series is the companion workbook to Mastering Business Analysis Standard Practices. Designed for instructors, trainers, and students, this supplemental workbook should be used in conjunction with the main text and enables readers to practice the seven-step business analysis process they are learning with a realistic case study, exercises, and suggested solutions. It helps facilitate self-learning and course instruction effectively where users can engage the processes before applying the tools and techniques on their own projects. Key Features: Presents a structured step-by-step process for performing business analysis that any new or experienced practitioner could follow, rather than having to piece the process together themselves Demonstrates how to plan the business analysis work effort and develop and execute communication and information management plans Shows how to set up a project for success with a clear and concise scope definition boundary, maintain agreement on scope, and control scope in an ever-changing environment

Project management tools can be used as an alternative to improve and strengthen a company's position in the market. However, the management of projects has been in constant transformation. Elements such as time, cost, and scope, on which it is based, have been complemented with other trends, such as the project team, change management, knowledge management, good negotiation practices, management of stakeholders, sustainability, etc. In order to improve the competitiveness of their company and increase earned value, managers must remain up to date on these latest transformations and best practices. The Handbook of Research on Project Management Strategies and Tools for Organizational Success is a pivotal reference source that analyzes and disseminates new trends that will allow managers to improve their skills and strengthen the performance of their companies through obtaining better results in the projects undertaken. While highlighting topics such as market growth, risk management, and value creation, this book is ideally designed for project managers, managers, business professionals, entrepreneurs, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on improving the competitiveness of companies as well as increasing their earned value.

This book presents the fundamentals of project management as applied in the built environment and more specifically for the construction industry. It presents the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK) using practical examples to show how various project management principles and concepts can be applied in practice. Providing study notes for students and aspiring project management professionals in the construction industry, each of the 13 chapters includes a set of comprehensive revision questions that allow readers to reflect on what they have learned. The book offers an introduction to what project management is all about as well as the project life cycles, stakeholders and organizations involved. It explains the project management processes and how these processes are applied in integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communications, risk and procurement management. It concludes with ethics and professional conduct in the project management profession.

Project management is the art of analyzing and managing risks. Without risk, there is little need for project management. Project Risk Analysis Made Ridiculously Simple offers a step-by-step guide on how to perform project risk analysis and risk management for a wide range of readers: students, project schedulers not exposed to project risk analysis before, and to project risk experts. With this book, you will learn how to:Easily recognizable real-life stories and projects provide a compelling narrative while imparting valuable information on both the theory and practice of project risk management. You will not only understand why project risk management is important to the success of their projects, but you will also know how it can be implemented in your organization and the appropriate tools to use.

Everything you know about the future is wrong. Presumptive Design: Design Provocations for Innovation is for people "inventing" the future: future products, services, companies, strategies and policies. It introduces a design-research method that shortens time to insights from months to days. Presumptive Design is a fundamentally agile approach to identifying your audiences' key needs. Offering rapidly crafted artifacts, your teams collaborate with your customers to identify preferred and profitable elements of your desired outcome. Presumptive Design focuses on your users' problem space, informing your business strategy, your project's early stage definition, and your innovation pipeline. Comprising discussions of design theory with case studies and how-to's, the book offers business leadership, management and innovators the benefits of design thinking and user experience in the context of early stage problem definition. Presumptive Design is an advanced technique and quick to use: within days of reading this book, your research and design teams can apply the approach to capture a risk-reduced view of your future.

This book introduces readers to essential facilitation techniques for leadership in the contexts of project and network management. It provides method-based messages, a facilitator curriculum, and a veritable arsenal of 50 carefully selected and 'reality-tested' tools for facilitation in non-hierarchical contexts. As such, readers will benefit just as much from learning by doing as from doing by learning. This book is also intended for all managers who are responsible for successful communication and co-operation in projects in and across organisations or networks of organisations, and who want to know how to share their plans effectively and improve collaboration. Though the book employs scientific principles, it is chiefly a practical guide, and draws on the authors' extensive experience in consultancy and management.

Maximizing reader insights into project management and handling complexity-driven risks, this book explores propagation effects, non-linear consequences, loops, and the emergence of positive properties that may occur over the course of a project. This book presents an introduction to project management and analysis of traditional project management approaches and their limits regarding complexity. It also includes overviews of recent research works about project complexity modelling and management as well as project complexity-driven issues. Moreover, the authors propose their own new approaches, new methodologies and new tools which may be used by project managers and/or researchers and/or students in the management of their projects. These new elements include project complexity definitions and frameworks, multi-criteria approaches for project complexity measurement, advanced methodologies for project management (propagation studies to anticipate potential behaviour of the project, and clustering approaches to improve coordination between project actors) and industrial case studies (automotive industry, civil engineering, railroad industry, performing arts,...) and exercises (with their solutions) which will allow readers to improve and strengthen their knowledge and skills in the management of complex and (thus) risky projects.

The Lean Product Lifecycle is a playbook that provides frameworks, methods and tools to develop innovative new products and business models, while managing your core portfolio.

Follow the 6 key phases of a product’s life - idea, explore, validate, grow, sustain and retire – and discover how to develop products according to their life stage and ensure the right investment for each. For each stage there is a step-by-step guide of product development best practices using examples and case studies from several companies and start-ups.

Using the tools and templates in this book, you’ll be able to:

- Take a new product from idea to scale within a market.

- Understand the difference between executing on products that are already successful in the market and searching for profitable business models for new products.

- Use the right tools and methods for validating new products ideas and business models.

- Understand how to manage mature products and retire old products using lean innovation principles.

Discover how lessons from lean start-ups can transform your business.

This book primarily addresses various game theory phenomena in the context of management practice. As such, it helps readers identify the profound game theory principles behind these phenomena. At the same time, the game theory principles in the book can also provide a degree of guidance for solving practical problems.As one of the main areas in management research, there is already an extensive body of literature on game theory. However, it remains mainly theoretical, focusing on abstract arguments and purely numerical examples purely. This book addresses that gap, helping readers apply game theory in their actual management or research work.

This book develops a common understanding between the client and the provider in each of the four stages of strategic outsourcing. These stages range from discovery, where the parties envision their future collaboration; planning, where they lay the ground work for the contract and the project; building, where they effectively carry out the work; and lastly to running, where they orchestrate the relationship on a daily basis to ensure that the new, enlarged company achieves the results sought. In a simple yet direct style, it highlights the dos and don'ts the parties should bear in mind at each stage of the process and combines both the client's and the provider's perspectives by comparing their respective involvement at each stage of the process and considering, equally, their obligations in establishing a balanced relationship. The book is primarily intended for those in the private sector with experience of dealing with complex outsourcing situations and who are looking for the small or bigger differentiators that will support their decisions and actions. The target audiences include, on the client side: CCOs, CIOs, lawyers, procurement managers, outsourcing consultants and IT Service managers and, on the provider side: account managers, bid managers, outsourcing project managers, operation managers and service managers. However, it is also useful for anybody involved in outsourcing who is seeking to develop a global understanding of the main processes and roles upstream and downstream in the chain.

"Built around a captivating storyline set in a dynamic region of the world, this lively book takes an interesting project from concept, through various phases of development and delivery, all the way to operational readiness and project close. Along the way, it gradually covers relevant concepts building them into a cohesive framework and allowing the reader to gain insights into managing project work step-by-step. This excellent book provides relevant examples and applications of essential tools and techniques of Project Management. The book balances professional rigor and human interest to provide a sound approach to effective Project Management within a vivid storyline." Professor Frank Anbari This book explains the foundational elements for managing projects. It provides an overview of a project management methodology that is proved and aligns with global leading practices and standards. The style the author uses encourage those who never managed a project to learn and acquire skills. It is also highly practical and useful even for those experienced project managers.

This book presents interviews with 20 successful Malaysian housing developers, to provide real-world insights and practical know-how for future developers. It is designed in a way that reveals the secrets of successful developers, from their origins to their current status with the interviews conducted in a semi-structured manner so that the interviewees were able to freely share their experiences, thoughts, opinions and tips acquired throughout their business careers. Covering the developers' success stories, from their background, educational history and personal traits to their business challenges and achievements, it appeals to academics and practitioners alike.

This book is an up-to-date, in-depth examination of program management from its use by the Department of Defense to its commercial applications. Program management enables management to deal with complex, long range, and extremely expensive endeavors. It is a method of developing a solution to a broad, nebulous problem, drawing upon the resources and personnel of many different organizational groups to manage the institution of that solution. This work explains the principles of program management and includes 9 mission and 5 market applications. Of particular interest is the application based on the $15-billion, computer-and-communication nonmilitary transportation system of the 21st century, the National Airspace System (NAS).

"Dynamic Program Management" presents important new concepts. The reader is introduced to a seven step sequence from military need to contract award. The idea of credible capability to evaluate competing future technologies for defense systems and the concurrent conflicts of the program manager are explored. The book details logistics auxiliaries integrating WBS, CM, and T&E. Finally, MESGRA is featured -- a highly accurate, computer-based numerical forecasting algorithm which uses very few datapoints, and which makes rapid adjustments to violent fluctuations. "Dynamic Program Management" is essential reading for academics and professionals studying and practicing Program/Project Management, and Defense, Technology, Systems Management.

Agile is broken. Most Agile transformations struggle. According to an Allied Market Research study, "63% of respondents stated the failure of agile implementation in their organizations." The problems with Agile start at the top of most organizations with executive leadership not getting what agile is or even knowing the difference between success and failure in agile. Agile transformation is a journey, and most of that journey consists of people learning and trying new approaches in their own work. An agile organization can make use of coaches and training to improve their chances of success. But even then, failure remains because many Agile ideas are oversimplifications or interpreted in an extreme way, and many elements essential for success are missing. Coupled with other ideas that have been dogmatically forced on teams, such as "agile team rooms", and "an overall inertia and resistance to change in the Agile community," the Agile movement is ripe for change since its birth twenty years ago. "Agile 2" represents the work of fifteen experienced Agile experts, distilled into Agile 2: The Next Iteration of Agile by seven members of the team. Agile 2 values these pairs of attributes when properly balanced: thoughtfulness and prescription; outcomes and outputs, individuals and teams; business and technical understanding; individual empowerment and good leadership; adaptability and planning. With a new set of Agile principles to take Agile forward over the next 20 years, Agile 2 is applicable beyond software and hardware to all parts of an agile organization including "Agile HR", "Agile Finance", and so on. Like the original "Agile", "Agile 2", is just a set of ideas - powerful ideas. To undertake any endeavor, a single set of ideas is not enough. But a single set of ideas can be a powerful guide.

A project management expert identifies methods for running any project successfully based on lessons learned from the exploits of two storied explorers. What could be more intriguing than a management book built around a gripping story of exploration? The 1911-12 race between British explorer Robert Scott and Norwegian Roald Amundsen to be first to the South Pole provides the rarest of case studies. Two teams carry out the same project. One is spectacularly successful; the other fails miserably. Just about everything about good-and bad-planning, management expert Fergus O'Connell maintains, can be learned from these leaders. The results of poor planning are not always as dire as they were for Scott. But in business, poor planning can have serious consequences, often because the same mistakes are repeated. Starting with an introduction that details their exploits, the book goes on to use Scott and Amundsen as examples of good and not-so-good leadership. It contrasts the difference in how the two men planned and executed their projects and how they led their teams, highlighting things that must be in place for success. What can happen when those things are ignored is also spelled out. Readers will come away from this book entertained and with a in-depth understanding of a new method for assessing the health of any project-and running it successfully. Analyzes a familiar story from a unique point of view, using the endeavors of Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott to illustrate project management concepts Offers a practical guide to running any project successfully Motivates and encourages behavior change by demonstrating how a little planning beats a lot of firefighting Shows that we can learn as much from others' failures as we can from their successes Emphasizes the importance of taking the time to plan, even when operating in crisis mode

This set brings together two essential books in understanding how to deliver and manage business transformation - A Handbook of Business Transformation Management Methodology and Business Transformation Essentials. The Handbook of Business Transformation Management Methodology providesa '360-degree' view on what business transformation means and how to manage it successfully. Suitable for business executives dealing with organizational change, illustrative case studies ensure this is also a valuable resource for academics interested in change and transformation management. Using a variety of case studies including: Allianz SE, Shell, SAP, Vodafone, and Mercedes-Benz, Business Transformation Essentials provides unprecedented insights into characteristics of current transformation programs and the potential that can be leveraged by applying a holistic transformation management approach.