One of the most difficult, yet important, questions regarding projects is "What advantages will this project create for the investors and key stakeholders?" Projects and programs should be treated as investments. This means that the focus of projects shifts from delivering within the triple constraints (time-cost-quality) towards some of the more fundamental questions: What is the purpose of this investment? What are the specific advantages expected? Are these benefits worth the investment? Implementing Project and Program Benefit Management is written for executives and practitioners within the portfolio, program, and project environment. It guides them through the important work that must be addressed as the investment progresses towards the realization of benefits. The processes discussed cover the strategic elements of benefits realization as well as the more detailed requirements, which are the domain of the program delivery teams and the operational users. Using real cases to explain complex situations, operational teams and wider groups of stakeholders, including communities affected by infrastructure projects, will be able to engage in the conversation with the sponsors and delivery teams. Covering an area of program and project management that is rapidly becoming more widely valued, this book blends theory with practical experience to present a clear process flow to managing the benefits life cycle. Best practices are defined, and pitfalls and traps are identified to enable practitioners to apply rigor and structure to this crucial discipline.

The innovation process is the most important of all business processes. Innovation is the means by which value is constructed and efficiencies are created. It is the source of sustainable competitive advantage. This book shows how the innovation process is changing profoundly. Part of the change results from the application of new technologies to the innovation process itself. A new category of technology has emerged which we call 'innovation technology'. This includes simulation and modelling, visualization, and rapid prototyping technologies. When used effectively, innovation technology makes the innovation process more economical and ameliorates some of its uncertainties. These technological changes are accompanied by changing organization structures and skills requirements. The technologies are used in fast moving, creative environments and are suited to project-based organization. They also require the development of new 'craft' skills to realize the possibilities created by the new 'code'. The book outlines a new way of thinking about innovation. Traditional definitions of 'research', 'development' and 'engineering', imply a progressive linearity which doesn't exist in reality. They are also associated with organizational departments, which are breaking down where once they existed, and are in any case non-existent in the vast majority of firms. They also fail to capture the central importance of design in innovation. We propose a new schema for the innovation process: Think, Play, Do. Innovation requires creating new ideas and thinking about new options, playing with them to see if they are practical, economical and marketable, and then doing: making the innovation real. This new schema captures the emerging innovation process using a more contemporary idiom. The book reports in-depth studies from a number of companies and sectors. Major case studies of Procter and Gamble and Arup Partners are presented. It reports on the use of innovation technology in a range of other companies and organizations, from pharmaceuticals in GSK, to engineering design in Ricardo engineering , and welding in TWI. We describe how innovation technology is used in traditional industries, such as in mining, and in public projects, such as the development of London's traffic congestion charge and the stabilization of the leaning tower of Pisa.

Read 25 in-depth, candid interviews with notable project managers. Discover how project managers work, what they do, how they adapt and make decisions, how they inspire and motivate others, what career lessons and advice they can share, and how they landed their current jobs either as project managers or in more senior positions thanks to their success as project managers. Most of the project managers featured in this book-together with a selection of program managers, executives, entrepreneurs, and CEOs with project management backgrounds and responsibilities-work in the technology sector, but many work in other industries, including banking and financial services, consulting, aerospace, energy, and transportation. Bruce Harpham, PMP-a project management career advisor and journalist-has chosen interviewees who range across the spectrum of company size and maturity and of individual career stages-from CEOs who were formerly project managers (such as Mavenlink's Ray Grainger); to founders of project management consulting firms (such as Tramore's Tom Atkins); to project managers at the world's leading tech giants (such as IBM's Bob Tarne, Google's Michael Lubrano, Apple's Seth J. Gillespie, and Cisco's Hassan Osman), in the space industry (such as NASA's David Woerner, Canadian Space Agency's Isabelle Tremblay and EUMETSAT's Hilary Wilson), in financial services (such as TD Bank's Ilana Sprongl and Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System's Annette Lyjak), and at transportation companies (such as Amtrak's Sarina Arcari). What You'll Learn Practicing project managers and engineers and graduates who aspire to become project managers will learn from the mouths of seasoned exponents at the top of their profession: Break into project management, cultivate leadership skills, and influence higher-ups Win assignments to manage career-advancing projects and ace deliveries Avoid pitfalls and recover from operational failures and managerial mistakes Manage the distractions and pressures of project work successfully while maintaining high morale Discover the books, courses, and development strategies they used to make it to the top Who This Book Is For Practicing project managers-including the half million PMI members required to pursue continuing education to maintain certification. The secondary readership is engineers, career-changers, and recent graduates who aspire to become project managers.

This book provides a new approach to systems architecting not previously available. The book provides a compact innovative procedure for architecting any type of system. Systems Architecting: Methods and Examples describes a method of system architecting that is believed to be a substantial improvement over "methods" previously covered in other systems architecting books. Incorporates analytic procedure (decision analysis) Defines and evaluates alternative architectures Improves upon existing architecting methods Considers cost-effectiveness of alternatives Provides for competitive analysis and its advantages Shows alternatives on one simple and easily understood page With the book's relatively straightforward approach, it shows how to architect systems in a way that both developers and clients/customers can readily understand. It uses one of the essential principles suggested by Rechtin and Maier, namely, Simplify, Simplify, Simplify. Systems engineers as well as students taking systems engineering courses will find this book of interest.

The problems they face are more complex than ever. The pressure to deliver the right solutions more intense. So how do teams in today's rapid-fire business environment keep up?
According to John Redding, today's teams need a new approach to achieving their goals-a radical approach. And he should know. Redding, after all, headed a five-year research project, the result of which was the radical teamwork method, a method proven to be eminently more effective than any traditional approach to teamwork. Among other innovations, the radical team method is designed to generate creative thinking, encourage risk-taking, and greatly bolster team learning to produce exceptional results. In this book, Redding translates the findings of his project into a hands-on guide you can use to create radical teams for your organization and put them to work.
You'll learn how to identify the projects in your own organization that require the radical team approach. You'll use checklists, exercises, and worksheets to master a series of action steps for applying this approach to some of today's toughest business issues. And you'll get the tools you need to implement radical teamwork throughout your organization, from selecting and training team members, to leading and coaching radical teams, and assessing their effectiveness.
Throughout the book, case studies drawn from radical team experiences in a variety of organizations bring home the practical aspects of the approach-an approach that promises to become the standard by which all organizations will tackle their most important strategic challenges.

This book provides the much-needed, no-nonsense guidance crucial for project managers - that is, the type of guidance that is missing from every major body of knowledge and educational offering for working project managers. This very practical book identifies the activities that influence project success and focuses the limited time and energy available towards just those activities. The Project Management Institute (PMI) and most literature on project management discusses all aspects of project management under the assumption that project managers will narrow down focus because they cannot be expected to use every process outlined by PMI to manage every project. This book uses the concept of "hacking" our standard conventions of project management and outlines a standard path identified by conventional wisdom, an evil path that project managers frequently resort to under time/quality pressures, and a hacker path that provides a better way to look at the challenge. This book equips project managers with streamlined approaches to refocus their efforts on factors that matter while spending less time doing it. Project management is a demanding discipline with a growing body of knowledge with few instructions on how to do it all. The author provides humorous anecdotes and examples while teaching readers how to save time, improve quality, and advance their career. The primary sections of the book cover how to approach the most common certifications in project management; continuing education; leading project teams; initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling projects; general life skills; and taking on additional responsibilities. Hacking project management is about focusing the limited bandwidth a project manager can give a project towards the activities that drive success.

Learn how to use stories throughout the agile software development lifecycle. Through lessons and examples, Agile UX Storytelling demonstrates to product owners, customers, scrum masters, software developers, and designers how to craft stories to facilitate communication, identify problems and patterns, refine collaborative understanding, accelerate delivery, and communicate the business value of deliverables. Rebecca Baker applies the techniques of storytelling to all facets of the software development lifecycle-planning, requirements gathering, internal and external communication, design, and testing-and shows how to use stories to improve the delivery process. What You'll Learn Craft stories to facilitate communication within the project team and with stakeholders Leverage stories to identify problems and patterns, accelerate delivery, and communicate business value Apply storytelling techniques to all stages of the SDLC Marshal user stories to focus requirements gathering and ensure a consistent message Who This Book Is For All SDLC and UX roles: product owners, customers, scrum masters, software developers, and UX designers

In today's business world, project managers not only have to be diligent in project planning and execution, but also need to have skills in persuasion, communication, and relationship management. Reflecting the changing landscape of projects today, Essential Project Management Skills empowers project managers to master the skills necessary to succeed in the current environment. Real case studies clarify concepts Divided into four sections by chapter and enhanced with tables and diagrams, the book begins by introducing the concepts related to the changing project landscape and their impact on projects. It then delves into the details of several trends within the project landscape, describes the challenges created by these trends for project managers, and provides illuminating case studies that elucidate each trend and its impact. Next, the book outlines the skills required to be successful in this new environment and offers techniques that can be applied to fully master them. Each of these skills is aligned with a case study in which the skills and techniques are used and the outcomes discussed. Finally, the book ties together the evolution of the project landscape, the challenges posed, and the new skills required to manage projects successfully in today's environment. The book also provides a checklist of the skills and techniques in the context of different project scenarios. Written by an expert in project management Written by an expert with a career of hands-on experience in the project management field, this volume is invaluable for project managers who have a fundamental background in project management principles and want to augment their toolbox of skills and techniques around the delivery of projects in today's complicated business environment.

This book argues that by integrating effective knowledge management (KM) with project management (PM), the overall project success rate can be improved significantly. It brings together the latest ideas and research on shared approaches to improve performance based on the research and experience of academics and practitioners. The structured collection of articles presents novel theoretical approaches and clear empirical evidence of the value of integrating the two distinct fields. It enables readers to better understand the need to merge KM with PM and appreciate the benefits. It also offers researchers an idea of what lies ahead and how to get there, and helps practitioners develop more suitable KM solutions for successful project outcomes.

This book looks at how and where human resources (HR) meets quality management, and the implications of this. Most organizations, whatever their size or sector, struggle with demonstrating the value of continuous improvement (CI) and/or HR initiatives at a time when economic conditions are challenging in the global marketplace. Both within the UK and internationally, organizations will use continuous improvement and business excellence (BE) as a means of not only improving performance internally, but also to secure external recognition of their management practices, including people management, and therefore increase their competitiveness in their market. This text explores the potential overlaps between the two fields by considering how to address the development and implementation of a strategy to integrate CI/BE and human resource management. Practical and applied, this text provides: A brief overview of the concepts of CI and BE An analysis of the strategic factors impacting on an organization's decision-making around adopting a CI/BE approach, and the impact this may have on people management and development practices A review of some major external CI/BE accreditations and awards, and their value and how they might be used An analysis of the possible problems and outcomes which could be achieved by adopting such a CI/BE strategy and integrating it with people management and development activities This book is ideal for any professional HR or performance improvement practitioner who wants to understand how a CI/BE approach could benefit their organization, as well as postgraduate students of HR or quality management.

Managing cost, time, and quality of a project can be a challenging task for any project manager, but especially in times of an ever-changing and burgeoning field of IT. Project Management Techniques and Innovations in Information Technology offers a vital compendium of the latest research, case studies, best practices, and methodologies within the field of IT project management. By collecting research from top experts around the world in a variety of IT project management applications and job sectors, this volume will serve as a critical reference manual and research guide for both practitioners and academics alike.

"This is the project management book I've been waiting a decade for! . . . The new world is the Project World, and this book gloriously shows the way."-Tom Peters

How to get beyond the formulas and succeed in real-world project management

Project Management Success Stories begins where most books on project management leave off-with the real-world experiences of professional project managers working without a net. From these stories and the lessons they teach, project managers emerge not as bureaucrats or technicians clinging to rules and formulas but as champions who challenge the status quo, set goals that extend the limits of their teams' capabilities, rely more on judgment and intuition than calculation, and are not afraid to take risks when necessary.

Based on a comprehensive, NASA-sponsored research project, this practical guide takes readers beyond textbook management systems and articulates the field-proven tacit knowledge that these veteran leaders have accumulated through years of experience under fire. These stories contain lessons that extend far beyond the field of engineering; they apply in any environment, from the government task force to the corporate boardroom to the shop floor. This remarkably unconventional how-to book:
* Features 70 firsthand project management success stories
* Presents actionable lessons demonstrated by these success stories
* Inspires and energizes readers to reach new heights in their own performance
* Conveys leadership principles and intangibles in a simple, nontechnical format
* Provides resources for creating success stories within any organization
* Includes profiles of five "star" project managers

Project management is not just for engineers anymore, and Project Management Success Stories is for anyone-engineer or generalist, project manager or team member-who wants to turn the tacit knowledge of proven professionals into hands-on solutions to the recurring challenges of a dynamic and constantly changing business and technological environment.

Projects are an important strategic management tool and a way of life in every business. But how do you get started and ensure you realize the benefits you need? Now in its 5th edition, the Project Workout is the definitive book on business-led project management. It is a valuable companion for every executive and project manager as well as a comprehensive resource for students of project management. Projects are a way of life in every business and an important strategic management tool. But how do you ensure a project realizes the benefits you need? The Project Workout provides practical advice and techniques to direct and manage a project. Aimed at both project sponsors and project managers, it works through the life cycle of a project from initial idea to successful result. The practical approach is enhanced throughout with a series of "Workouts": exercises, techniques and checklists to help you put the book's advice into practice. The Workouts are supported by an on-line resource of tools, including MS project views, project logs and templates. This expanded edition contains a wealth of new information, including how to work with standards and methods, such as ISO 21500, BS6079 and PRINCE2 and PMBoK. The companion to this book, The Programme and Portfolio Workout, deals with directing and managing whole portfolios of projects, making sure everyone in your organization is working towards the same goals; together these books give you what you need to ensure all your projects succeed.

Essential project management forms aligned to the PMBOK(R) Guide--Sixth Edition A Project Manager's Book of Forms is an essential companion to the Project Management Institute's A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Packed with ready-made forms for managing every stage in any project, this book offers both new and experienced project managers an invaluable resource for thorough documentation and repeatable processes. Endorsed by PMI and aligned with the PMBOK(R) Guide, these forms cover all aspects of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing; each form can be used as-is directly from the book, or downloaded from the companion website and tailored to your project's unique needs. This new third edition has been updated to align with the newest PMBOK(R) Guide, and includes forms for agile, the PMI Talent Triangle, technical project management, leadership, strategic and business management, and more. The PMBOK(R) Guide is the primary reference for project management, and the final authority on best practices--but implementation can quickly become complex for new managers on large projects, or even experienced managers juggling multiple projects with multiple demands. This book helps you stay organized and on-track, helping you ensure thorough documentation throughout the project life cycle. Adopt PMI-endorsed forms for documenting every process group Customize each form to suit each project's specific needs Organize project data and implement a repeatable management process Streamline PMBOK(R) Guide implementation at any level of project management experience Instead of wasting time interpreting and translating the PMBOK(R) Guide to real-world application, allow PMI to do the work for you: A Project Manager's Book of Forms provides the PMBOK(R)-aligned forms you need to quickly and easily implement project management concepts and practices.

This book provides invaluable guidance to all those with an interest in placemaking and the built environment, from those with no experience to those who have worked for many years in industry, illustrating key principles that will secure higher quality, more sustainable design in accessible, jargon-free language. The author explains the design process in a straightforward way, exploring the different roles and highlighting the opportunities and limitations different agencies have to influence design over the various stages of the process. Examples from the UK and worldwide look at how the system operates and how best practice can make a real difference on the ground. Case studies examine situations where quality or sustainability fell short - and how this could have been avoided. This book also showcases a variety of evaluation tools, explaining how they operate, and giving guidance on how to create project-specific tools to drive schemes forward. With community empowerment at its core, the book explains technical language and shares bountiful knowledge to broaden place democracy and make influencing design accessible to many, not just a few. This is a book that brings together all the various parties involved in shaping the built environment, demonstrating that collaboration and mutual understanding are key to achieving better quality, more sustainable design.

This book reports on new theories and applications in the field of intelligent systems and computing. It covers computational and artificial intelligence methods, as well as advances in computer vision, current issues in big data and cloud computing, computation linguistics, and cyber-physical systems. It also reports on data mining and knowledge extraction technologies, as well as central issues in intelligent information management. Written by active researchers, the respective chapters are based on papers presented at the International Conference on Computer Science and Information Technologies (CSIT 2017), held on September 5-8, 2017, in Lviv, Ukraine; and at two workshops accompanying the conference: one on inductive modeling, jointly organized by the Lviv Polytechnic National University and the National Academy of Science of Ukraine; and another on project management, which was jointly organized by the Lviv Polytechnic National University, the International Project Management Association, the Ukrainian Project Management Association, the Kazakhstan Project Management Association, and Nazarbayev University. Given its breadth of coverage, the book provides academics and professionals with extensive information and a timely snapshot of the field of intelligent systems, and is sure to foster new discussions and collaborations among different groups.

With all signs pointing to an increased use of and interest in project-based work in modern organizations, the better scholars are able to make sense of the current state of the field through theory development and empirical investigation, the more successful projects promise to become. This book is a welcome addition to our field and will be, I am sure, an important work and source for future reference well into the future. -Dr. Jeffrey Pinto, Pennsylvania State University The goal of practicing project managers and scholars alike lies in solving the puzzle of how to manage projects toward successful completion. However, understanding what comprises project "success"-seemingly such an innocent question-has come to represent one of the most challenging problems for project managers and scholars. Who determines success? At what point in time is success best measured? How do diverse stakeholders define success? What happens when their perspectives collide? What is the difference between project success and project management success? These are surprisingly complex problems. For every principle or rule posited, a brief investigation reveals that there are numerous exceptions, muddying the waters and making these ideas increasingly opaque. Project Management Methodologies, Governance and Success addresses this challenge head-on, putting into proper context the critical issues that shape our understanding of the project management research process. Employing a concept referred to as "philosophical triangulation," the book shows how to overcome the weaknesses or intrinsic biases that disrupt and minimize the impact of so much organizational research. It places organizational governance and success within their proper context allowing scholars to identify the best methods for investigating project-based work. It links together in a cogent manner the diverse themes of research theory and design, projects and project success, and organizational governance. In effect, this book demonstrates that to fully understand how to undertake research in projects, theory and method are inextricably interwoven.

This research-based book takes an organization-wide perspective to describe the governance and governmentality for projects in organizations. Governance of projects defines and directs the ways managers of projects, programs, and project portfolios carry out their work. Governmentality is the way the managers of these managers present themselves to those they lead. Governance and Governmentality for Projects starts with introducing existing theories, models and paradigms for governance and governmentality. It then develops a chronological framework of the ways governance and governmentality for projects is enabled in organizations, how it subsequently unfolds in organizations of different types and sectors, and the consequences of different governance approaches for project results, trust, control, and ethical issues in projects. Special emphasis is given to the link between corporate governance and the governance of project, programs and project portfolios. Three real-life case studies exemplify the research findings described in the book. Through its structure this book describes the development of governance and governmentality in the realm of projects from its organizational origins, via observable practices, to expected consequences of different implementations. Aimed at academics, post-graduate students in business and management, reflective practitioners, standards or policy developers, those in governance roles and others in need of a detailed knowledge of the spectrum of project related governance in organizations, this book will help develop a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical and practical underpinnings of the subject, their interaction, and implications for implementation. This allows for understanding and developing of both generic and idiosyncratic governance structures, such as those needed in project-based organizations.

The treatise supports understanding the phenomena of complexity in engineering, distinguishes complexity from other challenges and presents an overview of definitions and applied approaches.The historical background of complexity management is explained by highlighting the important epochs, their key actors and their discoveries, findings and developments. Knowing about the appearance of early system awareness in ancient Greece, the creation of mechanical philosophy in the 17th century and the discovery of classic physics enables the reader to better comprehend modern system sciences and management approaches.A classification of complexity management approaches by research fields indicates current focus areas and starting points for future discussions. In a comprehensive map, the classification points out mutual overlaps between engineering disciplines in terms of similar complexity management approaches.Finally, the treatise introduces a generic complexity management framework, which is based on structural management approaches.

This book describes how auditors exercise different levels of professional skepticism and how they are exposed to different types of affective information on clients' behavior. Based on the author's empirical study of 56 auditors, it shows that auditors' skepticism and affective reactions towards a client interact to influence their appraisal of valuation problems. It also suggests that the effects of auditors' affective reactions on their skeptical judgments depend on the level of risk in the audit engagement.

Strategic Excellence in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Industries is a process of applied strategic thinking designed to develop a strategy empowered with the agility to adapt to changing circumstances and to drive a high performing culture of ideal behaviors. It is infused with the insight and the thought leadership of the Shingo Model and the scientific thinking of Lean Six Sigma. The book goes beyond the classic approach to strategic planning by driving effective execution of the strategy through the embedment of collective ownership and organization-wide alignment into the entire process. Significant advances in strategic planning and management have been developed over decades of learning and practice. Many of those advances, however, have been developed in the manufacturing industry and have not been translated into terms easily applicable to the A/E/C (Architectural / Engineering / Construction) industry. This book incorporates current best practices from cutting edge organizations around the globe and presents those in a way that they can easily be applied to A/E/C organizations through an efficient and effective process.

The Definitive Guide to the Field's Best Practices In recent years, project management has become a profession unto itself. And with a membership numbering in the tens of thousands, the Project Management Institute is the organization that's setting the profession's standards. In this authoritative handbook, more than twenty-five top experts from academia, consulting, and private industry define the current state of project management and detail for readers all of the practical elements that constitute a superior practice. In clear, accessible language, these experts provide a comprehensive overview of the technical, organizational, administrative, and interpersonal elements of successful project management. They detail the essentials of project planning--from risk management to resource allocation to scheduling. They describe the team-building, motivational, and conflict-management challenges that project leaders face. And they delineate critical success factors as well as major pitfalls to avoid. At last, project managers across all industries can readily reference the best practices of their profession and benchmark their skills against those of their most accomplished colleagues.

Originally created for agile software development, scrum provides project managers with the flexibility needed to meet ever-changing consumer demands. Presenting a modified version of the agile software development framework, Scrum Project Management introduces Scrum basics and explains how to apply this adaptive technique to effectively manage a wide range of programs and complex projects. The book provides proven planning methods for controlling project scope and ensuring your project stays on schedule. It includes scrum tracking methods to help your team maintain a focus on improving throughput and streamlining communications. It also demonstrates how to: Combine traditional project management methods with scrum Adapt the familiar work breakdown structure to create scrum backlogs and sprints Use a scrum of scrums to manage programs Apply earned value management, critical path, and PERT in the context of scrum Having successfully deployed and implemented scrum across multiple companies and departments, the authors provide valuable insight into how they achieved their past successes and how they overcame the trials involved with the deployment of a scrum environment. Throughout the text they discuss improvisation, creative problem solving, and emergent phenomena-detailing the methods needed to ensure your team achieves project success.

Productivity and Reliability-Based Maintenance Management, Second Edition is intended to provide a strong yet practical foundation for understanding the concepts and practices of total productive maintenance (TPM) management-a proactive asset and resource management strategy that is based on enhancing equipment reliability and overall enterprise productivity. The book is intended to serve as a fundamental yet comprehensive educational and practical guide for departing from the wait-failure-emergency repair cycle that has plagued too many industries, instead advancing a proactive and productive maintenance strategy. It is not intended to be a how-to-fix-it manual, but rather emphasizes the concept of a world-class maintenance management philosophy to avoid the failure in the first place. Universities, junior and community colleges, and technical institutes as well as professional, corporate, and industrial training programs can benefit by incorporating these fundamental concepts in their technical and managerial curricula. The book can serve as a powerful educational tool for students as well as for maintenance professionals and managers. In addition to updating the previous historical and statistical data and tables, the second edition expands on and adds to case studies based on current maintenance-related events. Several numerical examples and explanations are revised in order to enhance the clarity of the methodology. The second edition introduces the readers to the state-of-the-art concepts of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart sensors, and their application to maintenance and TPM.

This new textbook fills an important gap in the existing literature, in that it prepares construction engineering and built environment students for their first experience of the jobsite. This innovative book integrates conceptual and hands-on knowledge of project engineering to introduce students to the construction process and familiarize them with the procedures and activities they need to operate as project engineers during their summer internships and immediately after graduation. The textbook is structured into four sections: Section A: Introductory Concepts Section B: Field Engineering Section C: Office Engineering Section D: Advanced Project Engineering The emphasis on field tasks and case studies, questions, and exercises taken from across civil works and commercial building sectors makes this the ideal textbook for introductory to intermediate courses in Construction Engineering, Construction Engineering Technology, Civil and Architectural Engineering, and Construction Management degree programs.