When we look at a program or a project, to identify its size in terms of 'large', it would be advisable to consider a few factors that determine the size i.e., effort, uncertainty and complexity involved in delivering the outcome. This book is intended to provide the required lateral thinking in this field of management excellence.

This book explores how to design and implement planning & control (P&C) systems that can help organizations to manage their growth and restructuring processes in a sustainability perspective. The book is not designed to enable the reader to become an experienced system dynamics modeler; rather, it aims to develop the reader's capabilities to design and implement performance management systems by using a system dynamics approach. More specifically, the book shows how to develop system dynamics models that can better support an understanding of: -What is organizational performance and how to frame and measure it; -How to identify and map the processes underlying performance; -How to design and implement a dynamic performance management system and link it to strategic planning; -How to tie strategic resource dynamics to processes and performance indicators; -How to link strategic resources, and performance indicators to responsibility and incentive systems. Using a dynamic performance management approach can improve an organization's capability to understand and manage the forces driving performance over time, as well as set goals and objectives that may properly and selectively gauge results and match them to the key responsibility areas in the planning process. The dynamic performance management approaches covered in the book are beneficial to performance management analysts, enabling them to frame their professional field within the broader context of the system. The book also includes numerous case studies and dynamic performance management models for providing examples of how dynamic performance management works in practice. In addition, a literature review is included to provide a guideline for further improvements to those readers who wish to develop relevant, specific, and detailed system dynamics modeling skills and to establish the foundation for teaching system dynamics applied to performance management in organizational and inter-organizational contexts. This is particularly relevant for graduate students who have taken system dynamics courses and need to apply their own skills to business and public management.

Agile Practice Guide has been developed as a resource to understand, evaluate, and use agile and hybrid agile approaches. This practice guide provides guidance on when, where, and how to apply agile approaches and provides practical tools for practitioners and organizations wanting to increase agility. This practice guide is aligned with other PMI standards, including A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) sixth edition, and was devel-oped as the result of collaboration between the Project Man-agement Institute and the Agile Alliance.

Covers the entire process of risk management by providing methodologies for determining the sources of engineering project risk, and once threats have been identified, managing them through: identification and assessment (probability, relative importance, variables, risk breakdown structure, etc.); implementation of measures for their prevention, reduction or mitigation; evaluation of impacts and quantification of risks and establishment of control measures. It also considers sensitivity analysis to determine the influence of uncertain parameters values on different project results, such as completion time, total costs, etc. Case studies and examples across a wide spectrum of engineering projects discuss such diverse factors as: safety; environmental impacts; societal reactions; time and cost overruns; quality control; legal issues; financial considerations; and political risk, making this suitable for undergraduates and graduates in grasping the fundamentals of risk management.

Collaborating in virtual teams is a new reality in modern project management and work environments. Its emergence calls for an extensive analysis and re-alignment on the part of organizations, so as to help virtual teams maintain 'strategic momentum' - a concept that this book introduces. Strategic momentum represents perseverance with regard to pursuing a virtual team's strategy; a 'flywheel' concept that drives the team members to concentrate on the project tasks until they have reached their shared goal. The authors present a design science based model, together with an in-depth qualitative study involving eight virtual R&D project teams. In this model, strategic momentum is assessed in terms of empowerment, team task insight, and collective commitment. These three determinants can be promoted and sustained by various contextual factors and interventions on the part of the management. The authors also provide a wealth of practical tips to help practitioners and consultants generate and sustain strategic momentum in their own contexts when working with virtual teams.

There are many myths about Artificial Intelligence (AI) relating to what it is and what it can and cannot do. The people making decisions on AI projects are often not technologically savvy and unable to find easy answers. The spending on and the returns from AI projects are not necessarily straightforward. Part of the reason for this is the lack of understanding of the impact of critical decision criteria. AI touches on many ethical concepts - data privacy, validity, and, more importantly, its potential misuse. AI often replaces human decision-making, as managers do not clearly understand the implications of those choices. This book provides an easy and accessible guide for practitioners without a technological background to understand AI. It guides the reader through the fundamental issues confronting decision-makers. It offers advice on 'how to ask relevant questions' using the 15 decision scales. There is currently no comparable book on the market that acts as a pocketbook management reference guide for the AI layman.

This book discusses how systems thinking and approaches can aid management consultants in navigating the complexities of client advisory in current realities. It thereby brings to the forefront aspects of holism, flexibility and responsibility - the keys to success in today's world. Management consultants are called in to offer an independent expert view of an organisation/ a situation and are expected to address some of the most pressing problems businesses face. The client does not exist in a silo, but in a complex environment that lies at the intersection of a range of internal and external factors that are often unseen and unpredictable. The organisation itself presents an alien territory that the consultant is expected to acclimatise to within a very short period of time, and come up with solutions that "insiders" would not have been able to visualise. The book presents a range of ideas, concepts and reference cases that are relevant and topical for consultants in their daily work. It argues that systems thinking allows holism and flexibility in management consulting - while holism is about the ability to encompass the environmental and organisational complexity, flexibility is about the ability to think creatively and adopt different approaches to accommodate this complexity. With commentaries, case studies, conceptual models and perspectives that cut across multiple industries, sectors and countries, this book is a valuable resource for academics and professionals alike. The book's inner pages and its page on Springer.com contain additional comments providing perspectives of clients, industry experts and academia.

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.

Projects are at the core of all management activities because they directly will contribute to the operational and financial success of the organization. Further, projects are of strategic importance; they are integral to strategic plan and its operationalization. Since sophistication in project management will positively impact the operational profit margin, the desire for sophistication, and the motivation for excellence in project management is almost universal. Independent of the source of the underlying noble motivation, the pace at which an organization achieves that desired sophistication will directly depend on how much time, effort, and support, is dedicated to the enhancement of project management processes, procedures, and tools. A high level of project management sophistication can be an exceptionally advantageous credential for the enterprise, because this credential can be used as a competitive edge for advancing one contractor among the other members of the bidder pool. If an organization has reached a high level of project management maturity, the organization should regard that as a reason for extreme pride among competitors. Even in sophisticated organizations, the transition to virtual projects should be after verifying that there is extensive formality in managing projects, because formalization of project management processes is far more important in virtual teams than it is in traditional teams. Proposals are preludes to externally-funded projects, and portfolios are either collections of projects or collections of proposals. This book describes the attributes, procedures, and policies that reflect sophisticated organizations.

All companies draw on resources outside the business, and have to compete with other enterprises to attract these resources. Standard texts on management and organization argue that the best way to get ahead in business is by getting a firm grasp of this external environment, by 'representing' it internally. Kaj Koskinen claims that this is the wrong approach.
He argues that business knowledge doesn't just represent the world outside the company but is a construction of the company and the people working in it. The success of a company depends less on how clearly it represents the external environment than on factors such as institutional memory, a culture of trust and appropriate organizational mechanisms for learning. In short, the most successful companies are those which are what the author calls autopoietic knowledge systems. In this book, he presents a novel scheme for understanding knowledge creation and learning in project-based enterprises. He shows how autopoietic knowledge systems can be built and the benefits they can bring.
All scholars and students of knowledge management will benefit from the radical new approach to business organization presented in this book. It will also be of great interest to knowledge managers looking to understand how they can drive their businesses forward.

This book of proceedings collectsfifty-one papers presented at the inaugural Colloquium of Administrative Science and Technology (CoAST 2013) event, held at Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. It has been reviewed by 750 experts world-wide and covers three main areas Administrative Science and Technology, Management, and Arts and Humanities. The papers in this volume reflect:

the importance of the social sciences in academia and in the nations social-economic growth;

the multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary nature of academia that transcends the broad areas of the social sciences;

the increasing trend towards fundamental studies in the social sciences, management, and the arts and the humanities, which have been characterized under the overarching theme of administrative science and technology;

the growing demand for research outcomes affecting the public and private sectors service processes. The other overlapping niche areas affecting the civil service scope will ensure more interest in and readability of the findings showcased in this proceedings book;

the popular and contemporary measurement techniques and methodologies employed within the scopes of the social sciences and humanities;

the noticeably changing trends in administrative science and technology, which will greatly impact the governments of the world, allowing the development of a better understanding of governmental processes and their impact on key performance and e-service deliveries. The reporting on technology-based services will improve the public sector s agility;

a knowledge-sharing agenda for other developing and less developed nations to emulate;

some of the major generic developments that have taken place in these thematic areas of CoAST 2013."

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.

Most business leaders struggle mightily when transitioning from working in the U.S. or any modern country to working in Shanghai, Dubai, Nairobi or Pune. Despite organizational efforts to facilitate this transition through training and coaching, leaders often find themselves bewildered and frustrated by the unwritten and often unacknowledged cultural dictates of a given country. These leaders struggle with everything from motivating direct reports to getting deals done. They discover that their best practices have little to do with the practices that have been ingrained in societies for thousands of years. This book is written to provide inside information about working outside traditional business environments. It presents nine rules that will serve leaders well no matter where they're stationed--Asia, South America, the Middle East and elsewhere. As readers will discover, these rules are not taught in typical global leadership courses. Instead, they have emerged from the work of the authors with leading companies in foreign countries or from our efforts to coach others in all parts of the globe.

Understanding the roles of editors, and the processes of editorship in knowledge dissemination, are highly relevant issues for most scholars. Written by leading scholars with strong editorial experience, this book will serve as a guide for editors and scholars wishing to become editors in management and behavioral sciences.

Business Principles for Landscape Contracting, fully revised and updated in its third edition, is an introduction to the application of business principles of financial management involved in setting up your own landscape contracting business and beginning your professional career. Appealing to students and professionals alike, it will build your knowledge of financial management tools and enable you to relate their applications to real-life business scenarios. Focusing on the importance of proactive financial management, the book serves as a primer for students in landscape architecture, contracting, and management courses and entrepreneurs within the landscape industry preparing to use business principles in practice. Topics covered include: Financial management and accountability Budget development Profitable pricing and estimating Project management Creating a lean culture Personnel management and employee productivity Professional development Economic sustainability.

This book: Provides a foundation for enterprise agility, value streams, and a disciplined approach to DevOps; Is a pragmatic application of agile, lean, and traditional techniques for your enterprise-class environment; Overviews a strategy for teams to evolve a fit-for-purpose, flexible WoW that still supports a consistent governance strategy for leadership; and Makes a perfect study guide for Disciplined Agile certification.