Addressing a topic of critical importance to every business, this book provides managers at all levels the tools to conduct a successful cost-cutting and productivity-improvement program. Cost cutting and improving productivity are objectives that have always been-and continue to be-critically important to businesses. Today, being efficient isn't simply "best practice;" it's essential to preventing layoffs and facility closures. In Cutting Costs: Successful Strategies for Improving Productivity, a certified management consultant with nearly four decades of experience presents his highly relevant and extensive knowledge to help businesses make significant improvements and be more successful. Providing a practical progression of information that is simple to understand and easy to put to use and benefit from, Fred H. Neu's advice and insights will be invaluable to all business owners, managers with budget responsibility, business finance and accounting professionals, management consultants, business school instructors, and business school students. Presents many topics applicable to all businesses, both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing Describes examples of successful cost-cutting and productivity-improvement projects written by the consultants and managers who implemented them Explains how to measure results of a cost-cutting and productivity-improvement program and reward positive efforts

In this third edition of Managing Projects in Organizations, J. Davidson Frame updates and expands on his classic book to provide an accessible introduction to the field of project management. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of consulting and training experience, Frame's most current edition of his landmark book includes a wealth of new topics, including:

• Managing virtual teams
• The evolving concept of the project manager's role
• Comanaged project teams
• The project office
• Project portfolios
• Web-based project management
• International project management

This unique guide and professional reference presents a structured framework for practitioners and students of project, program, and portfolio management to enhance their strategic and analytic capabilities in the evolving discipline of project portfolio management (PPM). It provides a practical, step-by-step approach to building competencies in categorizing, evaluating, optimizing, prioritizing, and managing an IT, pharmaceutical, biotech or other complex R&D-oriented portfolio of investments.

No longer restricted to the engineering industry, project management has at long last crossed over to mainstream business. Project Management for Business Professionals is the definitive reference on the essentials of contemporary project management.

Featured here are some of the foremost practitioners and researchers from academia, consulting, and private industry, sharing their various areas of project management expertise and providing a wide range of perspectives on everything from risk management to resource planning to ethics management.

Focusing on both the technical and human sides of the field, this unique resource follows the main points of the "project management body of knowledge"–the certification standard of the Project Management Institute. The experts address the procedures and processes for planning and managing projects and explore project team/group dynamics, examining the interpersonal relations and the political and organizational considerations that can impact a project.

On the evidence of the authors of Advances in Project Management: Narrated Journeys in Unchartered Territory, there is a sea change coming. That change will affect the way projects are perceived, lead and governed, particularly in the context of the wider organisation to which they belong; whether that is in the public, private or not-for-profit sectors. Many organisations have struggled to apply the traditional models of project management to their new projects in the global environment. Anecdotal and evidence-based research confirms that projects continue to fail at an alarming rate. A major part of the build-up to failure is often the lack of adequate project management knowledge and experience. Advances in Project Management covers key areas of improvement in understanding and project capability further up the management chain; amongst strategy and senior decision makers and amongst professional project and programme managers. This collection, drawn from some of the world's leading practitioners and researchers and compiled by Professor Darren Dalcher of the National Centre for Project Management, provides those people and organisations who are involved with the developments in project management with the kind of structured information, new approaches and novel perspectives that will inform their thinking and their practice and improve their decisions.

Computer Science Project Work: Principles and Pragmatics is essential reading for lecturers and course designers who want to improve their handling of project work on specific courses, and deans and department heads who are interested in strategic issues and comparative practices. It explores working practices within the curriculum and provides a resource of guidelines and practical advice, including tried and tested "good ideas" and case studies of innovative practices.It looks at different approaches to key aspects of project work such as:- Allocation- Supervision- Assessment Integration with the curriculumand allows readers to "mix and match" approaches to create a system which suits their individual needs."Computer Science Project Work: Principles and Pragmatics is passionate, well-researched, and well-written...I wish I had this book from the beginning of my teaching career, and you will too."Susan Fowler, Professor of Technical Communication and Usability, Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York"Sally Fincher and her colleagues have assembled a cornucopia of practical advice and case studies, solidly referenced. This is the source book on using projects in computer science education."David Baume, Director of Teaching Development, Centre for Higher Education Practice, The Open University, UK"...very well-researched, it covers all the aspects, from the allocation of projects and teams, to managing the project process, assessing projects, and so on.....It will prove invaluable to all lecturers involved in teaching computing...."Professor Mike Holcombe, University of Sheffield, UK

Discusses the usage, debate, and conceptual and theoretical issues of e-collaboration support of distributed project management.

In his ground-breaking book, Reinventing Communication, Mark Phillips shows how even the most mature organization can fail to deliver successful projects - and worse, how this can lead to an organization's demise. With clear examples, Mark reveals the underlying principles at work and introduces a revolutionary new technique for harnessing the power of communication to ensure long term success. For organizations of all sizes, this book changes the way we think about management and leadership. Mark makes his case by looking at teams and individuals that set out to deliver ambitious achievements in complex and challenging environments. We meet the leadership team that built the F-18 Super Hornet fighter jet, one of the US Navy's most successful programs. We discover the untraditional approach to risk used in building a new terminal at London's Heathrow airport. We draw lessons on corporate survival from the cat and mouse fight against IED's in Afghanistan, and are introduced to a website where online video gamers solved a critical piece of the AIDS puzzle using their gaming prowess. Reinventing Communication is about creating the conditions for performance and attaining long term success. Whether a start-up, a global enterprise or a government agency, this book shows us how to deliver ambitious achievements by getting communication right. It is a book that no manager, leader or innovator should be without.

Recognizing the importance of selecting and pursuing programs, projects, and operational work that add sustainable business value that benefits end users, the Project Management Institute (PMI (R)) issued its first Standard on Portfolio Management in 2006. In 2014, it launched the Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP (R)) credential-which several of the experts who contributed to this book earned-to recognize the advanced expertise required of practitioners in the field. Presenting information that is current with The Standard for Portfolio Management, Third Edition (2013); Portfolio Management: A Strategic Approach supplies in-depth treatment of the five domains and identifies best practices to ensure the organization has a balanced portfolio management that is critical to success. Following PMI's standard, the book is organized according to its five domains: strategic alignment, governance, portfolio performance management, portfolio risk management, and portfolio communications management. Each chapter presents the insight of different thought leaders in academia and business. Contributors from around the world, including the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia, supply a global perspective as to why portfolio management is essential for all types of organizations. They provide guidelines, examples, and models to consider, along with discussion and analysis of relevant literature in the field. Most chapters reference PMI standards, complement their concepts, and expand on the concepts and issues that the standards mention in passing or not at all. Overall, this is a must-have resource for anyone pursuing the PfMP (R) credential from PMI. For executives and practitioners in the field, it provides the concepts you will need to address the ever-changing complexities that impact your work. This book is also suitable as a textbook for universities offering courses on portfolio management.

Formally validated training material to pass Microsoft certification Exam 70-178: Microsoft Project 2010, Managing Projects! Designed for the busy, practicing project manager, Dynamic Scheduling With Microsoft Project 2010 will help you get up to speed quickly with the new features of Project 2010 and enable you to create effective schedules more efficiently using best practices, tips & tricks, and step-by-step instruction. Through the use of helpful screen shots, hands-on exercises, illustrations, and review questions, this guide instructs you on how to build dynamic schedules that will allow you to explore what-if scenarios and dramatically decrease the time you spend making static schedule changes. ""A must read, re-read, and use daily for all project managers"" is what PMI's Project Management Journal had to say about the previous edition. This updated version is even better.

Project management can be broadly defined as the process of managing, allocating and timing resources to achieve given objectives in an efficient and expedient manner. The builders of the pyramids in Egypt and the Maya temples in Central America are often cited as the world's first project managers. Without the help of computers or planning software, they managed exceptionally complex projects, using the simplest of tools. Nowadays projects, sets of activities which have a defined start point and a defined end state and which pursue a defined goal and use a defined set of resources, come in many and various forms. The Manhattan project which created the first atom bomb, the Apollo moon program, the construction of the Channel tunnel, the design of the Airbus, the development of new products, the construction of large office buildings, the relocation of a factory, the installation of a new information system, as well as the development of a marketing plan are all well-known examples of projects.

Our objectives in writing Project Scheduling: A Research Handbook are threefold: (1) Provide a unified scheme for classifying the numerous project scheduling problems occurring in practice and studied in the literature; (2) Provide a unified and up-to-date treatment of the state-of-the-art procedures developed for their solution; (3) Alert the reader to various important problems that are still in need of considerable research effort. As such, this book should differ from other project scheduling books in its use of an innovative unified resource scheduling classification scheme, and a unified treatment of both exact and heuristic solution procedures.

Project Scheduling: A ResearchHandbook has been divided into four parts. Part I consists of three chapters on the scope and relevance of project scheduling, on the nature of project scheduling, and finally on the introduction of a unified scheme that will be used in subsequent chapters for the identification and classification of the project scheduling problems studied in this book. Part II focuses on the time analysis of project networks. Part III carries the discussion further into the crucial topic of scheduling under scarce resources. Part IV deals with robust scheduling and stochastic scheduling issues. Numerous tables and figures are used throughout the book to enhance the clarity and effectiveness of the discussions. For the interested and motivated reader, the problems at the end of each chapter should be considered as an integral part of the presentation.

Agile methodologies have become a popular and widely accepted method for managing software development. However, despite this success, managing agile methods has proven to be a real challenge for most companies, particularly those with complex products such as IoT devices and large development environments. Many companies have been forced to adopt a hybrid version of agile and waterfall techniques, and this hybrid approach is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception in the industry. Metagility is the first book to provide a comprehensive approach for managing a new and highly effective breed of agility from the executive level on down. Based on scientific theory and practitioner research, it is the definitive playbook for those seeking the optimal solution for adapting agile to more complex product development and organizational contexts.

Software effort estimation is one of the oldest and most important problems in software project management, and thus today there are a large number of models, each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses in general, and even more importantly, in relation to the environment and context in which it is to be applied.

Trendowicz and Jeffery present a comprehensive look at the principles of software effort estimation and support software practitioners in systematically selecting and applying the most suitable effort estimation approach. Their book not only presents "what" approach to take and "how" to apply and improve it, but also explains "why" certain approaches should be used in specific project situations. Moreover, it explains popular estimation methods, summarizes estimation best-practices, and provides guidelines for continuously improving estimation capability. Additionally, the book offers invaluable insights into project management in general, discussing issues including project trade-offs, risk assessment, and organizational learning.

Overall, the authors deliver an essential reference work for software practitioners responsible for software effort estimation and planning in their daily work and who want to improve their estimation skills. At the same time, for lecturers and students the book can serve as the basis of a course in software processes, software estimation, or project management.

TQM-based Project Planning addresses the dual issues of planning and quality improvement. It presents a set of tools, or methods, in a logical order, reinforced by the use of rolling examples. The examples, one from manufacturing and one from the service industry, constitute integrating contexts, linking the chapters. An additional example deals with the implementation of a TQM program in the context of project planning. The tools and methods are the common ones of quality improvement including the seven quality tools, the seven management and planning tools, deployment flowcharting, and methods from Hoshin planning. The unique aspect of the book is not the tools, but their presentation within an integrated structure. This exceptional book gives both understanding of the individual methods and of how they fit together in a successful project. As such it is the ideal text for engineering and project managers, managers of small businesses and quality managers in companies and organisations of all sizes.

Business leaders are frequently faced with investment decisions on new and ongoing projects. The challenge lies in deciding what projects to choose, expand, contract, defer, or abandon, and which method of valuation to use is the key tool in the process. This title presents a step-by-step, practical approach to real options valuation to make it easily understandable by practitioners as well as senior management. This systematic approach to project valuation helps you minimize upfront investment risks, exercise flexibility in decision making, and maximize the returns. Whereas the traditional decision tools such as discounted cash flow/net present value (DCF/NPV) analysis assume a ""fixed"" path ahead, real options analysis offers more flexible strategies. Considered one of the greatest innovations of modern finance, the real options approach is based on Nobel-prize winning work by three MIT economists, Fischer Black, Robert Merton, and Myron Scholes.

The "Multilingual Dictionary of Knowledge Management" comprises some 3,400 basic and topical terms in the major European languages, i.e. English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. The terms cover all areas relevant for making knowledge management a success, such as database technology, document management, knowledge presentation, database administration or ?data mining? (searching for new interesting connections in large amounts of data) which is becoming increasingly common in larger businesses.

The main part of the book is structured by the English-language terminology, along with explanations, synonyms or abbreviations if necessary. This is followed by corresponding terms in the other languages. Four alphabetical indexes, listing individual terms in the respective languages alongside their English equivalents, round off the main section. These indexes -- which also serve as individual bilingual dictionaries in their own right -- facilitate quick and easy access to the term in question.

The "Multilingual Dictionary of Knowledge Management" is an invaluable tool for any large business since professional knowledge management has become a significant key for success. Librarians, translators and many others involved in knowledge management will appreciate this highly practical and up-to-date reference work.

Technologies such as the Internet and mobile commerce bring with them ubiquitous connectivity, real-time access, and overwhelming volumes of data and information. The growth of data warehouses and communication and information technologies has increased the need for high information quality management in organizations. Information Quality Management: Theory and Applications provides solutions to information quality problems becoming increasingly prevalent.Information Quality Management: Theory and Applications provides insights and support for professionals and researchers working in the field of information and knowledge management, information quality, practitioners and managers of manufacturing, and service industries concerned with the management of information.

1) Fills in the gap in ABET requirements to teach experiment design. 2) Provides a standardized approach to experiment design that can work for any experiment. 3) Provides completed experiment designs suitable for college laboratory and professional applications. 4) Shows how to organize experimental data as it is collected to optimize usefulness. 5) Provides templates for design of the experiment and for presenting the resulting data to technical and non-technical audiences or clients.

The project has become fundamental to international development and humanitarian practice, playing a key role in defining objectives, funding streams and ultimately determining what success looks like. This book provides a much needed overview of the project in international development practice, guiding the reader through the latest theoretical debates, and exploring the core tools and stages of planning and design. The book starts with an overview of the role of the project through development history, before taking the reader through the stages of a standard project management cycle. Each chapter introduces the stage, the most common tools used to support that phase of planning, and the critical debates that exist around it, with examples to illustrate discussion from around the world and a range of development fields. The book explores the challenges to working effectively in contemporary aid conetxts, including the role of politics and the pressures wrought by the demands to demonstrate quantified results. Throughout, the book argues for the need to see the project as a form of governmentality that arranges resources and people in time and space, and which extends neoliberal forms of managerial control in the sector. Ending with suggestions for innovation, this book is perfect for anyone looking for an accessible and engaging guide to the international development project, whether student, researcher or practitioner.

The primary aim of Project Management is to facilitate the successful completion of projects. For this reason it puts particular emphasis on the importance of careful preparation and strategic co-operation within the project team. The first part of this new textbook offers a description of the project-based approach to the work environment, an analysis of when such an approach is appropriate and an account of how to make projects work. In addition, this part of the book discusses the role of planning software within the project environment. Part Two of the book describes the practical tools and skills needed to tackle projects. A number of the skills outlined in Part Two are also relevant to learning contexts other than projects. This new edition offers additional material on the life-cycle of the project: from setting up to completing a project. New sections deal with skills such as brainstorming and decision making in the project group. The text makes for required reading for project management students everywhere.

ITIL(R) 4 Direct, Plan and ImproveIf you've achieved your ITIL(R) 4 Foundation certificate, you're probably planning the next stage in your ITIL journey and which qualification to work towards. DPI provides essential knowledge and capabilities for service management professionals, supporting those involved in directing or planning based on strategy and continual improvement - a must-have skillset practitioners should seek beyond Foundation level. DPI is the only one of the ITIL 4 advanced level courses that leads to both Managing Professional (MP) and Strategic Leader (SL) status. The module is aimed at managers and aspiring managers at all levels, providing them with the practical skills needed to improve themselves and their organisation by way of effective strategic direction and delivering continual improvement. An excellent supplement to any training courseITIL(R) 4 Direct, Plan and Improve (DPI) - Your companion to the ITIL 4 Managing Professional and Strategic Leader DPI certification is a study guide designed to help students pass the ITIL(R) 4 Direct, Plan and Improve module. The majority of this book is based on the AXELOS ITIL(R) 4: Direct, Plan and Improve publication and the associated DPI Strategist syllabus. It provides students with the information they need to pass the DPI exam, and help them become a successful practitioner. Suitable for existing ITIL v3 experts, ITIL 4 Managing Professional (MP) students, ITSM (IT service management) practitioners who are adopting ITIL 4, approved training organisations, IT service managers, IT managers and those in IT support roles, the book covers: Key concepts: Scope, key principles and methods; The role of governance, risk and compliance; Continual improvement; Organisational change management; Measurement and reporting; Value streams and practices; and Exam preparation. A useful tool throughout your careerIn addition to being an essential study aid, the author - a seasoned ITSM professional - also provides additional guidance throughout the book which you can lean on once your training and exam are over. The book includes her own practical experience from which she gives advice and points to think about along the way so that you can refer back to this book for years to come - long after you've passed your exam. The essential link between your ITIL qualification and the real world - buy this book today!ITIL(R) is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. This book is an official AXELOS licensed product.