All project stakeholders have different needs, objectives, responsibilities and priorities. For many project managers it is disturbing to realise that, for any number of personal or professional reasons, some of their stakeholders may not be as co-operative and helpful as they expect. It could be a negative and powerful sponsor (the 'Anti-sponsor'), a demotivated team, low-maturity or unrealistic external clients, maliciously compliant gatekeepers and finance teams, or uninterested internal customers. The reality of project management is that stakeholders can be difficult! Jake Holloway, Professor David Bryde and Roger Joby bring their years of project management experience and combine it with research and insight from social psychology to delve into how and why project stakeholders can be difficult. The book describes some of the common stakeholder types - such as Sponsors, the Team, Gatekeepers, Clients and Contractors - and associated unhelpful or difficult behaviour profiles that you will often come across on projects. It then provides practical ideas, techniques and methods that will help the project manager to effectively manage the impact of these stakeholders on the project. As projects get larger and more complicated, the role and influence of stakeholders grows too. A Practical Guide to Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders will provide your project teams with the basis for a more sophisticated and resilient approach to stakeholder management.

If you have an interest in agility but you're not working specifically in IT, this book is for you. It shows how agile principles can be adapted and applied in almost any sector to manage projects more effectively. It explains what agility looks like for ALL aspects of the management of projects - from leadership, roles and responsibilities through planning, implementation, change control, risk management and more. Whether you're a new or seasoned project professional, or an executive or senior manager seeking to generate value by bringing agility beyond the IT department, Adrian Pyne shows you how an organization can become agile for projects, and what that journey looks like. Based on over 30 years' experience and drawing on case studies from multiple sectors, this is the essential guide to managing projects more effectively at a time when agility and sustainability matter more than ever. A project professional for over 30 years, Adrian Pyne has led change in 11 industries and in the public sector, in the UK and abroad. The author of books on programme management and agile governance and assurance, he has contributed to the evolution of programme, portfolio and PMO standards and is a regular speaker, visiting lecturer, blogger and researcher.

This book presents a new approach to the valuation of capital asset investments and investment decision-making. Starting from simple premises and working logically through three basic elements (capital, income, and cash flow), it guides readers on an interdisciplinary journey through the subtleties of accounting and finance, explaining how to correctly measure a project's economic profitability and efficiency, how to assess the impact of investment policy and financing policy on shareholder value creation, and how to design reliable, transparent, and logically consistent financial models. The book adopts an innovative pedagogical approach, based on a newly developed accounting-and-finance-engineering system, to help readers gain a deeper understanding of the accounting and financial magnitudes, learn about new analytical tools, and develop the necessary skills to practically implement them. This diverse approach to capital budgeting allows a sophisticated economic analysis in both absolute terms (values) and relative terms (rates of return), and is applicable to a wide range of economic entities, including real assets and financial assets, engineering designs and manufacturing schemes, corporate-financed and project-financed transactions, privately-owned projects and public investments, individual projects and firms. As such, this book is a valuable resource for a broad audience, including scholars and researchers, industry practitioners, executives, and managers, as well as students of corporate finance, managerial finance, engineering economics, financial management, management accounting, operations research, and financial mathematics. It features more than 180 guided examples, 50 charts and figures and over 160 explanatory tables that help readers grasp the new concepts and tools. Each chapter starts with an abstract and a list of the skills readers can expect to gain, and concludes with a list of key points summarizing the content.

The categorisation of analytical projects could help to simplify complexity reasonably and, at the same time, clarify the critical aspects of analytical initiatives. But how can this complex work be categorized? What makes it so complex? Data Analytics Initiatives: Managing Analytics for Success emphasizes that each analytics project is different. At the same time, analytics projects have many common aspects, and these features make them unique compared to other projects. Describing these commonalities helps to develop a conceptual understanding of analytical work. However, features specific to each initiative affects the entire analytics project lifecycle. Neglecting them by trying to use general approaches without tailoring them to each project can lead to failure. In addition to examining typical characteristics of the analytics project and how to categorise them, the book looks at specific types of projects, provides a high-level assessment of their characteristics from a risk perspective, and comments on the most common problems or challenges. The book also presents examples of questions that could be asked of relevant people to analyse an analytics project. These questions help to position properly the project and to find commonalities and general project challenges.

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT CLASSIC--REVISED AND EXPANDED

Now Includes Downloadable Forms and Worksheets

Projects are becoming the heart of business. This comprehensive revision of the bestselling guide to project management explains the processes, practices, and management techniques you need to implement a successful project culture within your team and enterprise. Visualizing Project Management simplifies the challenge of managing complex projects with powerful, visual models that have been adopted by more than 100 leading government and private organizations.

In this new Third Edition, the authors--leading thinkers and practitioners in the field--keep you on the cutting edge with a sophisticated approach that integrates project management, systems engineering, and process improvement. This advanced content can help take your career and your organization well beyond the fundamentals.

New, downloadable forms, templates, and worksheets make it easy to implement powerful project techniques and tools.

Includes references to the Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge and the INCOSE Handbook to help you pass: The Project Management Professional Certification Exam The INCOSE Systems Engineer Certification Exam (CSEP)

"I recommend this book to all those who aspire to project management [and] those who must supervise it."
--Norman R. Augustine, former chairman and CEO Lockheed Martin Corporation

"The importance of this excellent book, able to encompass these two key disciplines [systems engineering and project management], cannot be overemphasized."
--Heinz Stoewer, President, INCOSE

The Entrepreneurship in the Raw Materials Sector proceeding is a collection of papers focusing on the macroeconomic aspects of green growth, the business opportunities in the raw materials sector, and the challenges in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship training. These papers were presented during the closing conference of LIMBRA ('Decreasing the negative outcomes of brain drain in the raw materials sector'), a project funded by EIT Raw Materials in the period of 2019-2021. LIMBRA primarily aims at generating new entrepreneurial ideas in the raw materials sector, and to encourage engineering students graduating in raw materials-related programmes to start their own businesses. This proceeding offers a good summary of our approach, and our results: identify the critical trends in the macroeconomic environment; learn about the specifics of the raw materials markets; develop new business ideas, and rely on your local ecosystem for extra knowledge, mentoring; and finally, help students to "Become stay-at-home entrepreneurs".

A seminal collection of research methodology themes, this two-volume work provides a set of key scholarly developments related to robustness, allowing scholars to advance their knowledge of research methods used outside of their own immediate fields. With a focus on emerging methodologies within management, key areas of importance are dissected with chapters covering statistical modelling, new measurements, digital research, biometrics and neuroscience, the philosophy of research, computer modelling approaches and new mathematical theories, among others. A genuinely pioneering contribution to the advancement of research methods in business studies, Innovative Research Methodologies in Management presents an analytical and engaging discussion on each topic. By introducing new research agendas it aims to pave the way for increased application of innovative techniques, allow ing the exploration of future research perspectives. Volume I covers a range of research methodologies within the realms of philosophy, measurement and modelling, and focusses on meta-modern mixed methods such as neurophilosophy, diagnostic measurement, and emotivity and ephemera research.

Demonstrating the potential of building strong brands in the energy sector, this book explores the challenges of shifting the perception of energy from a commodity business into a consumer brand. Energy suppliers are increasingly being met with skepticism, indicating the need for a greater focus on marketing and branding in the energy industry. The author examines both perspectives of energy as a commodity business and a consumer brand, as well as the perception of energy consumers across Europe. Topics discussed include green energy, the liberalisation of the electricity industry, and the relationship between consumers and executives in the energy market. One of the first of its kind, this book offers a unique and innovative study of the development of branding in the energy industry, and sheds light on future marketing strategies.

This book provides a consistent and holistic managerial approach to product management and presents a practical and comprehensive methodology (roles, processes, tasks, and deliverables) that covers all aspects of product management. It helps students of product management, product management practitioners, product management organizations, and corporations understand the value, theory, and implementation of product management. It outlines a practical approach to clarify role definitions, identify responsibilities, define processes and deliverables, and improve the ability to communicate with stakeholders. The book details the fundamentals of the Blackblot Product Manager's Toolkit (R) (PMTK) product management methodology, a globally adopted best practice.

This work outlines a state-of-the-art project control and trending programme, focusing on advanced applied-cost and schedule-control skills for all phases of a project at both owner and contractor level. It contains information on the three major aspects of the total project programme: the techniques and procedures utilized for a project; the experience and analytical ability of project personnel; and the commitment and teamwork of a project group.

This book analyses mergers and acquisitions within the broader framework of strategic decisions. Existing studies on corporate acquisitions have produced a variegated and inconclusive spectrum of findings on the strategic mechanisms that contribute to value creation. By building on the widespread recognition that firms substantially differ in their ability to carry out successful acquisitions, this book focuses on the diverse effects of experiential learning. A unique systematic literature review is provided, which thematically highlights the connections between various streams of research. The author aims to systematise our knowledge on experience and learning dynamics in corporate acquisitions, providing a detailed analysis of conceptual implications and presenting potential avenues for future exploration.

In this new edition of her award-winning book, Jamie Lynn Cooke explains the principles of Agile, shows why it works, and demonstrates how to use Agile to significantly increase productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction in any industry. It shows how Agile approaches can give you a faster, more flexible and highly responsive framework, allowing your organisation to leverage internal and external changes more quickly; significantly more efficient use of resources and time, freeing up staff for greater innovation and value creation; direct stakeholder engagement, resulting in better customer relationships and more compelling product development. Written for managers and business professionals, the book presents a range of proven Agile methods including Scrum, Kanban, Feature Driven Development and the Dynamic Systems Development Method in clear business language. The author then devotes a chapter to each of the 12 Agile principles that make these approaches consistently successful, and details how to use these methods to tackle the core challenges faced by every organization. The book concludes with in-depth case study that compares Agile with traditional approaches for achieving three common business objectives, followed by step-by-step guidelines to making Agile work for your organization, and a range of resources for further reading. Read this book and learn how to unleash the potential of Agile in your organization.

Success in project management requires the project manager to operate at many levels and deal with a myriad of internal and external stakeholders. Leadership in the project management requires the vision, ability and courage to guide individuals and teams to rewarding experiences.
Project Managers often expect to achieve a great deal, but need to realise they can achieve little without the efforts of others. This book focuses on the complexity and issues of leadership in project management. The book provides:
* assist project managers in their understanding of what leadership is and how leadership influences the outcome of project success
* demonstrate how empowerment can be used to achieve results and positive project outcomes
* demonstrate how to engage and influence others to achieve project goals
* define the theoretical and practical boundaries of decision making within the context of multiple stakeholder projects
* provide an insight into what it takes to build high performance project teams
* provide a communication taxonomy for managing multiple stakeholders and demonstrates how conflict should be managed
* Achieve your project management goals by providing clear leadership
* Build and develop an effective project team
* Demonstrates how to engage and influence stakeholders and team members to achieve project goals

The book is a synthesis of the state-of-the-art in project management concepts and techniques. The author places particular emphasis on precedence diagramming (PDM), at present the most widely used schedulingmethod. New theoretical improvements of PDM are presented, several for the first time in a book, such as: maximal type of precedence relationships, calculating the minimal and maximal available project durations, levelingresources when maximal relationships are used, and precedence diagramming time-cost trade-off. Discussions of computer implementation are included throughout the book. A PC-based software package called ProjectDirector', containing the theoretical improvements described in the book, is available from the author. Audience: Researchers, and undergraduate and graduate students in civil engineering, industrial engineering and operationsresearch, as well as practitioners, managers, and contractors interested in project management.

Why do companies exert high effort to reduce the costs of products that are production? Because they can! Because unnecessary product costs were not removed during product development. C-O-S-T, short for Cost Optimization System and Technique, details how a company's product development teams, their supporting functions, and company leaders can optimize product costs before production starts and thereby maximize lifecycle profits. Since product development teams determine product costs imparted to new products, much of the book details how these teams optimize product costs. The book also includes ways company leaders can create and sustain company-wide engagement in optimizing product costs and keeping the resulting increased profit margins. The reader is entertained while observing a three-day workshop where executives of a fictitious company, Defender Products, Inc. are being taught the C-O-S-T system by its developers. The story flows like a business workshop with slides, dialog, and break-out sessions. The content will benefit all companies that design, develop and manufacture products.

Designed for anyone charged with making e-learning really work, Preparing Learners for e-Learning presents a variety of methods business organizations and educational institutions can use to prepare their learners to become successful e-learners. This first-of-its-kind book helps trainers, designers, and educators understand the importance of enhancing self-directedness in learners as they prepare for e-learning and the various learning theories that can be used for this purpose. It then guides e-learning professionals through the process of creating interventions— specific to their own individual situations— that will assist their learners in preparing for the move to an e-learning environment.

This book provides science and technology ethos to a literate person. It starts with a rather detailed treatment of basic concepts in human values, educational status and domains of education, development of science and technology and their contributions to the welfare of society. It describes ways and means of scientific progresses and technological advancements with their historical perspectives including scientific viewpoints of contributing scientists and technologists. The technical, social, and cultural dimensions are surveyed in relation to acquisition and application of science, and advantages and hindrances of technological developments. Science and Technology is currently taught as a college course in many universities with the intention to introduce topics from a global historical perspective so that the reader shall stretch his/her vision by mapping the past to the future. The book can also serve as a primary reference for such courses.

Exploring the practices developed by remote teams to maintain trust across cultures, this book offers both theoretical and practical resources to enable better working in challenging contexts of project work. This book emphasizes building trust between team members from a practice perspective, meaning patterns of collective, shared activities that are produced and reproduced within the virtual team with the purpose of developing team trust. The author explores the trust practices that members of remote project teams use to describe their relationships and interactions. Team trust practices are powerful organizational tools for members of remote cross-cultural teams, influencing team decision-making and facilitating team effectiveness. This book offers extensive descriptions of team practices that build and maintain trust in virtual teams in two different cultures: Germany and Singapore. This is a unique contribution as it offers case studies from project teams that were observed and interviewed during their work and provides readers an in-depth, contextual analysis of the trust practices that virtual project teams develop, which previous research has overlooked. This book will appeal to researchers and graduate students in MBA programs studying project management, human resource management, and strategic leadership. This book is also of direct interest to many practitioners, particularly management consultants and project managers of virtual, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary project teams.

This book attempts to reflect the project reality as closely as possible, covering the ISO 21500:2012 standard that has just been introduced and the benefits from the best contributions worldwide and also providing the concise yet powerful tool box. It shall be easy to use and intuitively supportive of project managers. So far, evidence indicates that these targets are successfully met. One of its key recognitions, and in consequence a distinctive feature of this book, is the impact that the project manager's personality has on the fate of the project. The project manager's successful self-management in work & life and in leadership processes should be considered as important in any endeavor as all other project management processes, covered by the new standards and guidelines.

The primary focus of this book is an examination of longitudinal team communication and its impact on team performance. This theoretically-grounded, holistic examination of team communication includes cross-condition comparisons of team (i.e., distributed/in person, unrestricted/time pressured, two performance episodes) and employs multiple quantitative methodological approaches to examine the phenomena of interest. This book simultaneously provides practical content for researchers and practitioners in the social sciences and humanities. Included are step-by-step instructions for the methodologies employed, and distillations of findings via Managerial Minutes that highlight best practices and/or examples to help enhance team communication in practice.

This is a different kind of book on project management. Using a narrative tone, humor and personal anecdotes, the author highlights the significant gaps in current project management theory as well as disparities within project management practice. This book then provides managers with new models for project management and value creation using chaos and complexity theories, systems thinking and quantum mechanics to explore a more holistic view of project management. Drawing on these bodies of knowledge, the author proposes the existence of an ecosystem that surrounds projects, explains how the project and its ecosystem are distinct, but co-dependent entities, and shows why both need to be managed using very different competencies.

This exciting new resource guides readers through a step-by-step process on how to deliver quality, robust products and services while strengthening teams and customer relationships. Drawing on the author's extensive knowledge in aerospace and defense contracting, Practical Project Management for Engineers shares real world examples to recover schedule, cost and performance, explaining the tools, techniques, and methodologies to ensure success. It compares NASA, Department of Defense (DoD), and Project Management Institute (PMI) processes and provides best practices that work in the real world to deliver quality products on time and on budget. This book applies the Pareto Principle, which focuses on the 20% of the material that contributes to the majority (80%) of success to help engineering managers to move a project from contract award to delivery while increasing productivity tenfold. This book is a "how-to" manual for those struggling to get their projects under control as well as for new project managers looking who need a holistic view of project management.

The rise of the information age and the digital economy has dramatically changed engineering. With tremendous advances in computing and communication systems, causing major organizational upheaval, all fueled by complexity, globalization, short cycle times, and lean supply chains, the functions of engineers have significantly changed. Engineers must be technically savvy and have product management and costing skills all while working in a distributed and often unstable environment. This new edition textbook is updated to cover the integration of cost, risk, value, scheduling, and information technologies going beyond basic engineering economics. Engineering Economics of Life Cycle Cost Analysis, Second Edition offers a systems and life cycle or total ownership cost perspective. It presents advanced costing techniques such as simulation-based costing, decision analysis, complex systems costing, software, big data, and cloud computing estimation. Examples and problems demonstrating these techniques with real-world applications are also included. All engineers will find this book useful, but it is mainly written for systems engineers, engineering management, and industrial engineers along with graduate courses on advanced engineering economic analysis and cost management, and financial analysis for engineers. To assist with classroom teaching, the textbook provides an instructor's manual for qualified course adoption and downloadable Excel solutions.