Organizations of every type struggle to remain relevant in their marketplace. They continuously strive to introduce new products and services at a rate that satisfies their customers. In their search for fresh ideas, organizations often overlook the most significant source of new thought their employees. Today s employees are knowledgeable and able to see opportunities or solutions to problems. This book describes a process for turning "great ideas" into actionable proposals. It presents a simple, but powerful set of questions that has proven to deliver a never-ending stream of inspiration to an organization. Although formal processes for project initiation, execution, and completion may be firmly embedded in an organization s project life cycle, little is said about project origins. In Project Identification, the author provides a formal process that encourages and enables all of your employees, from the corporate suite to the college hire, to participate in the innovation process. The book presents a mechanism for identifying and capturing great ideas and inspired thought as new project proposals. It provides you with a repeatable process to organize, evaluate, and then select candidate projects for initiation. In the first part of the book, the author describes the complete project life cycle and explains how the Project Identification process complements the formal Project Management methodology. The book then presents a series of questions that guide the decision-making process for identifying new projects. For each question, the author includes an example from a real proposal that demonstrates how to craft useful content. The book concludes by explaining how to capture and manage each of the formal proposals and make sure they are properly considered. It details the transition of a candidate project to a live effort, ready for project initiation. This book can help streamline how your organization conceptualizes and approves

Business-Driven IT-Wide Agile (Scrum) and Kanban (Lean) Implementation: An Action Guide for Business and IT Leaders explains how to increase IT delivery capabilities through the use of Agile and Kanban. Factoring in constant change, communication, a sense of urgency, clear and measurable goals, political realities, and infrastructure needs, it covers all the ingredients required for success. Using real-world examples, this practical guide illustrates how to implement Agile and Kanban in software project management and development across the entire IT department. To make things easier for busy IT leaders and executives, the text includes two case studies along with numerous templates to facilitate understanding and kick-start implementation. Explaining how IT and business management can work together to determine business goals that drive this IT-wide undertaking, the book arms you with actionable solutions that can be put to use immediately in any IT department, regardless of size.

Whatever their discipline, engineers are routinely called upon to develop solutions to all kinds of problems. To do so effectively, they need a systematic and disciplined approach that considers a range of alternatives, taking into account all relevant factors, before selecting the best solution. In Problem Solving for Engineers, David Carmichael demonstrates just such an approach involving problem definition, generation of alternative solutions, and, ultimately, the analysis and selection of a preferred solution. David Carmichael introduces the fundamental concepts needed to think systematically and undertake methodical problem solving. He argues that the most rational way to develop a framework for problem solving is by using a systems studies viewpoint. He then outlines systems methodology, modeling, and the various configurations for analysis, synthesis, and investigation. Building on this, the book details a systematic process for problem solving and demonstrates how problem solving and decision making lie within a systems synthesis configuration. Carefully designed as a self-learning resource, the book contains exercises throughout that reinforce the material and encourage readers to think and apply the concepts. It covers decision making in the presence of uncertainty and multiple criteria, including that involving sustainability with its blend of economic, social, and environmental considerations. It also characterizes and tackles the specific problem solving of management, planning, and design. The book provides, for the first time, a rational framework for problem solving with an engineering orientation.

Without sustained innovation, most organizations will simply fade away. Explaining how to achieve sustained innovation success in today's increasingly competitive global environment, ENOVALE: How to Unlock Sustained Innovation Project Success provides a validated strategy for implementing innovation projects following the ENOVALE methodology: envision the need, nominate, objectify, validate, align and adapt, link, and execute.The authors first book, Chance or Choice: Unlocking Innovation Success, introduced a proven management process, using the ENOVALE methodology, for identifying innovation opportunities through validated outcomes. This book takes the outcome and provides a method from project initiation to completion. Goes beyond the typical innovation book to outline specific solutions and strategies Includes templates, flow charts, tools, and strategies for each "means" of innovation Provides business examples of the philosophy, strategic elements, and success criteria that readers can easily relate to The text begins by explaining what strategy means in terms of innovation and how it can be transformative for products, processes, and services. After an overview of innovation, the book discusses a series of strategies for each of the three means of innovation. These strategies outline a systematic process you can use to initiate and conduct your own innovation projects.The book includes numerous business examples that illustrate the authors philosophy, strategic elements, and success criteria. After reading this book you will gain a solid understanding of five time-proven implementation strategies that can be applied to any type of innovation project.

Few people realise how many projects people actually manage. Or how many of the theoretical approaches to Project Management do not meet the test of the real world. This intensive look at Project Management teaches people what they need to know to lead, or be a member of, a project team. Most Project Management texts deal predominantly with technical areas, leaving readers ill-prepared for the real world. Managing Projects Well looks closely at the behavioural aspects of project management and project team participation. Managing Projects Well shows:What happens when your boss decides the project's schedule and budget, and you have to work backwards to make things fitHow to communicate and present effectively within and beyond the teamHow to cope when you do all the work, and have to manage multiple projects and non-project time as wellHow to organise people for success , and develop ideal methods for team member motivationHow to change your own bad habits quicklyWhat to do when things go wrong More traditional areas of project management, such as planning, organising, leading, and controlling a project, are also covered.Stephen Bender has many years experience managing projects, both small and large. He specialises in teaching professional, technical and clerical staff the techniques of workflow management and project management.

Carrying out a project as planned is not a guarantee for success. Projects may fail because project management does not take the requirements, wishes and concerns of stakeholders sufficiently into account. Projects can only be successful through contributions from stakeholders. And it is the stakeholders that evaluate whether they find the project successful - an evaluation based on criteria that go beyond receiving the project deliverables. More often than not, the criteria are implicit and change during the project course. This is an enormous challenge for project managers. The route to better projects, say Pernille Eskerod and Anna Lund Jepsen, lies in finding ways to improve project stakeholder management. To manage stakeholders effectively, you need to know your stakeholders, their behaviours and attitudes towards the project. The authors give guidance on how to adopt an analytical and structured approach; how to document, store and retrieve your knowledge; how to plan your stakeholder interactions in advance; and how to make your plans explicit, at the very least internally. A well-conceived plan can prevent you from being carried away in theheat of the moment and help you spend your limited resources for stakeholder management in the best way. To make this plan, you need to agree on the objectives of your stakeholder strategy and ways to achieve them. Project Stakeholder Management offers tactics and tools founded on established marketing communications theory as well as strategic management for doing just that. This book is part of Gower's Fundamentals of Project Management Series.

From the perspective of delivering successful projects, the value of a skilled project sponsor and project manager outweighs many other factors. Projects need leaders who can give them vision, identity, keep the stakeholders and the project team on board and make the difficult decisions that will enable the project to continue (or, if necessary, be terminated). These are human skills that don't necessarily feature large in the project management bodies of knowledge. Ralf Muller and Rodney Turner's Project-Oriented Leadership explains the key leadership models of managerial, intellectual and emotional leadership and shows how they can be applied within projects to lead processes, functions and people, and ensure an ethical and inclusive approach within projects and programs.

Dealing effectively with uncertainty requires today's project manager to be familiar with a broad spectrum of strategies, encompassing both 'hard' and 'soft' methods. This theme of unified thinking (i.e. the need to selectively draw upon a wide range of strategies in any given situation) will differentiate the book from its contemporaries. By picking up where traditional risk management techniques begin to fail, it brings together leading-edge thinking from a variety of disciplines and shows how these techniques can be used to conquer uncertainty in projects. The ability to make good decisions when faced with uncertainty is the real challenge. It is a universal truth that a decision is only as good as the information it is based on. But good information is often hard to come by, and all projects are vulnerable to the unknown and the unknowable. Thus, uncertainty becomes the sworn enemy of the project manager. Wherever we try to analyse, quantify, plan and act, uncertainty lies in wait to surprise us with its ambiguity and unpredictability. It lurks in every stage of the project lifecycle: in the planning (how long will this really take?), the initiation (this isn't the situation I expected!), the execution (who could have foreseen that happening?), and even the completion of a project (where are the expected benefits?). But managing uncertainty is a lot more than just applying risk management techniques. It requires a deep appreciation of how uncertainty arises and, by recognising its different guises, the appropriate strategies can be formulated. If we can learn how to reduce uncertainty, we can make better management decisions and increase the chances of the project succeeding. This book addresses five key questions: Why is there uncertainty in projects? How do you spot the symptoms of uncertainty, preferably at an early stage? What can be done to avoid uncertainty? What strategies can be used to deal with project uncertainty? How

In recent years organizations of all kinds have learned that project working, once considered significant only for engineering and construction companies, can help to ensure that the intended benefits of business change will be realized in full and on time. This development means that more people than ever before need to understand the basic process, language and purpose of project working. That awareness is important not only for those actually engaged in project work, in all sectors of industry and commerce, but also for senior managers, project sponsors and the other stakeholders. The fourth edition of Essentials of Project Management is the junior complement to Dennis Lock's comprehensive, successful and encyclopaedic textbook, Project Management (now in its Tenth Edition). Essentials provides a concise, straightforward account of the principles and techniques of project management, designed to meet the needs of the business manager or student. Using examples and illustrations, the author introduces the key project management procedures and explains clearly how and when to use them. The Essentials of Project Management remains the ideal first text for anyone new to project working or students studying project management as part of a wider business qualification or degree.

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.

This fast-paced business novel does for project management what The Goal and It's Not Luck have done for production and marketing. Goldratt's novels have traditionally slain sacred cows and delivered new ways of looking at processes which seem like common sense once you read them. Critical Chain is no exception. In perhaps Eli's most readable book yet, two of the established principles of project management, the engineering estimate and project milestones, are found wanting and dismissed, and other established principles are up for scrutiny - as Goldratt once more applies his Theory of Constraints. The approach is radical, yet clear, understandable and logical. New techniques are introduced, and Project Buffers, Feeding Buffers, Limit Multitasking, Improved Communications and Correct Measurements make them work. Goldratt even handles the complicated statistics of dispersed variability versus accumulated variability so deftly you won't even be aware of learning about them - they ll just seem like more common sense! Critical Chain is critical reading for anyone who deals with projects. If you use block diagrams, drawings or charts to keep track of your activities, you are managing a project - and this book is for you.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a global phenomenon which is gaining significant momentum across the world. Currently there is little information on how to realise and monitor benefits from implementing BIM across the life-cycle of a built environment asset. This book provides a practical and strategic framework to realise value from implementing BIM by adapting Benefit Realisation Management theory. It presents an approach for practitioners aiming to implement BIM across the life-cycle of built environment assets, including both buildings and infrastructure. Additionally, the book features: wide-ranging information about BIM, the challenges of monitoring progress towards benefit goals and the greater context of implementation; a set of dictionaries that illustrate: how benefits can be achieved, what the benefit flows are and the enabling tools and processes that contribute to achieving and maximising them; a suite of measures that can serve to monitor progress with examples of how they have been used to measure benefits from BIM; real-world examples from across the world and life-cycle phases that show how these benefits can be achieved; and information on international maturity and competency measures to complement the value realisation framework. Including a blend of academic and industry input, this book has been developed in close collaborative consultation with industry, government and international research organisations and could be used for industry courses on BIM benefits and implementation for asset management or by universities that teach BIM-related courses.

The Net Present Value (NPV) forecast lies at the heart of the business case on many projects. Martin Hopkinson's guide explains when, why and how NPV models should be built for projects and how this approach can be integrated with the risk management process. NPV models tend to be used during the earliest phases of a project as the business case is being developed. Typically, these are the stages when uncertainty is at its highest and when the opportunities to influence the project's plan are at their greatest. This book shows how project financial forecasting and risk management principles can be used to both improve NPV forecasts and to shape the project solution into one that is risk-robust. The text is sufficiently broad to be practicable for first-time users to employ the methods described. But it also contains insights into the process that are likely to be new to the majority of experienced practitioners. All users should find that the models used in this book will help to provide useful templates for exploiting the techniques that are used.

There has been a sea-change in the focus of organizations - whether private or public - away from a traditional product- or service-centricity towards customer-centricity and projects are just as much a part of that change. Projects must deliver value; projects must involve stakeholders, and Elizabeth Harrin and Phil Peplow demonstrate convincingly that stakeholders are the ones who get to decide whatvalue actually means. Customer-Centric Project Management is a short guide explaining what customer-centricity means in terms of how you work and its importance for project performance; using tools and processes to guide customer-centric thinking will help you see the results of engagement and demonstrate how things can improve, even on difficult projects. The text provides a straightforward implementation guide to moving your own business to a customer-centric way of working, using a model called Exceed and provides some guidance for ensuring that customer-centricity is sustainable and supported in the organization. This is a practical, rigorous and well-researched text. It draws on established models and uses the example of project implementation in a healthcare environment to demonstrate the impact of this significant way of thinking about value. The authors can't guarantee that the Exceed process will radically improve project success rates, and no process can. Adopting a customer-centric mindset and using the Exceed process to measure and monitor customer satisfaction will, however, help you move towards working with happier, more engaged stakeholders.

Although there are many books of methods and tools in different areas, few books actually give detailed tips and lessons on how to effectively set up and manage projects. Most books on project management devote all their space to specific methods. Breakthrough Technology Project Management, Second Edition provides tangible guidelines through examples and suggestions to help people participate in and manage projects more effectively. The authors' techniques and guidelines have been proven over the past 15 years in courses and counseling. This book is a valuable tool for those working in information systems, engineering, computer science, operations and production, and other environments involving project management.

Faced with numerous challenges, from globalism to economic turbulence, organizations need an Human Resources function that can lead from the front. The process of transforming HR is complex (and rarely linear). It involves creating a function that can direct the strategic debate, gain agreement and then execute and measure the results which, for some, involves a highly complex and often painful process of change. In this book the authors describe best practice in talent management for the HR function. They share, and guide you through, their model for successful HR development, and point you to potential solutions and good practice which has worked for other companies. This book is part of the Gower HR Transformation Series which uses a blend of conceptual frameworks, practical advice and global case study examples to cover each of the main elements of the process. The books follow a standard format to make them easy to read and reference. Together, the titles in the series create a definitive guide to HR transformation from one of the leading specialist HR transformation consultancies; an organization that has been involved in HR transformation projects for clients as diverse as Bombardier Transportation, Marks & Spencer, Barnardo's, Oxfam, Schroders, HM Prison Service, Transport for London and Vodafone.

How can technology enable effective delivery of the HR service, and how can this technology be selected and implemented into your organization successfully? Beginning with an overview of the key roles within HR and how technology can support them, Using Technology to Create Value, part of the Gower HR Transformation Series, provides a step-by-step guide detailing how to identify your requirements, develop a compelling business case and ensure that the design of the selected technology solution addresses your HR and business priorities. The book includes suggestions on the skills required to implement HR technology (HRT) effectively along with case studies to illustrate the types of issues and decisions that need to be taken, and shows solutions that have been developed within other organizations. About The Gower HR Transformation Series: The Human Resources function faces a continuing challenge to its role and purpose, in many organizations it has suffered from serious under-representation at strategic, board level. Yet, faced with the challenges of globalism, the need to innovate, manage knowledge, attract and retain the very best employees, organizations need an HR function that can lead from the front. The process of transforming the function is complex and rarely linear. It involves applying and managing technology to manage risk, knowledge and communication. All of which involves a highly complex and, often painful, process of change. The Gower HR Transformation Series will help; it uses a blend of conceptual frameworks, practical advice and global case study examples to cover each of the main elements of the HR transformation process. The books in the series follow a standard format to make them easy to read and reference. Together, the titles create a definitive guide from one of the leading specialist HR transformation consultancies; an organization that has been involved in HR transformation for clients as diverse as Bombardier Transportation, Marks & Sp

For many years now, both private and public sector organizations have been dealing with the challenge of how best to improve corporate performance. HR has not escaped this scrutiny. The very same businesses that have spent recent years cost cutting, restructuring and streamlining, are putting the pressure on the HR 'overhead' to prove that it is not just a cost centre but a function that provides added value through alignment to business needs and aspirations. The traditional, transaction-based HR service must, however, still be delivered. Understanding how to combine a renewed strategic focus with effective delivery of transactional and administrative services is the key to HR's next generation of service delivery models. The authors' work with HR functions includes an established set of service design criteria and an approach that differentiates between a successful implementation and what can be a costly backward step that only serves to alienate the business. They show how any prospective HR transformation should consider five fundamental issues in the service design phase to align the HR approach to the business strategy. These issues are critical to ensuring a fit for purpose HR function that can measure and demonstrate the value it adds. About The Gower HR Transformation Series: The Human Resources function faces a continuing challenge to its role and purpose, in many organizations it has suffered from serious under-representation at strategic, board level. Yet, faced with the challenges of globalism, the need to innovate, manage knowledge, attract and retain the very best employees, organizations need an HR function that can lead from the front. The process of transforming the function is complex and rarely linear. It involves designing a function that can manage its generalist and specialist roles with equal skills. The Gower HR Transformation Series will help; it uses a blend of conceptual frameworks, practical advice and global case study examples to

This book is aimed at people who are involved in, or are about to become involved in, a project or programme. If you feel your project and programme management competences can be improved, 59 Checklists for Project and Programme Managers will undoubtedly offer you useful suggestions. The practical approach taken by Rudy Kor and Gert Wijnen makes this an easy book to dip into when you want to know what to do in a particular situation. The book covers a range of topics, including: choosing the right approach, organising for projects and programmes, team management, starting and executing projects, and programme management. For each topic, the book provides a series of checklists to lead you through the most important aspects of each subject. With such hands-on advice from acknowledged experts so easily available, this is a book which no project or programme manager should be without. The checklist approach provides readers with tools and techniques for this particular way of working and will enable new or experienced team members to plan, initiate, run and deliver whatever the output their organisations' programme or projects require.

Books about project management are plentiful. The best of those books are too comprehensive for the person faced for the first time with managing a small and relatively straightforward project, or for the student studying for a degree or business qualification in which project management is only one of several modules. But, at the other extreme too many of the simpler books treat project management lightly, gloss over or ignore some essential processes, and even get the facts wrong and give incorrect examples. Naked Project Management is an introductory guide to the world of project management from one of the world's most accomplished project management authors. Lock has stripped project management down to its bare facts - simplifying everything but trivializing nothing - leaving sound practical advice on how to organize and manage a small or medium sized project. The book is written in the direct jargon-free style that has become Dennis Lock's hallmark. Everything is carefully explained and supported with clear diagrams. It covers all the essential aspect of project management in astonishingly few words and provides further instruction with an entertaining case study project that flows logically through the chapters from beginning to end. Degree and other students for whom project management is an elective or small part of their course will love this compact time-saving and reasonably priced study resource.

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got, and if it's not good enough, you need to do something else. As project complexity increases, so too does the need to do new things. The existing Project Management tools - examples being Earned Value Management, PRINCE2, Lifecycle Management, PMBOK- are incredibly useful; but they were designed for linear project development in a stable, understood environment. We term them 'First Order'. Second Order Project Management (PM) goes beyond, addressing the issues of a complex, unstable, uncertain environment with all its associated difficulties. Second Order PM has to address four major issues: the conspiracy of optimism, inappropriate contracting models, the application of methods and tools capable of dealing with complexity, and the need for creative, inspirational, adhocratic leadership. These problems are compounded by the need to convince executive sponsors from different disciplines to invest in the necessary process improvement - this book is designed to help alleviate the frustration that every member of the profession has experienced when trying to gain such approval. Illustrated by interviews with an international group of very senior managers responsible for managing highly complex projects, Michael Cavanagh explains why there is nothing magical, or even complicated, about Second Order PM. The techniques discussed include aspects of System Thinking, Experiential Learning and its application, Ethics and Governance, Stakeholder Relationships, Appropriate Contracting Models, Outcome-driven Management and Leadership Behaviour, all recognised as increasingly necessary in direct proportion to the complexity of the project at hand.

This is a different book on change management. Using commonsense and practical advice tested in their work with hundreds of organizations, the authors walk the reader through clear guidelines and checklists to implement change that works. Readers will develop a change management strategythat starts by diagnosing the current culture and organization, then prepares for change carefully, addresses resistance to change, develops the change strategy, measures results, builds momentum for further change, and prevents deterioration and reversion. The authors then apply their framework to two areas that are major targets for change management: implementing new technology and systems and implementing successful e-business strategies. Included throughout are real-world examples from a number of industries and government.

It is all too easy to discuss organizational change in abstraction, particularly when you are dealing with large corporations with wide product ranges across global markets. But somewhere within these structures there are people, and it is often the human aspects of change that are the most difficult to manage. Martin Orridge's guide explores these aspects and explains how we, as leaders, can help everyone cope with change and in turn ensure our organization's long-term survival. The main parts of Change Leadership are based on the author's research and include models, advice and exercises for understanding and enabling personal and organizational change. To further assist you, Chapter 3 contains 75 actions and activities to sustain transformation in your organization. Successful organizational change also requires discipline and the application of good management techniques. Good planning, checking on progress and capturing the learning are key to introducing successful change and developing an organization's capabilities, therefore Chapter 4 will assist the change leader to appreciate the main aspects of managing successful change projects. This concise guide is an engaging but rigorous read for change leaders. Whether this is your primary role or whether you need to reflect on and manage the human factors of a business project for which you are responsible, Change Leadership will help you better understand the nature of change and, in doing so, develop a Change-Adept organization.

The concept of sustainability has grown in recognition and importance. The pressure on companies to broaden their reporting and accountability from economic performance for shareholders, to sustainability performance for all stakeholders is leading to a change of mindset in consumer behaviour and corporate policies. How can we develop prosperity without compromising the life and needs of future generations? Sustainability in Project Management explores and identifies the questions surrounding the integration of the concepts of sustainability in projects and project management and provides valuable guidance and insights. Sustainability relates to multiple perspectives, economical, environmental and social, but also to responsibility and accountability and values in terms of ethics, fairness and equality. The authors will inspire project managers to be aware of these considerations, and to apply them to the role they play in projects, not just 'doing things right' but 'doing the right things right'.

Filled with practical advice for all aspects of the construction manager's role, this invaluable book fills a need for training in this essential subject, to ensure greater efficiency on site and smoother client-contractor relations. Developed as a handy-reference guide for practitioners and also useful for students, it covers the broad range of responsibilities associated with the role, providing clear guidance and in-depth coverage of the essentials. Topics include financial responsibilities and how to handle them, tender preparation, people management, health and safety, contracts, subcontracting, measurement and quantities, insurance and risk and many more simple and effective methods for turning construction projects into reality.