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.

The concept of 'earned value' as a project management tool has been around since the 1960s; although recognized as an important technique and widely used on US Government contracts, it failed to excite much interest in the wider world because of its specifically American requirements and the cumbersome, prescriptive bureaucracy that seemed to accompany it. Recently however, with the advent of suitable software and used in a much more flexible way, there has been a growth in interest among project managers. Crucially it has been recognised that this technique can be helpful in a wide variety of projects of almost any size, not just government projects costing billions of pounds. In essence, earned value allows the project manager a more precise view of actual project performance in terms of both value generated and schedule progress than is possible with any other approach. Alan Webb's concise guide provides practising project managers with everything they need to: c assess the appropriateness and benefits of the earned value process for both their project(s) and their organization; c appreciate, understand and learn the techniques involved; c identify how to apply the data to manage projects with flexibility, pragmatism and rigour; c understand the different features and benefits of the various software packages available; c plan for the introduction of an earned value methodology, anticipating both the systems and people problems they may face. The book uses worked examples, cases and anecdotes from the author's own extensive experience to bring this technical subject to life. Alan's writing style is direct and economical, which means that whether you are dipping into chapters for reference or reading about the process from cover to cover, everything he has to say is pertinent and helpful.

Losing contracts at rebid can have a major impact on a business: the loss of turnover and profit, of customers, skills, people and potentially reduced morale and confidence. Investment in retaining rebids can underpin significant increases in growth, at a lower cost than focussing only on chasing new business. Average retention rate of contracts at rebid is 60-70% across many companies, with others retaining as little as 50%, or less. However, there are proven approaches that can improve any company's chances of winning. Winning Your Rebid will help incumbent contractors increase their chances of retaining an existing contract. Whilst it includes the skills of bidding for new contracts, rebidding requires a significantly different set of actions and processes. The book takes you through all the preparations throughout a contract that will put you in the best position to win your rebid and includes valuable advice, techniques, case studies and ideas on how to run and deliver it successfully.

In this very distinctive book, Images of Projects challenges how we think about projects in the most fundamental way: it rejects outright the idea of a one 'best way' to view all projects and also the idea of following a prescriptive approach. In contrast, Images of Projects seeks to encourage a more pragmatic and reflective approach, based on deliberately seeing projects from multiple perspectives, exploring the insights and implications which flow from these, and crafting appropriate action strategies in complex situations. Based on real examples and the authors' work over the last ten years, Images of Projects presents seven pragmatic images for making sense of the complex realities of projects. Illustrated using various models, these images are presented in ways that allow the reader to reflect upon their own mental models in relation to the different perspectives in this book.

In Understanding and Negotiating EPC Contracts, Volume 1, Howard M. Steinberg presents a practical and comprehensive guide to understanding virtually every aspect of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for infrastructure projects.

The 25 chapters in Volume 1 are supplemented with real-life examples and court decisions, and offer tactical advice for anyone who must negotiate or understand EPC contracts in connection with the implementation, financing or operation of infrastructure projects.

Emphasizing current market practices and strategic options for risk sharing, the book contains a narrative explanation of the underpinning of all of the issues involved in EPC contracting. Exhaustive in scope, it clarifies the fundamental commercial principles and pitfalls of "turnkey" contracting for all types of capital investments ranging from electrical and thermal power generation (including combined heat and power, nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas and coal) to refining, to chemical processing to LNG liquefaction and re-gasification to high speed rail, bridging, tunneling and road building. Providing clear and thorough analyses of the issues and challenges, this volume will be of great value to all those involved in complex construction projects.

Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter One A Historical Perspective Chapter Two Choosing a Development Chapter Three The EPC Contractor’s Approach Chapter Four Beginning the Evaluation Process Chapter Five Full Scale Development Chapter Six Philosophy of the EPC Contract Chapter Seven Subcontractors Chapter Eight Site or Route Survey Chapter Nine The Work Chapter Ten The Sponsor’s Obligations Under the EPC Contract Chapter Eleven Monitoring the Progress of the Work Chapter Twelve Unforeseen Circumstances, Adjustments and Change Orders Chapter Thirteen The EPC Contractor’s Failure to Perform Chapter Fourteen The Owner’s Failure to Discharge Its Responsibilities Chapter Fifteen Unexpected Market Conditions Chapter Sixteen Testing and Completion of the Work Chapter Seventeen Liquidated Damages for Delay and Impaired Performance Chapter Eighteen The EPC Contractor’s Warranties of the Work Chapter Nineteen Security for the EPC Contractor’s Performance Chapter Twenty Limitations on Overall Liability and Contract Expiration Chapter Twenty One Payment for the Work Chapter Twenty Two Title and Other Legal Matters Chapter Twenty Three Indemnification and Insurance Chapter Twenty Four Dispute Resolution and Governing Law Chapter Twenty Five Interested Third Parties Afterword

In Project Risk Governance, Dieter Fink breaks new ground in two ways. Firstly, he places project risk management in the context of today's organisations in which objectives are increasingly implemented through projects to better respond to fast-changing markets. Secondly, he applies a governance perspective to examine project risk at the project and corporate levels, an approach which is significantly under-researched and for which theoretical knowledge and professional practice are at an early stage of maturity. Project risk governance falls between corporate governance and project governance and is attracting increasing attention. The author argues that there are two reasons for this. The first is the 'projectisation' of organisations, in particular within organisations conforming to the Project-Based Organisation (PBO) model. The second is the prevalence of a strategic approach to managing risk for the purposes of protecting organisational values and creating competitive advantage. The book addresses governance, strategy, value management and building enterprise-wide Project Risk Governance (PRG) capabilities. Chapters examine the role of projects in organisations and the need to integrate project and business strategy within the framework of the Project-Based Organisation. PRG is introduced via its links with corporate and project governance and its scope is covered in chapters that identify relevant processes, structures and relationship mechanisms. Contextual influences such as the professionalisation of project management are recognised and insights provided to increase readers' understanding of uncertainty, risk events, and probabilities and of the essential requirements of managing risks at project level. The final chapter provides a roadmap to the stages and dimensions of a PRG maturity model.

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.

This two-volume collection offers a comprehensive practical and legal guide to the complex process of negotiating engineering, procurerment and construction contracts. In Understanding and Negotiating EPC Contracts, Volume 1, Howard M. Steinberg explores virtually every aspect of (EPC) contracts for infrastructure projects. The 25 chapters in Volume 1 are supplemented with real-life examples and court decisions, and offer tactical advice for anyone who must negotiate or understand EPC contracts in connection with the implementation, financing or operation of infrastructure projects. Emphasizing current market practices and strategic options for risk sharing, the book contains a narrative explanation of the underpinning of all of the issues involved in EPC contracting. The challenge of the parties to an EPC contract is not to eliminate risk but rather put into place a narrative structure that enables you to predict the contractual result if a risk materializes. If the EPC contract does not allow the parties to determine the consequences of an unanticipated situation, they will have to look to an expert, mediator, tribunal, or court to impart guidance or pass judgment. The sample forms of contract in Volume 2 of Understanding and Negotiating EPC Contracts are intended to serve as a guide to demonstrate how risks and responsibilities can be allocated among project sponsors, EPC contractors and the various other parties that may be involved in a project.

Architects and engineers can build models to test their ideas - why not managers? In Game Theory in Management: Modelling Business Decisions and Their Consequences, author Michael Hatfield presents a series of mathematically structured analogies to real-life business and economic interaction scenarios, and then, using modern game theory, he shows how to test common managerial technical approaches for their effectiveness. His results are astonishing: if game theory is correct then many commonly-held and taught management approaches and techniques are not only less effective than thought, they are actually detrimental in many areas where they are held to be beneficial. Game Theory in Management also examines managerial implications from network theory, cartage schemes, risk management theory, management information system epistemology, and other areas where the quantification and testing of business decisions can be employed to identify winning and losing stratagems.

In the increasing number of heavily projectized organizations, sustainable, commercial performance depends on their ability to measure and develop the performance of project management. This involves developing new skills and capabilities, such as a learning approach across projects. It also involves transforming established approaches such as corporate governance to match the new project-oriented context and, finally, it involves learning to use projects to enable key organizational objectives, such as sustainability, as well as the project-specific outcomes. The Performance of Projects and Project Management offers perspectives on all of these fundamental aspects of project performance. As such, it is an important book for those concerned with project strategy, project delivery and business sustainability.

Understanding governance as it applies to portfolios, programs, and projects is growing in importance to organizations, because appropriate governance is a factor in the success or failure of strategic initiatives and portfolios, as well as an organization's programs and projects. Implementing an effective governance framework can be challenging due to factors such as increasing business complexities, regulatory requirements, globalization, and rapid changes in technology and business environments. Many organizations do not have a consistent approach to portfolio, program, and project governance. PMI's Governance of Portfolios, Programs, and Projects: A Practice Guide, developed by leading experts in the field, provides guidance to organizations and practitioners on how to implement or enhance governance on portfolios, programs, and projects. This practice guide provides definitions for governance in an effort to distinguish the different levels of governance and to identify their common elements.

The track record of IT projects is poor. Less than a third of IT projects deliver what they said they would, on schedule and on budget. The major cause of IT project failure is not, as you might expect, poor IT leadership or difficult technology but poor business leadership. One of the reasons for this is that, unlike their IT peers, business managers often get little training or education in project delivery, let alone the special case represented by an IT project. Business Leadership for IT Projects addresses the gap by providing tools and ideas that are applicable to all sizes of IT projects, from those in large multinational corporations, down to small growing businesses. It sets out the key project touchpoints where business leadership can have a major impact on project success. The book combines psychological research and project best practice to create a practical toolbox that can be dipped into, as needs arise, or followed as an overall approach to IT project leadership. The toolbox weaves together three key strands of thought. First, that the concept of value should be at the forefront of project design and delivery. Second, that business managers need to take active leadership of IT projects to secure value. Third, that project teams need tools to slow down their thinking and ensure that actions and decisions are well thought through.

This book enhances the reader's understanding of the nature and presence of risk by raising the organisation's awareness of the risks it faces, and formalising the systems needed to deal with and learn from those risks. While based on the experience of the construction industry, the book also acts as a broader project management text, meeting the needs of project managers and students in many disciplines and professions from architecture and construction through engineering and commerce to IT, finance and banking. Essential for anyone studying or involved in organisational decision-making for projects, this book will help readers to develop confidence in dealing with risk in a systmatic manner.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK (R)) Guide is the go-to resource for project management practitioners. Over the past few years, the project management profession has significantly evolved due to emerging technology, new approaches and rapid market changes. Reflecting this evolution, The Standard for Project Management enumerates 12 principles of project management and the PMBOK (R) Guide - Seventh Edition is structured around eight project performance domains. Both the standard and the guide reflect the wide range of development approaches that lead to value delivery. This edition is designed to address practitioners' current and future needs and to help them be more proactive, innovative and nimble in enabling desired project outcomes. This edition of the PMBOK (R) Guide: Reflects the full range of development approaches (predictive, adaptive, hybrid, etc.) Provides an entire section devoted to tailoring the development approach and processes Includes an expanded list of models, methods, and artifacts Focuses on not just delivering project outputs but also enabling outcomes; and Integrates with PMIstandards+ for information and standards application content based on project type, development approach, and industry sector.

Managing Sport Mega-Events explores global developments in the management of sport mega-events. Sport mega-events such as the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup have been examined from a number of academic perspectives including history, sociology, politics, urban planning and economics. What is lacking, however, is a book which identifies and evaluates the current issues and complexities faced by those charged with the responsibility of managing these sport mega-events. This book fills the gap. The book addresses three broad but interconnected themes. First, strategic matters are explored focusing on the rise of sport mega-events, the management of stakeholders and governance issues. Second, how organisers can best ensure the sustainable management of sport mega-events is considered. Third, operational matters and related issues are examined including media management, broadcast management, venue management, risk management, marketing and sponsorship management. The book draws on leading international sport management scholars, each of whom has expertise in the organisation of sport mega-events. It makes a valuable contribution to the existing literature.

Most construction projects are large and costly. Collaborative working involves two or more stakeholders sharing their efforts and resources to complete the project more effectively and efficiently. Collaborative, integrative and multi-disciplinary teams can tackle the complex issues involved in creating a viable built environment. This tends to be looked at from three interrelated perspectives: the technological, organizational, and social; and of these the key issue is to improve productivity and enable innovation through the empowerment and motivation of people. This book provides insights for researchers and practitioners in the building and construction industry as well as graduate students, written by an international group of leading scholars and professionals into the potential use, development and limitations of current collaborative technologies and practices. Material is grouped into the themes of advanced technologies for collaborative working, virtual prototyping in design and construction, building information modelling, managing the collaborative processes, and human issues in collaborative working.

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.

Recent computer-based tools for project planning and management focus on user-friendliness and interconnectivity. However, these programs function on the Critical Path Method, or CPM, which was created in the 1950s. These programs, which involve simplistic models and methods, ignore the fact that the underlying computations on which they function have become woefully inadequate for the complex projects of today. The product of nearly a decade of work, The Dynamic Progress Method: Using Advanced Simulation to Improve Project Planning and Management provides an overview of the research conducted while illustrating some of the issues with current approaches. It presents the Dynamic Progress Method (DPM), an innovative simulation-based approach to project management. It also includes instructions on how to use the accompanying DPM-based simulation tool pmBLOX to plan, manage, and analyze projects. This groundbreaking book is a must-have resource for project planning and management. It introduces a new and better way of planning, estimating, and managing projects that corrects some of the fundamental flaws of the CPM. It brings the computational integrity of planning simulations up to speed with modern needs, making it useful not only to current project managers but also to students who will become project managers.

Designated by PMI as Recommended Reading for Business Analysts! This innovative guide shows how the business analyst (BA) role can be executed in collaboration with the project or program manager (PM) role to produce higher quality products, requirements, and success rates, with solutions that deliver business value and products and services that better satisfy stakeholder needs. It evaluates the PM and BA roles current contrasting perceptions and defines the roles they should fulfill.

Performance Coaching for Complex Projects recognises a world of complex undertakings for which the common transactional mindsets and methodologies will not produce the required results. The author advocates, instead, the novel concept that the project manager or team leader should coach the team as part of their role. Managing complexity requires greater use of influence and less reliance on coercion. Learning how to recognise the clues that reveal personal preferences, character traits and motivations will allow you to communicate in a way that recognises how different team members see the world. Team coaching helps the project team work together to think through their issues and then collectively implement the solution. Tony Llewellyn has structured his book in two parts. Part I looks at the challenges of complexity and makes the case for a shift from a transactional directive mindset to a transformational coaching philosophy. Part II introduces a model of project team coaching including the processes and methodologies that have been shown to be effective in improving team performance. Complex projects are invariably messy, not least because of the human factors associated with them. Performance Coaching for Complex Projects is essential reading for anyone responsible for managing in uncertain, challenging and changing environments.

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

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

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

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

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

If you have tried to implement Agile in your organization, you have probably learned a lot about development practices, teamwork, processes and tools, but too little about how to manage such an organization. Yet managerial support is often the biggest impediment to successfully adopting Agile, and limiting your Agile efforts to those of the development teams while doing the same old-style management will dramatically limit the ability of your organization to reach the next Agile level.

Angel Medinilla will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of what Agile means to an organization and the manager's role in such an environment, i.e., how to manage, lead and motivate self-organizing teams and how to create an Agile corporate culture. Based on his background as a "veteran" Agile consultant for companies of all sizes, he delivers insights and experiences, points out possible pitfalls, presents practical approaches and possible scenarios, also including detailed suggestions for further reading.

If you are a manager, team leader, evangelist, change agent (or whatever nice title) and if you want to push Agile further in your organization, then this is your book. You will read how to change the paradigm of what management is about: it is not about arbitrary decisions, constant supervision and progress control, and the negotiation of changing requirements. It is about motivation, self-organization, responsibility, and the exploitation of all project stakeholders' knowledge. We live in a different world than the one that most management experts of the 20th century describe, and companies that strive for success and excellence will need a new kind of manager - Agile managers."

Providing in-depth analysis, this book enables readers to understand the theoretical aspects of personal selling and explores the difficulties of selling services which are sensitive to cultural, age and gender differences, and to customers originating from diverse cultural zones. Agents and personal sellers must be aware of these differences and be familiar with the expectations of customers. Cross-cultural Personal Selling provides extensive empirical research results with special emphasis on competences, skills and qualifications of personal sellers which are necessary for successful, effective and efficient promotion campaigns aimed at customers from different cultures. Academics of international marketing and promotion will find this study extremely useful, as well as practitioners looking to expand their knowledge on personal selling.

There is often a deep disconnect between the project team's goals and those of the organization. Senior management wants "profitable" projects, but is only able to quantify its wishes in terms of the traditional project management elements: schedule and cost. To operate smoothly, the entire organization must be driven by the single goal of project profitability. Total Project Control presents valuable enhancements to the traditional project management approach, introducing new metrics and techniques for assessing the performance and profitability of projects. Demonstrating how to maximize the business value of a project, this book discusses new profitability-based data metrics, such as expected monetary value (EMV), expected project profit (EPP), Devaux's Index of Project Performance (DIPP), critical path drag, drag cost, and the cost of leveling with unresolved bottlenecks (CLUB). The impact of implementing these metrics can be far reaching. Not only will good management decisions, at both the project and executive levels, be supported by quantitative data, but bad decisions will become harder to justify. This book shows how to compute and use the new metrics to rightsize staffing levels for projects, programs, and organizations. It also explains what every project manager needs to know about earned value tracking: its uses, abuses, value, distortions, and potential fixes. The book then extends these metrics into techniques for indexing, tracking, progressing, and improving the business value of projects. See What's New in the Second Edition: Includes new diagrams and new ways of computing critical path drag in complex networks Introduces DIPP Performance Index tracking Offers new exercises in how to compute critical path drag and drag cost and use them to maximize project value Focuses on topics senior management needs to be assured the project team is using to maximize project profitability

Have you ever felt stuck with methods, tools and skills that do not match the increasing complexity you are part of? Would you like to work in new ways that strengthen thinking, communication and collaboration? Visual Collaboration introduces a new and innovative way of working and collaborating that will help you successfully manage complexity for yourself, your team, and your entire organization. The method of this book unlocks any team s ability to collaborate in complex projects and processes. By using a systematic and proven approach to drawing and visualizing. Visual Collaboration is a unique visual business book that will enable you to develop visual languages to fit any scenario, create engaging and powerful questions to assist your visual process design and turn a white canvas into a visual template that can improve any meeting, project, or process. The core of the book - a practical and easy-to-follow method - THE FIVE BUILDING BLOCKS will most likely become your preferred way of working. The method is supported by plentiful examples, 4-color drawing, chapter summaries, and clearly defined learning objectives. Enjoyable and powerful, this book will help you: Use visualization as a tool to explore opportunities and challenges Translate complex concepts into easy-to-understand actions Engage employees and team members with effective strategic processes Incorporate drawing into your strategic organizational toolbox to strengthen communication and collaboration Develop and apply powerful visual literacy skills The authors, internationally-recognized experts in strategy communication and visual facilitation, have helped incorporate visual collaboration into more than 500 organizations such as LEGO, IKEA, the Red Cross, the United Nations, and many others. This book is the must-have resource for you to follow their example.