Guide to Project Management: Getting it right and achieving lasting benefit - Hardcover

Roberts, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1118383702 ISBN 13: 9781118383704

Publisher: Wiley, 2013

Synopsis

A veteran project manager shares his proven approach to getting the job done right, on schedule and within budget—every time!

Each year companies initiate projects in hopes of improving their bottom-lines and gaining a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, a good percentage of those projects either never get off the ground or, if they do, never come to fruition. According to veteran project manager, Paul Roberts, more often than not, projects fail because of a lack of organization-wide commitment to their success and an unwillingness to invest in proper project management. In this updated second edition of his popular guide, Paul clearly shows why projects of any scale require that an entire organization contribute to achieving results. He outlines a proven approach for engaging all stakeholders in the project management process. And he walks you through the four steps essential for successful management: initiation, planning, delegation, and closing.

• Author Paul Roberts has successfully managed projects at a variety of prestigious companies, including Pfizer and British Airways
• Clearly demonstrates how and why investing in project management, especially in this economy, can help you avoid, or minimize the impact of, schedule delays and cost overruns
• Offers expert advice and guidance on how to place project management a priority not just for the PM and project team, but organization-wide
• Supplies a wealth of clearly, easy-to-use flow charts, diagrams, tables and other useful project management tools

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Many organisations do not change when they need to, nor do they change when they have to. If they did, fewer would fail. Like people, organisations, whether they are businesses or government departments, only change when they want to. Projects are embarked upon to bring about change and as such always involve a cultural shift— a new way of looking at things, adjustments to values and behaviours, even the abandonment of norms and sacred cows.

Managing projects cannot be separated from managing the whole of an organisation's business. Experience demonstrates that a project requires the collaboration of many, including those who commission and finance it, those who will use the end product and those who build the product. Yet project management is often delegated to people who struggle against sometimes impossible odds with little support to deliver a successful outcome.

History is full of projects that ran horrendously late or over budget or substantially failed to deliver what they were meant to. The revised and expanded second edition of this much admired guide explains the principles and techniques of project management and how they are interconnected with the day-to-day management of a business. With its clear, structured approach, it is an invaluable handbook for helping managers make sure that their projects run to budget and schedule—and deliver the intended results.

Business history is rife with projects that have failed in some way and have embarrassed and damaged the organisations behind them. The failure may be attributed to all sorts of details but the common underlying reasons are few. Getting projects right is not easy and it is time consuming, but there are few organisations that could not be significantly better at managing them.

This guide sets out to show how to manage projects effectively in parallel with "business as usual" and emphasises how crucial it is to the success of a project that all the stakeholders in it collaborate.

Following an introduction there are 12 chapters:

• The components of effective project management
• Conceiving and prioritising projects
• Project roles and responsibilities
• Articulating the vision
• Planning: risks and rewards
• Planning: quality
• Planning: time and cost
• Initiating projects
• Project delivery
• Support and assurance
• Project closure and beyond
• Embedding effective project management

There is also a glossary of terms used in the book.

About the Author:

Paul Roberts has been managing projects for over 25 years and is a founding director of Fifthday (www.fifthday.com), a provider of project management expertise, education and resource. He has worked with some of the world's largest, most influential organisations, and many of the smallest, both public and private, helping them to embed the principles, techniques and culture of effective project management.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1118383702
• ISBN 13: 9781118383704
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 360