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Offering streamlined coverage with an applied approach, Project Management in Practice, 5th Edition focuses on the essentials of project management. This concise, hands-on text is ideal for a one semester project management course, or as a module on project management. This textbook is organized around the project management life cycle, and provides students with essential project management concepts while addressing an important area of industry growth: the use of projects to achieve the strategic goals of organizations.



Table of Contents

1 The World of Project Management 1

1.1 What Is a Project? 1

Trends in Project Management 3

1.2 Project Management vs. General Management 4

Major Differences 4

Negotiation 5

1.3 What Is Managed? The Three Goals of a Project 7

1.4 The Life Cycles of Projects 10

1.5 Selecting Projects to Meet Organizational Objectives 11

Nonnumeric Selection Methods 12

Numeric Selection Methods 13

1.6 The Project Portfolio Process 22

Step 1: Establish a Project Council 23

Step 2: Identify Project Categories and Criteria 23

Step 3: Collect Project Data 25

Step 4: Assess Resource Availability 25

Step 5: Reduce the Project and Criteria Set 25

Step 6: Prioritize the Projects within Categories 26

Step 7: Select the Projects to Be Funded and Held in Reserve 26

Step 8: Implement the Process 26

1.7 The Materials in this Text 27

Review Questions 29

Discussion Questions 29

Problems 30

Incident for Discussion 31

Case: United Screen Printers 31

Case: Handstar Inc. 32

Bibliography 34

2 The Manager, the Organization, and the Team 35

2.1 The PM's Roles 36

Facilitator 36

Communicator 38

Virtual Project Manager 39

Meetings, Convener and Chair 40

2.2 The PM's Responsibilities to the Project 41

Acquiring Resources 41

Fighting Fires and Obstacles 42

Leadership and Making Trade-Offs 42

Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Persuasion 43

2.3 Selection of a Project Manager 44

Credibility 44

Sensitivity 45

Leadership, Style, Ethics 45

2.4 Project Management as a Profession 47

2.5 F itting Projects Into the Parent Organization 48

More on "Why Projects?ö 48

Pure Project Organization 50

Functional Project Organization 51

Matrix Project Organization 52

Mixed Organizational Systems 55

The Project Management Office and Project Maturity 55

2.6 The Project Team 57

Matrix Team Problems 58

Intrateam Conflict 59

2.7 Multidisciplinary Teams-Balancing Pleasure and Pain 62

Integration Management 63

Interface Coordination-Interface Management 64

The Design Structure Matrix 65

Comments on Empowerment and Work Teams 66

Review Questions 69

Discussion Questions 69

Incidents for Discussion 70

Case: The Quantum Bank 70

Case: Southern Care Hospital 72

Bibliography 73

3 Project Activity and Risk Planning 76

3.1 The Basis of a Project Plan-The "Project Charterö 76

3.2 The Planning Process-Overview 79

3.3 The Planning Process-Nuts and Bolts 81

The Launch Meeting-and Subsequent Meetings 81

Sorting Out the Project-The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 83

Extensions of the Everyday WBS 85

3.4 More on the Work Breakdown Structure and Other Aids 92

The Raci Matrix 92

A Whole-Brain Approach to Project Planning 94

3.5 R isk Management 97

Risk Management Planning 98

Risk Identification and Qualitative Risk Analysis 98

Quantitative Risk Analysis 99

Risk Response Planning 102

Risk Monitoring and Control 103

Review Questions 104

Discussion Questions 104

Problems 105

Incidents for Discussion 106

Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility-1 106

Case: John Wiley & Sons 108

Case: Samson University 109

Bibliography 110

4 Budgeting the Project 112

4.1 Methods of Budgeting 113

Top-Down Budgeting 115

Bottom-Up Budgeting 116

4.2 C ost Estimating 117

Work Element Costing 117

The Impact of Budget Cuts 118

An Aside 119

Activity vs. Program Budgeting 121

4.3 Improving Cost Estimates 122

Forms 123

Learning Curves 123

Tracking Signals 126

Other Factors 128

4.4 Budget Uncertainty and Project Risk Management 130

Budget Uncertainty 130

Project Budgeting in Practice 133

4.5 Project Risk Simulation with Crystal Ball® 134

Considering Disaster 143

Review Questions 144

Discussion Questions 144

Problems 144

Incidents for Discussion 146

Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Project Budget Development-2 147

Case: Photstat Inc. 149

Case: Building the Geddy's Dream House 149

Bibliography 151

5 Scheduling the Project 152

5.1 Pert and Cpm Networks 153

The Language of PERT/CPM 153

Building the Network 154

Finding the Critical Path and Critical Time 156

Calculating Activity Slack 158

Doing It the Easy Way-Microsoft Project (MSP) 159

5.2 Project Uncertainty and Risk Management 162

Calculating Probabilistic Activity Times 162

The Probabilistic Network, an Example 163

Once More the Easy Way 165

The Probability of Completing the Project on Time 166

Selecting Risk and Finding D 172

The Case of the Unreasonable Boss 172

The Problem with Mergers 173

5.3 Simulation 174

Incorporating Costs into the Simulation Analysis 177

Traditional Statistics vs. Simulation 179

5.4 The Gantt Chart 181

The Chart 181

5.5 Extensions to Pert/Cpm 186

Precedence Diagramming 186

Final Thoughts on the Use of These Tools 187

Review Questions 189

Discussion Questions 189

Problems 189

Discussion Problem 191

Incidents for Discussion 192

Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Program Plan-3 193

Case: NutriStar 196

Case: Launching E-Collar 197

Bibliography 199

6 Allocating Resources to the Project 200

6.1 Expediting a Project 201

The Critical Path Method 201

Fast-Tracking a Project 205

Project Expediting in Practice 205

6.2 Resource Loading 207

The Charismatic VP 212

6.3 Resource Leveling 213

Resource Loading/Leveling and Uncertainty 219

6.4 Allocating Scarce Resources to Projects 221

Some Comments about Constrained Resources 222

Some Priority Rules 222

6.5 Allocating Scarce Resources to Several Projects 223

Criteria of Priority Rules 225

The Basic Approach 225

Resource Allocation and the Project Life Cycle 226

6.6 Goldratt's Critical Chain 227

Estimating Task Times 230

The Effect of Not Reporting Early Activity Completion 231

Multitasking 231

Common Chain of Events 234

The Critical Chain 235

Review Questions 236

Discussion Questions 237

Problems 237

Incidents for Discussion 238

Case: St. Dismas Assisted Living Facility Resource Usage-4 239

Case: Charter Financial Bank 241

Case: Rand Contractors 242

Bibliography 243

7 Monitoring and Controlling the Project 244

7.1 The Plan-Monitor-Control Cycle 244

Designing the Monitoring System 246