Project Management in Practice, Seventh Edition

Project Management in Practice, 7^th Edition presents an applied approach to the essential tools, strategies, and techniques students must understand to achieve success in their future careers. Emphasizing the technical aspects of the project management life cycle, this popular textbook offers streamlined, student-friendly coverage of project activity, risk planning, budgeting and scheduling, resource allocation, project monitoring, evaluating and closing the project, and more.

Providing new and updated content throughout, the seventh edition’s concise pedagogy and hands-on focus is ideally suited for use in one-semester courses or modules on project management. Clear and precise chapters describe fundamental project management concepts while addressing the skills real-world project managers must possess to meet the strategic goals of their organizations. Integrated throughout the text are comprehensive cases that build upon the material from previous chapters—complemented by wealth of illustrative examples, tables and figures, review questions, and discussion topics designed to reinforce key information.

Preface xii

1 The World of Project Management 1

1.1 What is a Project?, 1

1.1.1 Trends in Project Management, 2

1.2 Project Management Versus General Management, 4

1.2.1 Major Differences, 4

1.2.2 Negotiation, 5

1.3 Agile Project Management, 6

1.4 What is Managed? The Three Goals of a Project, 10

1.5 The Life Cycles of Projects, 12

1.6 Selecting Projects to Meet Organizational Objectives, 14

1.6.1 Nonnumeric Selection Methods, 15

1.6.2 Numeric Selection Methods, 16

1.7 The Project Portfolio Process, 23

1.8 The Materials in this Text, 27

Review Questions, 28

Discussion Questions, 29

Exercises, 29

Incident for Discussion, 30

Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility—1, 31

Case: Handstar Inc., 32

Bibliography, 34

2 The Manager, the Organization, and the Team 35

2.1 The PM’s Roles, 36

2.1.1 Facilitator, 36

2.1.2 Communicator, 38

2.1.3 Virtual Project Manager, 41

2.1.4 Meetings, Convener, and Chair, 42

2.2 The PM’s Responsibilities to the Project, 42

2.2.1 Acquiring Resources, 42

2.2.2 Fighting Fires and Obstacles, 43

2.2.3 Leadership, 43

2.2.4 Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Persuasion, 45

2.3 Selection of a Project Manager, 47

2.3.1 Credibility, 47

2.3.2 Sensitivity, 48

2.3.3 Leadership, Style, Ethics, 48

2.3.4 Ability to Handle Stress, 49

2.4 Project Management as a Profession, 50

2.5 Fitting Projects into the Parent Organization, 52

2.5.1 Pure Project Organization, 52

2.5.2 Functional Project Organization, 53

2.5.3 Matrix Project Organization, 54

2.5.4 Mixed Organizational Systems, 56

2.5.5 The Project Management Office and Project Maturity, 57

2.6 The Project Team, 58

2.6.1 Matrix Team Problems, 60

2.6.2 Intrateam Conflict, 60

2.6.3 Integration Management, 63

2.7 Agile Team Roles, 65

Review Questions, 67

Discussion Questions, 68

Incidents for Discussion, 69

Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility—2, 70

Case: The Quantum Bank, 70

Case: Southern Care Hospital, 71

Bibliography, 73

3 Project Activity and Risk Planning 75

3.1 From the Project Charter to the Project Plan, 75

3.2 The Planning Process—Overview, 77

3.3 The Planning Process—Nuts and Bolts, 78

3.3.1 The Launch Meeting—and Subsequent Meetings, 78

3.3.2 Sorting Out The Project—The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), 80

3.3.3 Extensions of The Everyday WBS, 83

3.4 More on the Work Breakdown Structure and Other Aids, 86

3.4.1 The RACI Matrix, 87

3.4.2 A Whole-Brain Approach to Project Planning, 88

3.4.3 The Design Structure Matrix, 90

3.5 Project Planning with Scrum, 93

3.5.1 Scrum Artifacts Supporting Project Planning, 93

3.5.2 Scrum Events for Project Planning, 94

3.5.3 Risk Management with Scrum, 96

3.6 Risk Management, 96

Review Questions, 103

Discussion Questions, 103

Exercises, 104

Incidents for Discussion, 106

Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility—3, 107

Case: John Wiley & Sons, 108

Case: Samson University, 108

Bibliography, 109

4 Budgeting the Project 111

4.1 Methods of Budgeting, 112

4.1.1 Top-Down Budgeting, 114

4.1.2 Bottom-Up Budgeting, 114

4.1.3 Budgeting With Agile, 115

4.2 Cost Estimating, 115

4.2.1 Work Element Costing, 115

4.2.2 The Impact of Budget Cuts, 116

4.2.3 An Aside, 118

4.2.4 Activity Versus Program Budgeting, 119

4.3 Improving Cost Estimates, 120

4.3.1 Forms, 121

4.3.2 Learning Curves, 121

4.3.3 Other Factors, 124

4.4 Budget Uncertainty and Project Risk Management, 126

4.4.1 Budget Uncertainty, 126

4.4.2 Project Budgeting in Practice, 129

4.5 Project Risk Simulation with Crystal Ball®, 130

4.5.1 Considering Disaster, 137

Review Questions, 137

Discussion Questions, 137

Exercises, 138

Incidents for Discussion, 140

Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Project

Budget Development—4, 141

Case: Photstat Inc., 143

Case: Building the Geddy’s dream house, 143

Bibliography, 144

5 Scheduling the Project 145

5.1 PERT and CPM Networks, 145

5.1.1 The Language of PERT/CPM, 146

5.1.2 Building The Network, 146

5.1.3 Finding The Critical Path and Critical Time, 148

5.1.4 Calculating Activity Slack, 151

5.1.5 Doing It The Easy Way—Microsoft Project (MSP), 152

5.2 Project Uncertainty and Risk Management, 154

5.2.1 Calculating Probabilistic Activity Times, 154

5.2.2 The Probabilistic Network, An Example, 155

5.2.3 Once More The Easy Way, 157

5.2.4. The Probability of Completing the Project on Time, 158

5.2.5 Selecting Risk and Finding D, 161

5.2.6 The Case of The Unreasonable Boss, 161

5.2.7 A Potential Problem: Path Mergers, 162

5.3 Simulation, 163

5.3.1 Incorporating Costs into the Simulation Analysis, 165

5.3.2 Traditional Statistics Versus Simulation, 166

5.3.3 Some Common Issues, 168

5.3.4 Simulation, 168

5.4 The Gantt Chart, 169

5.4.1 The Chart, 169

5.5 Extensions to PERT/CPM, 171

5.5.1 Precedence Diagramming, 171

5.5.2 Final Thoughts on The Use of These Tools, 172

5.6 Scheduling with Scrum, 174

Review Questions, 176

Discussion Questions, 177

Exercises, 177

Discussion Exercise, 181

Incidents for Discussion, 182

Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Program Plan—5, 183

Case: NutriStar, 186

Case: Launching E-Collar, 187

Bibliography, 188

6 Allocating Resources to the Project 189

6.1 Expediting a Project, 190

6.1.1 The Critical Path Method, 190

6.1.2 Crashing A Project With Excel, 194

6.1.3 Fast-Tracking A Project, 197

6.1.4 Project Expediting in Practice, 197

6.2 Resource Loading, 199

6.2.1 The Charismatic VP, 204

6.3 Resource Leveling, 204

6.3.1 Resource Loading/Leveling and Uncertainty, 211

6.4 Allocating Scarce Resources to Projects, 212

6.4.1 Some Comments About Constrained Resources, 213

6.4.2 Some Priority Rules, 213

6.5 Allocating Scarce Resources to Several Projects, 214

6.5.1 Criteria of Priority Rules, 216

6.5.2 The Basic Approach, 216

6.5.3 Resource Allocation and The Project Life Cycle, 217

6.6 Goldratt’s Critical Chain, 218

6.6.1 Estimating Task Times, 220

6.6.2 The Effect of Not Reporting Early Activity Completion, 221

6.6.3 Multitasking, 223

6.6.4 Common Chain of Events, 224

6.6.5 The Critical Chain, 225

Review Questions, 226

Discussion Questions, 227

Exercises, 227

Incidents for Discussion, 231

Case: 232

Case: 233

Case: 234

Bibliography, 235

7 Monitoring and Controlling the Project 236

7.1 The Plan–Monitor–Control Cycle, 236

7.1.1 Designing The Monitoring System, 237

7.2 Data Collection and Reporting, 238

7.2.1 Data Analysis, 239

7.2.2 Reporting and Report Types, 239

7.2.3 Meetings, 241

7.2.4 Virtual Meetings, Reports, and Project Management, 242

7.3 Earned Value, 243

7.4 Project Control, 250

7.4.1 Purposes of Control, 250

7.5 Designing the Control System, 252

7.5.1 Types of Control Systems, 253

7.5.2 Tools for Control, 254

7.6 Scope Creep and Change Control, 257

7.7 Agile Approaches for Project Monitoring and Control, 259

7.7.1 Agile Tools for Tracking Project Progress, 259

7.7.2 Scrum Events for Project Control, 261

Review Questions, 262

Discussion Questions, 262

Exercises, 263

Incidents for Discussion, 265

Case: Friendly Assisted Living Facility Case—7, 266

Case: Palmstar Enterprises, Inc., 269

Case: Peak Lighting, Inc., 269

Bibliography, 270

8 Evaluating and Closing the Project 272

8.1 Evaluation, 272

8.1.1 Evaluation Criteria, 273

8.1.2 Measurement, 273

8.2 Project Auditing, 274

8.2.1 The Audit Process, 275

8.2.2 The Audit Report, 276

8.3 Project Closure, 279

8.3.1 When to Close A Project, 280

8.3.2 Types of Project Closure, 281

8.3.3 The Closure Process, 282

8.3.4 The Project Plan Closeout Report, 283

8.4 Benefits Realization, 285

Review Questions, 286

Discussion Questions, 287

Incidents for Discussion, 287

Case: 288

Case: 291

Case: 292

Bibliography, 293

Appendix A-1

Index I-1

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