Project Management

A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling

Harold Kerzner

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118415856
• Edition: 11
• Topic: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Subtopic: Ingeniería industrial

The bestselling project management text for students and professionals—now updated and expanded

This Eleventh Edition of the bestselling "bible" of project management maintains the streamlined approach of the prior editions and moves the content even closer to PMI®'s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®). New content has been added to this edition on measuring project management ROI, value to the organization and to customers, and much more. The capstone "super" case on the "Iridium Project" has been maintained, covering all aspects of project management. Increased use of sidebars throughout the book helps further align it with the PMBOK and the Project Management Professional (PMP®) Certification Exam.

This new edition features significant expansion, including more than three dozen entirely new sections and updates on process supporting; types of project closure; project sponsorship; and culture, teamwork, and trust. This comprehensive guide to the principles and practices of project management:

• Offers new sections on added value, business intelligence, project governance, and much more
• Provides twenty-five case studies covering a variety of industries, almost all of which are real-world situations drawn from the author's practice
• Includes 400 discussion questions and more than 125 multiple-choice questions
• Serves as an excellent study guide for the PMP Certification Exam

(PMI, PMBOK, PMP and Project Management Professional are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.)

Overview

Related Case Studies (from Kerzner/Project Management Case Studies, 4th Edition)	Related Workbook Exercises (from Kerzner/Project Management Workbook and PMP ^®/CAPM^® Exam Study Guide, 11th Edition)	PMBOK^® Guide, 5th Edition, Reference Section for the PMP^® Certification Exam
Kombs Engineering Williams Machine Tool Company^a Hyten Corporation Macon, Inc. Continental Computer Corporation Jackson Industries	Multiple Choice Exam	Integration Management Scope Management Human Resource Management

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Executives will be facing increasingly complex challenges during the next decade. These challenges will be the result of high escalation factors for salaries and raw materials, increased union demands, pressure from stockholders, and the possibility of long-term high inflation accompanied by a mild recession and a lack of borrowing power with financial institutions. These environmental conditions have existed before, but not to the degree that they do today.

In the past, executives have attempted to ease the impact of these environmental conditions by embarking on massive cost-reduction programs. The usual results of these programs have been early retirement, layoffs, and a reduction in manpower through attrition. As jobs become vacant, executives pressure line managers to accomplish the same amount of work with fewer resources, either by improving efficiency or by upgrading performance requirements to a higher position on the learning curve. Because people costs are more inflationary than the cost of equipment or facilities, executives are funding more and more capital equipment projects in an attempt to increase or improve productivity without increasing labor.

Unfortunately, executives are somewhat limited in how far they can go to reduce manpower without running a high risk to corporate profitability. Capital equipment projects are not always the answer. Thus, executives have been forced to look elsewhere for the solutions to their problems.

Almost all of today’s executives are in agreement that the solution to the majority of corporate problems involves obtaining better control and use of existing corporate resources, looking internally rather than externally for the solution. As part of the attempt to achieve an internal solution, executives are taking a hard look at the ways corporate activities are managed. Project management is one of the techniques under consideration.

The project management approach is relatively modern. It is characterized by methods of restructuring management and adapting special management techniques, with the purpose of obtaining better control and use of existing resources. Forty years ago project management was confined to U.S. Department of Defense contractors and construction companies. Today, the concept behind project management is being applied in such diverse industries and organizations as defense, construction, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, banking, hospitals, accounting, advertising, law, state and local governments, and the United Nations.

The rapid rate of change in both technology and the marketplace has created enormous strains on existing organizational forms. The traditional structure is highly bureaucratic, and experience has shown that it cannot respond rapidly enough to a changing environment. Thus, the traditional structure must be replaced by project management, or other temporary management structures that are highly organic and can respond very rapidly as situations develop inside and outside the company.

Project management has long been discussed by corporate executives and academics as one of several workable possibilities for organizational forms of the future that could integrate complex efforts and reduce bureaucracy. The acceptance of project management has not been easy, however. Many executives are not willing to accept change and are inflexible when it comes to adapting to a different environment. The project management approach requires a departure from the traditional business organizational form, which is basically vertical and which emphasizes a strong superior–subordinate relationship.

1.1 UNDERSTANDING PROJECT MANAGEMENT

In order to understand project management, one must begin with the definition of a project. A project can be considered to be any series of activities and tasks that:

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PMBOK^® Guide, 5th Edition

1.2 What Is a Project?

1.3 What Is Project Management?

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• Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications
• Have defined start and end dates
• Have funding limits (if applicable)
• Consume human and nonhuman resources (i.e., money, people, equipment)
• Are multifunctional (i.e., cut across several functional lines)

Project management, on the other hand, involves five process groups as identified in the PMBOK^® Guide, namely:

• Project initiation
  • Selection of the best project given resource limits
  • Recognizing the benefits of the project
  • Preparation of the documents to sanction the project
  • Assigning of the project manager

• Project planning
  • Definition of the work requirements
  • Definition of the quality and quantity of work
  • Definition of the resources needed
  • Scheduling the activities
  • Evaluation of the various risks

• Project execution
  • Negotiating for the project team members
  • Directing and managing the work
  • Working with the team members to help them improve

• Project monitoring and control
  • Tracking progress
  • Comparing actual outcome to predicted outcome
  • Analyzing variances and impacts
  • Making adjustments

• Project closure
  • Verifying that all of the work has been accomplished
  • Contractual closure of the contract
  • Financial closure of the charge numbers
  • Administrative closure of the papework

Successful project management can then be defined as having achieved the project objectives:

• Within time
• Within cost
• At the desired performance/technology level
• While utilizing the assigned resources effectively and efficiently
• Accepted by the customer

The potential benefits from project management are:

• Identification of functional responsibilities to ensure that all activities are accounted for, regardless of personnel turnover
• Minimizing the need for continuous reporting
• Identification of time limits for scheduling
• Ident...