The all-inclusive guide to exceptional project management that is trusted by hundreds of thousands of readersânow updated and revised
The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management: The Comprehensive, Easy to Read Handbook for Beginners and Pros, 6th Edition is a comprehensive guide to real-world project management methods, tools, and techniques. Practical, easy-to-use, and deeply thorough, this book gives you the answers you need now. You'll find cutting-edge ideas and hard-won wisdom of one of the field's leading experts, delivered in short, lively segments that address common management issues. Brief descriptions of important concepts, tips on real-world applications, and compact case studies illustrate the most sought-after skills and pitfalls you should watch out for. This sixth edition now includes: ?
A brand-new chapter on project quality
A new chapter on managing media, entertainment, and creative projects
A new chapter on the project manager's #1 priority: leadership
A new chapter with the most current practices in Change Management
Current PMP certification study tips
Readers of The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management also receive access to new video resources available at the author's website.
The book teaches readers how to manage and deliver projects on-time and on-budget by applying the practical strategies and concrete solutions found within. Whether the challenge is finding the right project sponsor, clarifying project objectives, or setting realistic schedules and budget projections, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management shows you what you need to know, the best way to do it, and what to watch out for along the way.
As the pace of change increases in every aspect of our societies, from government to health care to business, the ability to manage projects continues to grow in importance.
Why has project management become a strategic capability for organizations and a popular career track for individuals? In Part 1 of this book, you will find answers to these questions and more.
Every project has a start and finish, and every project is unique. That makes managing projects different from managing ongoing operations. The tools and techniques presented in this book have evolved over 70 years to deal with these challenges. Chapter 1 introduces the value of project management. Chapter 2 focuses on the key project manager responsibility of leading all stakeholders. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the discipline.
Innovation is accomplished through projects. But it takes more than project management to create breakthrough products and services. Chapter 4 explores the ways that agile frameworks are changing how we structure the work.
We live in a world where changeâand the rate of changeâis constantly increasing. In order to survive and prosper, organizations need to continually modify their products and services. Projects are the means by which these innovations are delivered.
Greater change = more innovations = more projects.
CHAPTER 1 Project Management: A Platform for Innovation
INTRODUCTION
Projects dominate our headlines.
A pandemic, economic upheaval, and an environmental crisis demand innovative thinking, courageous leadership, and globally orchestrated action. Technological innovation is a relentless engine of growth and destruction.
The need to respond to a global pandemic has forced organizations large and small to react quickly, learn rapidly, and make critical decisions based on shifting circumstances. Every response is a project.
Innovation in energy production has changed assumptions about how cars, buildings, and factories are powered. Installing solar panels and windmills, scientific research, closing outâofâdate power plants, and launching electric car companies are all projects.
Projects dominate our workplace.
Our projectâdriven workforce repairs freeways, releases social media apps, makes films, remodels our houses, and searches for medicines and therapies to protect and heal us. Businesses shift supply chains. Nonprofits open belowâmarket rental housing to ease economic pressures on working families. We are constantly transforming our global civilization in tiny increments. One project at a time.
Innovation, more than ever before, is a mustâhave capability for every organization. We do not all need to be inventors, scientists, and software developers to innovate. Throughout this book, innovation means bringing a fresh solution to a problem that matters to people. Innovation is always built on projects.
Project management provides critical thinking and communication tools to navigate the everâincreasing avalanche of change that surrounds us.
A TIMELESS LEADERSHIP TOOLSET
Project management is not new. The pyramids and aqueducts of antiquity certainly required the coordination and planning skills of a project manager. While supervising the building of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Michelangelo experienced all the torments of a modernâday project manager: incomplete specifications, insufficient labor, unsure funding, and a powerful customer. Michelangelo was the exception in his day. Now, 500 years later, the challenge of leading projects affects every level of every organization.
To understand how deeply our workplace benefits from project management, we must first understand projects. Projects are all the work we do one time. Whether it's designing an aircraft, building a bakery display case, or creating a business logo, every project produces an outcome and every project has a beginning and an end. Fundamental to understanding the importance of projects is realizing that each one produces something unique. Designing and tooling up to build a new electric car is a project (actually a lot of projects), but manufacturing thousands of electric cars is not. Manufacturing and other repetitive processes are defined as ongoing operations.
The challenge of managing operations is to become highly proficient at known tasks. The challenge of managing projects is to lead a disparate group of people to make good decisions, over and over, as they make something new. That's why project management is really a set of critical thinking and communication tools. These tools help us with a range of leadership duties:
Communicating with team members and stakeholders from project conception through completion.
Estimating the effort, cost, and time it will take to deliver a project, and evaluating whether the benefits of the project will justify the forecasted costs.
Rapidly building cohesive project teams that are highly productive even though team members have not worked together before.
Coordinating the actions of a diverse workforce, assembled specifically for a project, to achieve the goal for the least possible expense and in a reasonable time frame.
Accounting for progress and productivity to provide accurate forecasts of project completion dates and budget amounts.
Managing the varying staffing needs that result from continually running multiple projects concurrently, all of which share a common pool of personnel.
Project management, when done well, is a triumph of human cooperation and critical thinking. The tools of project management help people make rational decisions based on objective information. Of course, it is commonplace for experts with good intentions to disagree. That only makes project management all the more valuable and increases the importance of sound decisionâmaking techniques.
In a world filled with challenges and opportunities, the project management toolset helps us navigate uncertainty and turn dreams into realities.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT IS KEEPING PACE WITH GLOBAL CHANGE
Project management is a disciplineâa set of methods, theories, and techniques that have evolved to manage the complexities of work that is unique and temporary. Even as the discipline continues to evolve, it can claim a proven track record. Millions of projects around the globe routinely rely on the concepts found in this and other project management books. The Project Management Institute (PMI), headquartered in the United States; the International Project Management Association (IPMA), serving Europe, Asia, and Africa; and other standards organizations have formalized this discipline over the past 60 years.
