Download Project Management For Dummies )

Project Management For Dummies )

Author: Visit Amazon's Stanley E. Portny Page | Language: English | ISBN: 1118497236 | Format: PDF

Project Management For Dummies ) Description

From the Back Cover

Learn to:

• Organize and schedule projects effectively and efficiently
• Assess risks, manage changes, and live up to expectations
• Plan for resources and stay within a budget
• Embrace social media to drive efficiency and improve connectivity

Execute projects on time, on budget, and with maximum efficiency

In today's time-crunched, cost-conscious global business environment, tight project deadlines and stringent expectations are the norm. So what does it take to succeed? This hands-on guide introduces you to the principles of project management and shows you how to put them to use so you can successfully manage a project from start to finish. And if you're studying for the Project Management Professional® certification exam, you can rest easy knowing that this book is aligned with the guide that's the basis for the exam.

• Project Management 101— find out how to identify the people who will play a role in your project, clearly define your project's proposed results, and determine your project's work
• The when and how — discover how to develop the project schedule, estimate the resources you need, and recognize and manage project risks
• Be a people person — grasp how to identify, organize, and deal with people who play a part in your project's success
• From start to finish — get the scoop on how to monitor, track, analyze, and report on your project's activities, and establish and maintain effective communications between you and all your project audiences
• Take it to the next level — get to know the technology available to help you plan, organize, and control your project

Open the book and find:

• Help for defining your project's goals and expectations
• How to be a better project manager
• Guidelines for knowing your project's audience
• Tips for breaking your project work into manageable pieces
• The latest methods for determining and managing resources
• How to get your project back on track if it runs into problems
• Hints for providing effective leadership

About the Author

Stanley E. Portny is a project management consultant and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®). He has provided training and consultation to more than 150 public and private organizations, and he has developed and conducted training programs for more than 50,000 management and staff personnel.

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Series: For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)
• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 4 edition (April 22, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1118497236
• ISBN-13: 978-1118497234
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Introduction 1

Part I: Getting Started with Project Management 7

Chapter 1: Project Management: The Key to Achieving Results 9

Chapter 2: Knowing Your Project’s Audience: Involving the Right People 29

Chapter 3: Clarifying What You’re Trying to Accomplish — And Why 51

Chapter 4: Developing Your Game Plan: Getting from Here to There 77

Part II: Planning Time: Determining

When and How Much 105

Chapter 5: You Want This Project Done When? 107

Chapter 6: Establishing Whom You Need, How Much, and When 143

Chapter 7: Planning for Other Resources and Developing the Budget 165

Chapter 8: Venturing into the Unknown: Dealing with Risk 177

Part III: Group Work: Putting Your Team Together 197

Chapter 9: Aligning the Key Players for Your Project 199

Chapter 10: Defi ning Team Members’ Roles and Responsibilities 213

Chapter 11: Starting Your Project Team Off on the Right Foot 235

Part IV: Steering the Ship: Managing Your Project to Success 255

Chapter 12: Tracking Progress and Maintaining Control 257

Chapter 13: Keeping Everyone Informed 281

Chapter 14: Encouraging Peak Performance by Providing Effective Leadership 301

Chapter 15: Bringing Your Project to Closure 315

Part V: Taking Your Project Management to the Next Level 327

Chapter 16: Using Technology to Enhance Project Planning and Management 329

Chapter 17: Monitoring Project Performance with Earned Value Management 343

Part VI: The Part of Tens 359

Chapter 18: Ten Questions to Ask Yourself as You Plan Your Project 361

Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Being a Better Project Manager 365

Appendix: Combining the Techniques into

Smooth-Flowing Processes 369

Index 373

I generally try to keep my expectations low or at least reasonable with the "For Dummies" books. They are almost always quite useful, and at least almost always (I say almost, because I haven't read every single one they've ever printed) a great primer on whatever subject. This book is no exception.

I almost hate to give it a 5-star because there is A LOT of material out there on the subject, and there are clear cases of re-hash in here (not plagarism, just examples of drinking the PM Kool-Aid). I also am jaded, and don't particularly like Project Management, either as a task or a dicipline to study. The fact that I have to grudgingly admit that this is a good book turns 5-stars into 6-stars, if you know what I mean.

I won't go into topics or specifics, namely because that would both announce my opinion of what's important, and also be an incomplete list...I mean it's a book. I can't do any justice in a review, and since there are about 1,000 ways to sheppard a project on its way to completion, there's no sense critiquing one particular detail. In the end, you have to find your own way, and this book ain't a half-bad place to start building your ideas-pool. You have to work with people, and you depend on people, so the way to organize, motivate and get what you want from people will rely entirely on you as PM. This book will keep you from re-inventing the wheel so much, as it lays out some basic strategies/plans for success. You could manage any number of small projects using nothing more than the recipe(s) provided. PM is a surprising amount of work, so any streamlining helps.

BOILERPLATE: If you're going to teach a class on PM, you're probably beyond this book, and might even have philosophical differences regarding the finer points of this or that.

There are many fundamentals to the management of large projects, yet what is done can be summed up in a very short list.
1) Develop a detailed definition of what the project is, the problem(s) to be solved and what the solution will look like and do.
2) Perform a feasibility analysis to answer the build/not to build question.
3) Create a detailed plan for the creation of the project, including costs and a timeline for the sequence and relationships between the various components of the project. The outputs of this step are a plan and a budget.
4) Assign/hire the people that will work on the various components of the project.
5) Build the project.
6) Evaluate/tweak/proof the project until it is in a form that meets the specifications.
7) Perform a post-mortem analysis to determine what was done right and wrong and create lessons for future work.
While this list is very simple to state and is largely immune from argument, as is nearly always the case with large operations, the devil is in the details. It all starts with developing the detailed definition of the project, given the scope and significance it is easy to fall into a state of "analysis paralysis." There must be some entity with the power to state that the analysis is as done as it can be, it is time to move to the next step. In the rapidly shifting sands of modern business, there will always be some changes in the problems to be solved and the ways to solve them.
There is a lot of detailed analysis and negotiation in these steps and the opportunity for modification must be present in every step. One of the prime routes to failure is to have such a rigid system that there is no mechanism for in-process modification.

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