Synopses & Reviews
Your Handbook for Managing Projects
In this third edition of Managing Projects in Organizations, J. Davidson Frame updates and expands on his classic book to provide an accessible introduction to the field of project management. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of consulting and training experience, Frames most current edition of his landmark book includes a wealth of new topics, including:
- Managing virtual teams
- The evolving concept of the project managers role
- Co-managed project teams
- The project office
- Project portfolios
- Web-based project management
- International project management
Praise for J. Davidson Frame and His Books
"Frame has a deep understanding of the systemic nature of project management."
Quality Progress
"The New Project Management examines the new realities of project management: managing risk, maintaining quality of goods and services, outsourcing, satisfying customers, and communicating effectively with managers, customers, vendors, and staff."
PM Network
"An excellent book Id recommend is Managing Projects in Organizations by J. Davidson Frame. . . . Can help you put your project management skills on track."
Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine
"Provides an excellent overview of the fundamental concepts of project management."
Public Productivity Management Review
Review
"Frame has a deep understanding of the systemic nature of project management."
— Quality Progress
"The New Project Management examines the new realities of project management: managing risk, maintaining quality of goods and services, outsourcing, satisfying customers, and communicating effectively with managers, customers, vendors, and staff."
— PM Network
"An excellent book I'd recommend is Managing Projects in Organizations by J. Davidson Frame. . . . can help you put your project management skills on track."— Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine
"Provides an excellent overview of the fundamental concepts of project management."
— Public Productivity Management Review
Synopsis
In this third edition of
Managing Projects in Organizations,J. Davidson Frame updates and expands on his classic book to provide an accessible introduction to the field of project management. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of consulting and training experience, Frame's most current edition of his landmark book includes a wealth of new topics, including:
- Managing virtual teams
- The evolving concept of the project manager's role
- Comanaged project teams
- The project office
- Project portfolios
- Web-based project management
- International project management
Synopsis
Sound advice for product, engineering, and service-based oganizations
Unlike other project management books that focus on engineering and manufacturing settings alone, this resource encompasses product, engineering, and service-based organizations. Plus, it covers important new developments in software, outsourcing, quality, and related issues. Much more than a mere checklist of techniques, Managing Projects in Organizations provides you with a sound, overall methodology for dealing with information-age projects. You get advice on overcoming problems at the organizational, team and individual levels, managing human resources, selecting the best team structure, identifying customer needs, defining project requirements, and managing the inevitable politics every project presents, plus much, much more!
Synopsis
Since the first edition of Managing Projects in Organizations was published in 1987, projects have increasingly become an organizational building block as companies have downsized and horizontalized as well as initiated use of teams as a means to greater productivity and empowerment. Project management has been adopted for use in more service and light industry settings, and project-management skills have become more in demand for general managers. The first edition of Managing Projects in Organizations has become the thinking manager's guide to project management: a balanced, conversational presentation of the full range of project management issues aimed at people with management--but not necessarily project management--experience.
In this revised second edition of Managing Projects in Organizations, J. Davidson Frame presents a readable, accessible presentation of project management principles. Unlike many other books in project management that focus on engineering and manufacturing settings, this second edition now encompasses product, engineering, and service-based organizations and has also been updated to cover developments in software, outsourcing, quality, and related issues.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-244) and index.
About the Author
J. Davidson Frame is Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Management and Technology (UMT) in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to joining UMT, he established the project management program at George Washington University. He also served as director of the Project Management Certification Program at the Project Management Institute (PMI) and has served on PMIs board of directors. Frame has authored more than forty articles and seven books, including The New Project Management (2nd edition) and Managing Risk in Organizations.
Table of Contents
Preface.
The Author.
1. The New Business Environment and the Need for a New Project Management.
The New Business Environment.
The Problem with the Traditional Approach to Project Management.
The New Project Management.
Traits of the New Project Manager.
The Increased Value of Project Managers.
Conclusions.
PART ONE: MANAGING IN THE NEW BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT.
2. Managing Complexity: Techniques for Fashioning Order Out of Chaos.
Chaos and Complexity.
Facets of Complexity.
Experience with Project Complexity.
How to Manage Complexity.
Conclusions.
3. Engaging Change: Knowing When to Embrace, Accept, or Challenge.
Sources of Change.
Change Management Strategies.
Going with the Flow of Rapid Prototyping.
Resisting Change with Configuration Management.
Basic Steps in Developing a System with Configuration Management.
Change Control.
Conclusions.
4. Managing Risk: Identifying, Analyzing, and Planning Responses.
Perspectives on Risk.
Risk and Variability.
Range of Risks.
Sources of Risk on Projects.
Risk-Reward Trade-Offs.
Risk and Time Horizons.
Risk Exposure.
Risk Management.
Modeling.
Conclusions.
5. Satisfying Customers: Knowing Who They Are, What They Want, and When They are Right or Wrong.
Who Are Our Customers?
Meeting Customer Expectations.
Understanding Customers’ Needs and Requirements.
Traits of Effective Needs Analysts.
Steps for Improving Needs Definition.
Customers’ Responsibilities in Defining Their Needs.
Organizing to Achieve Customer Satisfaction.
What to Do When Customers Don’t Cooperate.
Conclusions.
6. Defining Requirements that Bridge the Customer-Developer Gap.
The Place of Needs and Requirements in the Project Management Process.
Capturing Requirements.
Key Players in the Requirements Definition and Management Process.
The Communication Challenge: I Can’t Read Your Mind.
The Standard Communication Model.
Tips for Handling Requirements.
Bringing It Together with Joint Application Development JAD) · Conclusion
PART TWO: TOOLS FOR THE NEW PROJECT MANAGEMENT.
7. Acquiring Political Skills and Building Influence.
What Is Politics?
Politics in Projects.
Players to Contend with in the Project Environment.
Being a Better Politician.
A Guide to Action.
Building Authority.
Using Authority Effectively.
Managing Our Managers.
Conclusions.
8. Building Teams with Borrowed Resources.
Make the Team as Tangible as Possible.
Develop Rewards for Good Behavior.
Develop an Effective Personal Touch.
Self-Managed Teams: Prospectus and Pitfalls.
Structuring the Team.
Conclusions.
9. Selecting Projects That Will Lead to Success.
The Essence of Choice.
Benefit-Cost Ratios.
Buss’s Technique for Rank Ordering Projects.
Poor Man’s Hierarchy.
The Murder Board.
Peer Review.
General Rules for Selecting Projects.
Conclusions.
10. Estimating Realistic Costs, Schedules, and Specifications to Ensure Project Success.
Causes of Poor Estimation.
The 10 Percent Optimist.
Traditional Approaches to Cost Estimating.
Bottom-Up Versus Top-Down Estimates.
Life Cycle Cost Estimating.
Strategies for Dealing with Poor Estimates.
Conclusions.
11. Scheduling Projects with New Tools: The Time-boxed and Critical Chain Scheduling Techniques.
Time-boxed Scheduling.
What Needs to be Prioritized?
Bringing Together Pertinent Players.
What Needs to Be Prioritized.
Techniques for Prioritization.
The Use of Parallel Development.
Scheduling Realities.
The Need for Discipline.
Critical Chain Scheduling.
The Critical Chain and the Theory of Constraints.
The Critical Chain Perspective and the Psychology of Estimating Task Durations.
Using Buffers Effectively to Accelerate Project Delivery.
Project Buffers, Feeder Buffers, and Resource Buffers.
Conclusions.
12. Outsourcing to Control Costs, Focus on Core Work, and Expand Resources.
Forms of Outsourcing.
Outsourcing in Project Management.
Contracting.
Contracting: Preaward.
Contracting: Postaward.
Customer Acceptance and the Handover.
Conclusions.
13. Integrating Cost and Schedule Control to Measure Work Performance.
A Graphical Approach to Integrated Cost/Schedule Control.
The Fifty-Fifty Rule for Measuring Work Performance.
Other Ways to Calculate Earned Value.
An New Look at Cost and Schedule Variance.
Developing a New Vocabulary.
Case Study: The Bora Bora Officers Club.
Collecting Data.
Trend Analysis with the Earned-Value Approach.
When Is the Earned-Value Approach Appropriate?
A Historical Note.
Conclusions.
14. Evaluating Projects to Maintain Goals, Strengthen Accountability, and Achieve Objectives.
What is Evaluation?
Evaluations and the Project Life Cycle.
Problems with Evaluation.
Inherent Characteristics of Evaluation.
The Structured Walk-through.
Conclusions.
15. Understanding and Using Performance Metrics; or, Measuring the Right Stuff.
The Role of Measurement in Managing Projects.
The Nature of Measurement.
Generating Measures.
The Shadow Side of Measures.
Conclusions.
16. Establishing and Maintaining a Project Support Office to Strengthen Project Management Capabilities.
Traditional Project/Program Offices.
What Project Support Offices Do.
Where Should the Project Support Office Reside? · Staffing the Project Support Office.
Selling the Project Support Office.
17. Carpe Diem: Seize the Day!
Appendix: An Annotated Reading List for the New Project Management.
References.
Index.