Achieving Project Management Success in the Federal Government

Preface

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

Projects pervade our everyday work and life, and governments have dealt in the realm of projects since the beginning of recorded time. The U.S. federal government has employed project management since its earliest days and in recent years has begun the process of formalizing the methods it uses to carry out a wide-ranging spectrum of projects.

Project management varies widely across the federal government. Our goal in this book is not to provide an exhaustive enumeration of project management practices, but rather to offer a realistic cross section of the project management discipline—a “state of the practice” in the largest ...