Book description
Project management is the art of making the right decisions. To be effective as a project manager, you must know how to make rational choices in project management, what processes can help you to improve these choices, and what tools are available to help you through the decision-making process. Project Decisions: The Art and Science is an entertaining and easy-to-read guide to a structured project decision analysis process. This valuable text presents the basics of cognitive psychology and quantitative analysis methods to help project managers make better decisions. Examples that portray different projects, real-life stories, and popular culture will help readers acquire the essential knowledge and skills required for effective project decision-making.Readers will be able to:
•Understand psychological pitfalls related to project management
•Establish a creative business environment in their organization
•Identify project risks and uncertainties
•Develop estimates of project time and cost based on an understanding of human psychology
•Perform basic quantitative and qualitative risk and decision analysis
•Use event chain methodology in managing projects
•Communicate the results of decision analysis to decision-makers
•Review project decisions and perform adaptive project management
•Establish a project decision analysis process in their organization
PLUS — Test your own judgment through a quiz that examines your intuition!
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- About the Author
- Table of Contents
- PREFACE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- TEST YOUR JUDGMENT
- ANSWERS TO JUDGMENT QUIZ
-
PART 1: Introduction to Project Decision Analysis
- CHAPTER 1: Project Decision Analysis: What Is It?
- CHAPTER 2: “Gut Feel” vs. Decision Analysis: Introduction to the Psychology of Project Decision-Making
-
CHAPTER 3: Understanding the Decision Analysis Process
- Decision Analysis
- When Decision-Makers Go Bad
- The Decision Analysis Manifesto
- The “3C” Principle of Project Management
- Decision Analysis Process vs. the PMBOK® Guide’s Project Risk Management
- Decision Analysis and Other Business Processes
- Phases of the Decision Analysis Process
- Big and Small Decisions
- The Value of Project Decision Analysis
- CHAPTER 4: What Is Rational Choice? A Brief Introduction to Decision Theory
- CHAPTER 5: Creativity in Project Management
- CHAPTER 6: Group Judgment and Decisions
- CHAPTER 7: Are You Allowed to Make a Decision? Or the “Frustrated Developer’s Syndrome”
- PART 2: Decision-Framing
-
PART 3: Modeling the Situation
-
CHAPTER 11: The Psychology and Politics of Estimating
- How Do We Make Estimates?
- How We Think When We Make Estimates
- Impact of Politics on Estimation
- Impact of Psychology on Estimation and the Rule of Pi
- Student Syndrome
- Other Cognitive Biases in Estimating
- Other Explanations of Problems with Estimation
- Where Does the Problem Lie—In Psychology or Politics?
- Many Mental Errors and One Wrong Estimate
- Simple Remedies
- CHAPTER 12: Project Valuation Models
- CHAPTER 13: Estimating Probabilities
-
CHAPTER 11: The Psychology and Politics of Estimating
-
PART 4: Quantitative Analysis
- CHAPTER 14: Choosing What Is Most Important: Sensitivity Analysis and Correlations
- CHAPTER 15: Decision Trees and the Value of New Information
- CHAPTER 16: What Is Project Risk? or PERT and Monte Carlo
-
CHAPTER 17: “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” or Event Chain Methodology
- How Events Can Affect a Project
- Basic Principles of Event Chain Methodology
- Event Chain Methodology Phenomena
- How to Use Event Chain Methodology
- Example of Event Chain Methodology
- Event Chain Methodology and Mitigation of Psychological Biases
- Work Breakdown Structure + Risk Breakdown Structure + Analysis = Event Chain Methodology
- CHAPTER 18: The Art of Decision Analysis Reporting
- CHAPTER 19: Making a Choice with Multiple Objectives
-
PART 5: Implementation, Monitoring, and Reviews
-
CHAPTER 20: Adaptive Project Management
- Adaptive Management As Part of Project Decision Analysis
-
Principles of Adaptive Management
- Principle 1: Use actual project data in combination with original assumptions
- Principle 2: Minimize the cost of decision reversals. (“Try not to kill the cow.”)252
- Principle 3: Make small, sequential decisions
- Principle 4: Support creative business environments
- Principle 5: Identify and fix problems early (avoiding behavioral traps)
- The PMBOK® Guide Approach to Project Executing, Monitoring, and Controlling
- CHAPTER 21: Did You Make the Right Choice? Reviewing Project Decisions
- CONCLUSION Does Decision Analysis Provide a Solution?
-
CHAPTER 20: Adaptive Project Management
- APPENDIX A Risk and Decision Analysis Software
- APPENDIX B Heuristics and Biases in Project Management
- APPENDIX C Risk Templates
- APPENDIX D Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methodologies
- GLOSSARY
- FUTURE READING
- REFERENCES
- INDEX
Product information
- Title: Project Decisions
- Author(s):
- Release date: October 2007
- Publisher(s): Berrett-Koehler Publishers
- ISBN: 9781567263923
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