The Project Workout, 4th Edition

Book description

"an important book, taking a lead role in growing a new generation of professional project managers." Oded Cohen, The Goldratt Institute.

 

Put yourself and your business through the Project Workout – learn to direct and manage the programmes and projects that will deliver results, drive change and improve the health of your business.

Project Workout shows you how to:

  • Identify and overcome common challenges

  • Measure critical success factors in any project

  • Master a staged framework for managing a project

  • Set up your project and manage the team, the schedule, the finances and the risks

  • Develop the soft (interpersonal) and hard (structured management) skills of the effective project manager

  • Manage a portfolio of projects

  • Use project and programme management to direct and deliver change

  • Improve your project tracking and delivery

 

This book is supported by the Project Workout Live online resource (go to www.live.projectworkout.com),

 

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO THE ART OF PROJECT AND PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT

 

 

 

Projects are an important strategic management tool and a way of life for every business person. But how do you get started and how do you ensure a successful outcome?This 4th edition of the definitive book on business-led project management offers help at every stage, from building a project team right up to reaping the rewards of a timely and successful project. Project Workoutgives you practical, immediately usable methods for directing and managing complete portfolios of projects as well as individual projects.

 

Throughout the books is a collection of Workouts for you to use: exercises, problem posers, and techniques to help you put the book’s advice into practice straightaway. These are also provided on the enclosed CD-ROM, ready for you to print out and use with your team. The CD also contains handy templates including a Health Check, MS Project views and project logs, which can be downloaded to your desktop ready for use.

 

Project Workoutis a valuable companion for project managers and executives at any level and a comprehensive resource for students of project management.

 

About the author

 

Robert Buttrickhas worked in project and programme management in many of the world’s most turbulent industrial sectors,includingtelecommunicationsand system engineering. Recently he has been engaged on a £1bn program to implement health systems in the UK. Before taking up his corporate career in 1993, Robert was with PA Consulting Group, a management and technology consultancy. There, he specialized in business-led project management, advising clients such as Lloyds TSB Bank, National Rivers Authority, Property Services Agency, Avon Industrial Polymers, National Westminster Bank, and RHM.

Robert is a Master of Business Administration (Henley Management College), a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. His main pastime is watercolor painting. His one, unknown, claim to fame is that he once stopped a column of Russian tanks dead in its tracks.

Robert can be contacted via his website, www.projectworkout.com.

 

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. About the Author
  4. Dedication
  5. List of Project Workouts
  6. Foreword by Robert Heller
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Preface to the Fourth Edition by Ian Livingston
  9. Introduction
  10. Part One: Challenges To Be Faced
    1. 1 Challenges We Need to Face
    2. 2 Advice the Best Organisations Give Us
  11. Part Two: A Walk Through a Project
    1. 3 The Project Framework: An Overview of its Gates and Stages
    2. 4 Who Does What?
    3. 5 The Proposal: Identify the Need!
    4. 6 The Initial Investigation Stage: Have a Quick Look at It!
    5. 7 The Detailed Investigation Stage: Promising … Let’s Have a Closer Look
    6. 8 The Develop and Test Stage: Do It!
    7. 9 The Trial Stage: Try It Out
    8. 10 The Release Stage: Let’s Get Going!
    9. 11 The Post-Implementation Review: How Did We Do?
    10. 12 Applying the Staged Framework
    11. 13 A Few Related Projects: Simple Programmes
  12. Part Three: Dealing With Many Projects
    1. 14 Portfolios of Projects
    2. 15 There are Too Many Projects to Do!
    3. 16 Have I Got the Resources?
    4. 17 An Environment for Managing Your Portfolio
  13. Part Four: Making Projects Work For You
    1. 18 Project Teams and Style
    2. 19 Project Setup
    3. 20 Managing Benefits
    4. 21 Managing the Schedule
    5. 22 Managing the Finances
    6. 23 Managing What Might Go Wrong (or Right): Risks and Opportunities
    7. 24 Managing What Has Gone Wrong (or Right!): Issues
    8. 25 Let’s Do It Differently!: Change Control
    9. 26 Reviews and More Reviews
    10. 27 Closing the Project
  14. Part Five: Implementing the Framework
    1. 28 Implementing the Framework
  15. Appendix A: Glossary
  16. Appendix B: A project process framework
  17. Index
  18. Imprint

Product information

  • Title: The Project Workout, 4th Edition
  • Author(s): Robert Buttrick
  • Release date: November 2013
  • Publisher(s): Pearson Business
  • ISBN: 9780273745273