Fundamentals of Project Management

by Joseph Heagney

Overview

Project mishaps are all too common but often easy to avoid. Fundamentals of Project Management gets both new and current managers up to speed on the basics—the first crucial step for completing projects timely and on budget.

Having already helped many generations of project managers navigate the ins and outs of every aspect of successful project management, this revised edition remains the perfect resource for succeeding in this complex discipline that has changed greatly in recent years.

In Fundamentals of Project Management, management expert Joseph Heagney contains new information on topics including:

• Clarify project goals and objectives
• Develop a work breakdown in structure
• Create a project risk plan
• Produce a realistic schedule
• Manage change requests
• Control and evaluate progress at every

Fully updated in accordance with the latest version of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®), this all-encompassing book contains expanded coverage on areas such as estimating, stakeholder management, procurement management, creating a communication plan, project closure, PMP certification requirements and more.

Full of tools, techniques, examples, and instructive exercises, Fundamentals of Project Management will refresh your knowledge and equip you with the proper skills to succeed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814437360
Publisher:	AMACOM
Publication date:	08/16/2016
Edition description:	Fifth Edition
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	427,444
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

JOSEPH HEAGNEY has been President of QMA International, LLC, since 2001, providing a wide range of management learning solutions. He was previously the Global Practice Leader for Project Management Best Practices at the American Management Association, where he currently serves as a faculty member.

Read an Excerpt

Preface to the Fourth Edition

Sending a satellite to Mars? Planning a conference or implementing new software? You have chosen the right book. The great value of project management is that it can be applied across industries and situations alike, on multiple levels. It would be difficult to find a more nimble organizational discipline. Whether or not your title says project manager, you can benefit from the practical applications presented in this book, which is intended as a brief overview of the tools, techniques, and discipline of project management as a whole. Three notable topics have been expanded for this edition, with new chapters on the project manager as leader, managing project risk, and the change control process. Although each topic is important individually, together they can establish the basis for project success or failure.

Projects are often accomplished by teams, teams are made up of people, and people are driven by . . . project leaders. Conspicuously absent from the preceding is the term “manager,” as in

“project manager.” If project managers manage projects, what do they do with the people who make up their teams or support networks in the absence of a formal team? Successful project leaders lead the people on their teams to consistent goal attainment and enhanced performance. They combine a command of project tools and technical savvy with a real understanding of leadership and team performance. Consistently successful projects depend on both. It is a balancing act of execution and skilled people management.

Ignoring one or the other is inviting project failure and organizational inconsistency regarding project performance.

Risk is an element inherent in every project. The project manager must consider several variables when determining how much to invest in the mitigation and management of that risk.

How experienced is my team or support personnel? Do I have the appropriate skill sets available? Can I count on reliable data from previous projects, or am I wandering in the wilderness?

Whatever the assessment, project risk is something that needs to be addressed early in the life of the project. As with any other process you will be introduced to in this book, risk must be managed formally, with little deviation from the template, while allowing for some flexibility. Project managers cannot afford to wait for bad things to happen and then fix them. Reactive management is too costly. The practical Six-Step process presented in the book can and should be applied to any project. How it is applied directly depends on the variables that confront that project.

Death, taxes, and change. Project managers need to expand the list of certainties in life. To paraphrase James P. Lewis, author of the first three editions this book, in Chapter 3, project failures are caused primarily by the failure to plan properly. I often tell my seminar attendees that planning is everything and that most proj -

ects succeed or fail up front. This is not an overstatement. But what often gets lost in project execution is the absolute necessity to keep the plan current based on the changes that have affected the project from day one. Have the changes affected the scope of the project? Has the schedule or budget been impacted in any significant way? These are the questions that must be asked and answered when applying effective change control to the project.

Failure to manage and communicate change results in serious misalignment and probably failure. Chapter 10 presents the reader with a practical change control process that can help ensure project success.

As a former Global Practice Leader for project management at the American Management Association, I had the luxury of benchmarking multiple organizations worldwide and identified several project-related best practices. The applications discussed here represent some of those practices, as well as those presented in the latest version of PMBOK®. With this expanded edition of Fundamentals of Project Management, I hope to enhance your chances of bringing projects in on time, on budget with an excellent deliverable—every time.

Joseph J. Heagney

Sayville, NY

February, 2011

Table of Contents

Contents

Figure List

Preface to the Fourth Edition

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 An Overview of Project Management

Chapter 2 The Role of the Project Manager

Chapter 3 Planning the Project

Chapter 4 Developing a Mission, Vision, Goals a and Objectives for the Project

Chapter 5 Creating the Project Risk Plan

Chapter 6 Using the Work Breakdown

Structure to Plan a Project

Chapter 7 Scheduling Project Work

Chapter 8 Producing a Workable Schedule

Chapter 9 Project Control and Evaluation

Chapter 10 The Change Control Process

Chapter 11 Project Control Using Earned

Value Analysis

Chapter 12 Managing the Project Team

Chapter 13 The Project Manager as Leader

Chapter 14 How to Make Project Management

Work in Your Company

Answers to Chapter Questions

Index

About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

"This book is a great resource for helping a project manager or other team member to learn new tools and techniques or refresh their knowledge." —PM World Journal

From the Publisher