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Below are books you can use to proactively plan and manage work, and monitor results to successfully complete plans.
Fail-Safe Management by The decision to look at failures for answers is a bold one. Policy makers, planners and implementers have a tendency to look through prisms of success in framing working policies, programs and results when justifying them. Despite this, we still tend to address failures indirectly by looking at risk, critical success factors, unintended outcomes or consequences, and negative impacts to name a few. As the authors say, 'while success is desirable and we plan for it, failures are inevitable and we seldom plan to mitigate them.'The authors have clearly emphasized the need to look at failures in an integrated manner by building them into the planning and budget process while at the same time identifying monitoring points for early detection that will provide critical information for timely intervention. Failures are real, and we must plan to face them when they emerge. This book will offer the necessary insight to managers.-- Koshy Thomas, Head of the Outcome-based Budgeting Project Team, Ministry of Finance, MalaysiaThis book provides invaluable guidance on how to avoid the failure of interventions, whether for projects, programs, or policies. The authors note that although good design is essential, 'paying attention to details that only happen during implementation is essential in avoiding failure'. The five steps outlined are salutary, and point to the craft needed for good implementation-the range of issues which have continuously to be managed, the environment, stakeholders, resources, systems, and so on. As the authors point out, some elements are beyond the control of a project manager, but all too often it is the things that are controllable that are ignored at our peril. Good management is not sexy, but it usually makes thedifference between failure and success. This book deserves careful study by public and private sector managers and implementers.-- Dr. Ian Goldman, Head of Evaluation and Research, Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, The Presidency, South AfricaFail-Safe Management provides much needed guidance aimed at preventing failure in program implementation. Considerable resources and effort are traditionally invested in the development and scientific evaluation of program interventions. Despite the availability of efficaciousinterventions, population-level programmatic impact is difficult to achieve. The gap between the availability of scientifically developed efficacious interventions and the scarcity of population-level programmatic impact is often attributable to inadequate strategic planning and implementation failures. This book promises to be of great help to program managers in avoiding the latter.-- Dr Sevgi Aral, Associate Director for Science, Division of STD Prevention, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)During the discussions on the Lagos Plan of Action, the late President of The United Republic of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere asked, 'why projects in Africa failed and what can be done to rescue the situation'. The answer was that projects failed because of corruption and greed, and the solution suggested was to set up anti-corruption commissions to root out corrupt practices. Decades later the problem remains. What then is the problem? This book sheds light on why projects fail and provides a critical path on 'how to avoid failure' while addressing inevitable development problems. It outlines five simple steps-that are not rocket science-for development practitioners to understand and apply. Perhaps this book should have written at the time of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and the Lagos Plan of Action. He would have found the right answers in it.-- Dr. Simon Muchiru, Director, Oakwood and Associates Consultants, Gaborone, Botswana
Getting New Things Done by Our networks--and how we work them--create vital ties that bind. Organizations recognize and reward this fact by leaning ever more heavily on collaboration, particularly when it comes to getting new things done. This book offers a framework that explains how innovators use network processes to broker knowledge and mobilize action. How well they do so directly influences the outcome of attempts to innovate, especially when a project is not tied to prescribed organizational routines. An entrepreneur launches a business. A company rolls out a new product line. Two firms form a partnership. These instances and many more like them dot today's business landscape. And yet, we understand little about the social dimension of these undertakings. Disentangling brokerage from network structure and building on his theoretical work regarding tertius iungens, David Obstfeld explains how actors with diverse interests, expertise, and skills leverage their personal and intellectual connections to create new ventures and products with extraordinary results.
HBR Guide to Project Management by MEET YOUR GOALS--ON TIME AND ON BUDGET. How do you rein in the scope of your project when you've got a group of demanding stakeholders breathing down your neck? And map out a schedule everyone can stick to? And motivate team members who have competing demands on their time and attention? Whether you're managing your first project or just tired of improvising, this guide will give you the tools and confidence you need to define smart goals, meet them, and capture lessons learned so future projects go even more smoothly. The HBR Guide to Project Management will help you: Build a strong, focused team Break major objectives into manageable tasks Create a schedule that keeps all the moving parts under control Monitor progress toward your goals Manage stakeholders' expectations Wrap up your project and gauge its success
Making Things Happen by In the updated edition of this critically acclaimed and bestselling book, Microsoft project veteran Scott Berkun offers a collection of essays on field-tested philosophies and strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects. Each essay distills complex concepts and challenges into practical nuggets of useful advice, and the new edition now adds more value for leaders and managers of projects everywhere. Based on his nine years of experience as a program manager for Internet Explorer, and lead program manager for Windows and MSN, Berkun explains to technical and non-technical readers alike what it takes to get through a large software or web development project. Making Things Happen doesn't cite specific methods, but focuses on philosophy and strategy. Unlike other project management books, Berkun offers personal essays in a comfortable style and easy tone that emulate the relationship of a wise project manager who gives good, entertaining and passionate advice to those who ask. Topics in this new edition include: How to make things happen Making good decisions Specifications and requirements Ideas and what to do with them How not to annoy people Leadership and trust The truth about making dates What to do when things go wrong Complete with a new forward from the author and a discussion guide for forming reading groups/teams, Making Things Happen offers in-depth exercises to help you apply lessons from the book to your job. It is inspiring, funny, honest, and compelling, and definitely the one book that you and your team need to have within arm's reach throughout the life of your project. Coming from the rare perspective of someone who fought difficult battles on Microsoft's biggest projects and taught project design and management for MSTE, Microsoft's internal best practices group, this is valuable advice indeed. It will serve you well with your current work, and on future projects to come.
New Directions in Career Planning and the Workplace by An updated edition of a landmark book, this invaluable career-planning guide for employers and counselors offers a startling look at the forces changing the workplace of the new millennium.
Novel Approaches to Organizational Project Management Research by Project management (PM), traditionally employed to implement projects, has developed into Organizational Project Management, as organizations are increasingly using projects to deliver strategies. The emergence of program and portfolio management has also contributed to this move. PM researchers need to become more innovative in their research approaches. They need to connect with the broader currents of social science in relevant fields, such as organization theory. Outside the specific field, there is a great deal that can usefully be imported, transformed, and translated so that it is fit for project management research purposes. More trans-disciplinary, translational, and transformational approaches for conducting project-related research are required, and this book goes a long way to providing foundations for them. The book encompasses reflections on fundamental questions underlying any research, such as the type of knowledge sought, as well as the epistemological and ontological assumptions. It broadens research methods and theory perspectives, drawing on contemporary approaches, such as action research, soft systems methodology, activity theory, actor-network theory, and other approaches adopted in related scientific and technological areas that are only recently being adopted. To achieve this, the book's editors have necessarily been eclectically interdisciplinary in their contributor list. They have included contemporary research methods and designs from areas allied to project research - such as organization science, organizational studies, sociology, behavioral science, and biology - providing innovative invitations to research design and methodological choice. Overall, this book makes a significant contribution to the maturation and development of project management research as a specialty in the broader social sciences, one that is a less-reliant handmaiden or under-laborer to purely technical issues, but which appreciates that any material construction is always a social construction as well, one that implies episteme and phronesis, knowledge and wisdom, as well as techne or technique. Project managers may not realize it, but the most important aspects of what they manage are the meanings, interpretations, and politics of projects, and not merely the technical aspects. (Series: Advances in Organization Studies - Vol. 29) [Subject: Project Management, Business Administration, Organizational Studies]
Smart Working by It is more possible than ever to influence and shape our working environments, our experience of work and each other. Business leaders who set the conditions and create engaging, meaningful work through organisational design and use of the knowledge and creative potential of their workforces are engaging in smart working. In Smart Working: Creating the Next Wave, Anne Marie McEwan explains how smart working is more than just flexible and mobile working. It is about flexibility and autonomy - how people work, not just where and when. She argues that systems, working environments and governance are more likely to lead to effective performance if they maximise self-determination and choice. She describes how collaborative communication technologies create possibilities for stimulating and harnessing collective intelligence, within and beyond organisational boundaries. In short, smart working is an outcome of designing organisational systems that are good both for business and people. McEwan warns that the tendency to talk about new management paradigms risks overlooking insights derived from years of academic research, and particularly from lessons learned from process innovation methodology. This rigorously researched but intensely practical book examines current workplace trends relating to people, technology, place and space. It reviews what we already know about effective management and high performance work methods and shows how those insights can be used to advantage in contemporary workscapes. It will help those with responsibilities for the strategic direction of their organizations. Learning and development and HR professionals will understand how to interpret these insights for their own business.
Creating a Pathway to Your Dream Career by A college degree used to practically guarantee a satisfying (if not necessarily emotionally fulfilling) job and a salary that would ensure a reasonably comfortable lifestyle and a secure retirement. That's ancient history. During the depths of the recent recession, half of all college graduates were unable to get any job or, if they were lucky enough to land a job, it did not make use of their education and did not offer a professional career path. Although the job market is slowly improving, most university graduates, not to speak of community college and high school graduates, still face a very rough and uncertain road to the American Dream. After all, there are still far fewer mid-skill/mid-income jobs than there are people applying for them. And to make matters worse, the number of employers willing to hire and train new graduates on the basis of their 'potential' is rapidly declining. They want people who are already capable of performing the job they are looking to fill. It's no wonder that 56% of recent college graduates believe they will to do less well than their parents--only 17% expect to do better! But, while the prospects may appear daunting, there are many opportunities to not only get a good job, but to develop the career of your dreams. This book provides a 20-step plan for students who can: 1. Hone in a career choice; 2. Develop the skills they will need; and 3. Land and capitalize on their first job.
EXtreme Project Management by Today?s new breed, eXtreme projects are different. They feature high speed, high change, high complexity, high risk, and high stress.nbsp; While traditional projects follow the classic model of ready, aim, fire, eXtreme project managers succeed by shooting the gun and then redirecting the bullet while not loosing sight of their moving target.nbsp;eXtreme Project Management provides a practical guide for leaders working under high risk and high pressure while producing the desired bottom-line results.nbsp; Based on Doug DeCarlo?s extensive experience in working with more than 250 project teams, his eXtreme project management model is built around an integrated set of principles, values, skills, tools, and practices proven to consistently work under conditions of rapid change and uncertainty.nbsp;eXtreme project management is based on the premise that you don?t manage the unknown the same way you manage the known.nbsp; It?s a people-centric approach to high performance that makes quality of life a fundamental part of the project venture.
Human Factors in Project Management by In Human Factors in Project Management, author Zachary Wong--a noted trainer and acclaimed leader of more than 250 project teams--provides a summary of "people-based" management skills and techniques that can be applied when working in a team environment. This comprehensive resource brings together in one book new and current models in team motivation and integrates the most significant concepts in team motivation and behaviors into a single set of principles called "Human Factors." Wong shows how these factors can be applied to the most challenging issues facing project managers today including Motivating a diverse workforce Facilitating team decisions Resolving interpersonal conflicts Managing difficult people Strengthening team accountability Communications Leadership
The Little Black Book of Project Management by For nearly twenty years, The Little Black Book of Project Management has provided businesspeople everywhere with a quick and effective introduction to project management tools and methodology. The revised and updated third edition reflects the newest techniques, the latest project management software, as well as the most recent changes to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(tm)). Readers will find invaluable strategies for: * Organizing any project * Choosing the projectteam * Preparing a budget and sticking to it * Scheduling, flowcharting, and controlling a project * Preparing project documentation * Managing communications * And much more A fast-read solution for both seasoned and first-time project managers, The Little Black Book of Project Management can help any professional achieve on-time results, superior organizational ability, consistent profit generation, and a reputation for both quality and dependability.
One Strategy by Learn from the concepts, capabilities, processes, and behaviors that aligned around one strategy with the hard-won, first-person wisdom found in One Strategy. Challenging traditional views of strategy and operational execution, this book-written by Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky with Harvard Business School professor Marco Iansiti-describes how you can drive innovation by connecting the potential of strategic opportunities to the impact of operational execution. Lessons from the unique combination of real-world experience managing a large scale organization with academic research in strategy and innovation Reveals what it takes to align a complex organization around one strategy, manage its execution, and reach for "strategic integrity" Written by Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky with Harvard Business School professor Marco Iansiti-a combined forty years of management and research experience A unique perspective on strategy development, alignment, and execution Drawn from Sinofsky's internal Microsoft blog where he communicated some of the management processes the team put to work while developing a 4,000 person, multi-year project-Microsoft Windows 7-One Strategy shares the hard-won insights you can use to successfully make the leap from strategy to execution.
Painless Project Management by A detailed guide to successful, efficient project management, written by two pros with a combined 55 years "in the trenches!" Project management is a vital and growing component of many organizations and can literally make or break a company. In this step-by-step guide, two project management consultants present a comprehensive guide to effective project management, complete with real stories and case studies from actual project managers. This straightforward guide cuts through the technical jargon to present an easy-to-follow, easy-to-learn approach to executing any project from beginning to end. Project managers, as well as those who want to learn more about project management, will find this guide to be an indispensable resource for all their projects.
Powerful Planning Skills by Power Planning Skills is an easy-to-read guide to the skills that can make a difference to your personal productivity and in the performance of the entire organisation. The author addresses evaluating projects, problems and increasing productivity.
Strategic Project Management by Strategic Project Management uses real life case examples to characterize and describe the organizational factors and conditions necessary for projects to thrive and to deliver the organization's strategic objectives. This characterization is formed around ten imperatives which senior managers can implement - both within individual projects and, even more crucially, within the institutions that sponsor them - using the tools provided. Accessible, practical and free of jargon, Strategic Project Management offers the solutions needed to successfully prioritize and manage a portfolio of projects, communicate aims, align priorities to organizational objectives, evaluate progress, manage supplier relationships and anticipate and mitigate the risks at every stage. Supported by a comprehensive package of online resources for project portfolio planning, management and analysis this book will help readers to build on their skills, knowledge and confidence to rise to the challenge of governing and delivering successful projects.
Value-Driven Project Management by In the traditional view of project management, if a project manager completed a project and had adhered to the triple constraints of time, cost, and performance, the project was considered a success. Today, in the eyes of the customer and the parent or sponsoring company, if a completed project did not deliver its anticipated value, it would be seen as a failure. Today's changing economic climate, marked by an increasingly competitive global environment, is driving project managers to become more business oriented. Projects must now be viewed from a strategic perspective within the context of a business or enterprise that needs to provide value to both the customer and the organization itself. As a result, project managers are now required to possess the skills to complete a project within certain specifications, and also know how to create and deliver value. Responding to the needs of today's project managers, Value-Driven Project Management begins by changing the paradigm of project management. Rather than judge the success of a project from the perspectives of time, budget, and quality, the authors demonstrate why success is only achieved when planned business values are met, including: Internal value Financial value Future value Customer-related value The authors also offer best practices that allow you and your organization to create additional value in efficiency, customer satisfaction, and enhanced products and services. Finally, the book helps you incorporate value into clearly defined business objectives and "sell" the value-driven process to executives. Throughout the book, helpful illustrations clarify complex concepts and processes. Assigning valuable resources to projects that don't provide some tangible form of value to the organization and to the client is poor management and poor decision-making. On the other hand, selecting and implementing projects that will deliver value and an acceptable return on investment is effective management and decision-making, but is very challenging, especially when a project may not provide its target value for years to come. With Value-Driven Project Management in hand, you'll discover the tools you need to ensure that projects deliver true value upon their completion.