The Complete Idiot's Guide to Project Management, 4th Edition

by Campbell, PMP, G. Michael; Baker, Ph.D., Sunny

Edition: 4th

ISBN13: 9781592575985

ISBN10: 1592575986

Format: Paperback

Pub. Date: 2007-02-06

Publisher(s): DK Publishing, Inc.

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Summary

You're no idiot, of course. You know that overseeing a complex work assignment requires careful planning, good communication, teamwork, a clear objective, and responsible leadership. Whoever assumes the management mantle must anticipate possible setbacks-and work through them to achieve the desired goal.

Author Biography

Sunny Baker, Ph.D. runs a consulting firm specializing in marketing and business development for companies of all sizes. Clients have included Intel, Microsoft, Apple Computer, Sprint, and Arizona State University. Baker has co-written more than 25 business and lifestyle books and are regular contributors to a variety of management publications.
G. Michael Campbell, P.M.P., is director of the Institute for Change Leadership and a managing director with the Houston firm Holland and Davis. He is also the co-author of Bullet Proof Presentations.

Project Management Power	p. 1
Linking Projects to Strategy and Performance Results	p. 3
Projects Meet a Business Need	p. 4
Viewing Change from a Different Perspective	p. 5
A Balance Among Time, Resources, Results, and Perceptions	p. 6
Defining Project Success	p. 7
The Next Step	p. 10
What Does It Mean to Be a Project Manager?	p. 11
The Business Connection	p. 11
What Are My Responsibilities?	p. 12
What Do You Need to Do?	p. 12
Learn to Plan and Act	p. 13
Focus on the Project's End	p. 13
Be a Manager and a Leader	p. 13
The Leadership Roles of the Project Manager	p. 14
Interpersonal Roles	p. 14
Informational Roles	p. 15
Decisional Roles	p. 15
The Other Business Management Roles	p. 16
The Seven Traits of Good Project Managers	p. 16
Enthusiasm for the Project	p. 16
The Ability to Manage Change Effectively	p. 17
A Tolerant Attitude Toward Ambiguity	p. 17
Team-Building and Negotiating Skills	p. 17
A Customer-First Orientation	p. 17
Adherence to the Priorities of Business	p. 18
Knowledge of the Industry or Technology	p. 18
Be the Best Leader You Can Be	p. 18
The Rules of the Project Game	p. 21
Universal Project Success Criteria	p. 22
Project Failure: The Reasons Are Simple	p. 22
Twelve Golden Rules of Project Management Success	p. 23
Thou Shalt Gain Consensus on Project Outcomes	p. 24
Thou Shalt Build the Best Team You Can	p. 24
Thou Shalt Develop a Comprehensive, Viable Plan and Keep It Up-to-Date	p. 25
Thou Shalt Determine How Much Stuff You Really Need to Get Things Done	p. 26
Thou Shalt Have a Realistic Schedule	p. 26
Thou Won't Try to Do More Than Can Be Done	p. 27
Thou Will Remember That People Count	p. 27
Thou Will Gain the Formal and Ongoing Support of Management and Stakeholders	p. 28
Thou Must Be Willing to Change	p. 28
Thou Must Keep Others Informed of What You're Up To	p. 29
Thou Must Be Willing to Try New Things	p. 29
Thou Must Become a Leader	p. 29
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize	p. 30
The Nine Knowledge Areas of Project Management	p. 31
Project Integration Management	p. 32
Integration Management as Part of Planning	p. 32
Integration Management During Project Execution	p. 33
Integration Management of Project Changes	p. 33
Project Scope Management	p. 33
Project Time Management	p. 34
Time and the Schedule	p. 34
Controlling the Schedule During Execution	p. 35
Project Cost Management	p. 35
Financial Issues Outside of Your Control	p. 35
Competing for Funds with Other Projects	p. 35
Project Quality Management	p. 36
Project Human Resource Management	p. 36
Organizational Planning	p. 36
Staff Acquisition	p. 31
Making Them a Team	p. 31
Project Communications Management	p. 37
Project Risk Management	p. 37
Project Procurement Management	p. 38
Starting Off on the Right Foot	p. 39
The Project Life Cycle	p. 39
Project Phases and the Project Life Cycle	p. 40
Project Life Cycle versus Product Life Cycle	p. 42
A Case Study: All-Star Cable	p. 43
The Project	p. 44
The Project Manager (That's You)	p. 44
Project Definition Phase	p. 45
Preparing the Leadership	p. 46
How Involved Should the Leadership Be?	p. 47
Also Focus on the Project Team	p. 48
The Project Definition Phase	p. 49
Identifying Stakeholders and Defining Their Roles	p. 51
Start by Identifying the Stakeholders	p. 52
The Customer	p. 54
The Project Sponsor	p. 54
The Steering Committee	p. 56
Functional Management	p. 57
The Working Committee	p. 57
Key Stakeholders for the All-Star Cable Case Study	p. 58
Working Together: The Magic Success Formula	p. 61
Stakeholder Questionnaire	p. 61
Scoping Out Project Success	p. 65
Start with the Business Case	p. 66
What Should Be Included in the Business Case	p. 66
Conducting a Feasibility Study	p. 66
Developing a Feasibility Study for Movies-on-Demand	p. 67
Clear Project Goals Make Sense to Everyone	p. 68
The Primary Goals of Every Project	p. 69
Six Criteria for Setting Great Goals	p. 70
Goals Must Be Specific	p. 70
Goals Must Be Realistic	p. 71
Goals Must Have a Time Component	p. 71
Goals Must Be Measurable	p. 71
Goals Must Be Agreed Upon	p. 72
Responsibility for Achieving the Goals Must Be Identified	p. 72
Establishing Goals Step-by-Step	p. 73
Developing the Statement of Work (SOW)	p. 74
Putting It Down in Writing	p. 74
The Components of the SOW	p. 75
Seeing Eye to Eye	p. 77
Managing Risks and Constraints	p. 79
The Three Types of Risk	p. 80
Risk Areas	p. 80
Don't Forget Business Risks	p. 81
The Ultimate Risk: Acts of God	p. 82
Taking Risks Stage by Stage	p. 82
Risk Tolerance	p. 83
The Basics of Risk Management	p. 84
Track Risks with a Risk Log	p. 87
Constraints vs. Risks	p. 88
Constraints to Consider	p. 88
The Budget	p. 89
The Schedule	p. 89
The People	p. 90
The Real World	p. 90
Facilities and Equipment	p. 90
Risky Business	p. 90
The Project Planning Phase	p. 93
The Breakdown of Tasks: What Really Needs to Be Done?	p. 95
Breaking Your Project into Bite-Sized Pieces	p. 96
The Work Breakdown Structure and Your Project	p. 96
Organizing the WBS	p. 100
Five Steps to the Work Breakdown Structure	p. 102
Criteria for Ensuring Quality Work	p. 103
Give Yourself Plenty of Time	p. 104
Defining Your Deliverables	p. 105
Refining the WBS	p. 107
The Network Diagram: A Map for Your Project	p. 109
What's a Network Diagram?	p. 110
Why Do You Need a Network Diagram?	p. 111
The WBS and the Network Diagram	p. 111
Precedence Relationships in a Project Network	p. 112
Concurrent (Parallel) Activities	p. 112
Complex Time Relationships for Critical Projects	p. 115
When Is Enough Enough?	p. 117
Three Major Network Methods and Others You May Encounter	p. 117
Circles or Boxes? Who Cares?	p. 118
AOA and AON	p. 119
Tried and True Networks	p. 120
Project Start to Finish: Establishing the Time to Get Things Done	p. 121
The Schedule or the Budget: Which Is First?	p. 122
The Schedule Synchronizes the Project	p. 122
Estimating Time: Your Best Guess at Effort and Duration	p. 125
Who Should You Ask?	p. 125
Representative Team Members for Each Part of the Project	p. 126
Outside Vendors and Service Agencies	p. 126
Experienced Managers or Experts	p. 126
Management and Other Project Stakeholders	p. 126
Weighing the Risk	p. 127
A Compromise Between Best and Worst Case	p. 121
The Confidence Factor	p. 128
Details, Details	p. 129
Applying Calendars to a Resource	p. 130
Putting It Down on Paper	p. 131
Schedule Charting Pros and Cons	p. 131
More on Gantt Charts	p. 132
Other Considerations as You Build the Schedule	p. 133
Revisions and the Schedule	p. 134
Learning Takes Time	p. 134
The Heat Is On	p. 134
Team Member Estimate Errors	p. 134
The Just-in-Time Strategy for Scheduling Resources	p. 135
What Happens When They Want to Rush Me?	p. 136
Determining the Critical Path and its Impact on the Schedule	p. 137
How to Determine the Critical Path on Any Project	p. 138
Not Just Floating Around	p. 139
The Different Views of Critical in Project Management	p. 139
Establishing the Critical Path	p. 140
Myth or Reality?	p. 141
Use the Critical Path Worksheet to Calculate Path and Float	p. 141
Normalizing the Schedule	p. 144
Loading Up and Leveling Out	p. 145
The Reallocation Questions	p. 145
Ready for Leveling Out	p. 147
Options for Adjusting the Schedule	p. 148
Adjusting a Schedule to Meet a Forced Deadline	p. 149
Chart the Final Schedule and See If It Works	p. 149
Budgeting and Cost Control Options for Your Project	p. 151
How to Avoid the Classic Budgeting Mistakes	p. 152
Three Levels of Accuracy for Estimating	p. 153
Other Sources of Data for Building the Budget	p. 153
Direct and Indirect Costs	p. 154
Building a Budget	p. 156
Get Expert Opinions	p. 157
Types of Budgeting Methods	p. 158
Bottom-Up Budgeting	p. 159
Top-Down Budgeting	p. 159
Phased Budgeting	p. 159
Refining the Budget	p. 159
Adding a Little Insurance Money	p. 161
Master Budget Control	p. 161
The Time Value of Money	p. 161
Cash Flow Analysis	p. 162
Payback	p. 162
Net Present Value (NPV)	p. 163
Internal Rate of Return (IRR)	p. 163
Building a Winning Project Team	p. 165
The First Step	p. 166
Building the Core Project Team	p. 166
The Complete Implementation Team: Where Most of the Work on the Project Is Done	p. 168
Matching Skills to Tasks on the WBS	p. 169
Where Will the People Come From?	p. 171
Your Own Staff and Other People from Your Department	p. 171
Staff from Other Departments	p. 172
Contracting with Consultants and Temporary Agencies	p. 173
Hiring and Training New Staff	p. 174
Deciding What You Need and Assigning People	p. 175
A Survival Resource After the Project Starts	p. 176
The Best of the Best: Making Your Selections	p. 176
Sometimes You Have to Compromise	p. 177
The Problem of Imposed Team Members	p. 177
Getting What You Need: Supplies, Equipment, and Other Things	p. 179
The Additional Resources You Need	p. 180
Planning for Outside Vendors, Contractors, and Suppliers	p. 181
Determine What Kind of Contract to Use	p. 182
Get an Estimate	p. 182
Working with the Purchasing Department	p. 186
The Final Steps in Procurement	p. 187
Putting It All Together: Getting the Plan Approved	p. 189
Reasons to Plan in the First Place	p. 190
The Reality Check Before Approval	p. 190
What to Do If Discrepancies Appear	p. 192
Other Last-Minute Issues to Consider	p. 192
Putting It All Together	p. 193
Write the Draft Project Plan for the Review Process	p. 196
Conduct a Peer Review	p. 196
Review the Plan with the Key Stakeholders	p. 197
Presenting the Project Plan	p. 198
Plan Approval	p. 199
From Plan to Action, Finally	p. 200
The Execution Phase	p. 203
Getting Started on the Right Track	p. 205
Always Get Your Own Act Together First!	p. 206
Do It Now and Do It Right	p. 206
The Formal Kickoff	p. 207
It's a Go	p. 207
Between Kickoff and Team Meeting: Use the Time Wisely	p. 208
The First Project Meeting	p. 209
One-on-Ones: The Individual Starting Events	p. 211
Setting the Right Expectations	p. 212
Information Everyone Needs to Get Started	p. 213
Managing Global Projects	p. 214
Schedule	p. 215
Budget	p. 215
Technology	p. 215
Quality	p. 216
Human Resources	p. 216
Procurement	p. 216
Leadership: Taking the Bull by the Horns	p. 219
The Importance of Establishing Your Leadership	p. 220
Wearing the Big Shoes	p. 220
A Style That Gets the Job Done	p. 221
How to Lead Change	p. 222
Building a Case for Change	p. 223
Competing with Other Projects for Attention	p. 229
Communication Lines	p. 229
Where Do Projects Fit Together?	p. 229
Critical Path Conflict	p. 230
Keep Your Project Front and Center	p. 230
Leading a Technical Project When You Don't Have Expertise	p. 231
Being All Things to All People	p. 232
What an Organization!	p. 233
No Easy Task, but Someone Has to Organize These People	p. 233
The Human Drama: Personality, Politics, and Corporate Culture	p. 234
Give Them a Script	p. 235
Avoid Casting Catastrophes	p. 235
The Proud, the Few...the Project Team	p. 235
On Becoming a Team: The Basic Ways to Organize People	p. 236
The Functional Project Organization	p. 237
The Pure-Project Organization	p. 239
The Matrix Organization	p. 241
The Mixed Organization	p. 244
Which Structure Should You Use?	p. 245
Using a RACI Chart	p. 245
Matching the Organization to Fit the Project	p. 246
Managing the Working Committee	p. 247
Operating Guidelines: Setting Up to Get Things Done	p. 249
The Project Processes in Each Phase	p. 250
Project Processes vs. Project Procedures	p. 251
Project Processes and the Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle	p. 251
The Things That Need to Get Done	p. 252
Handling Business Process Changes	p. 252
Start with the Project Team	p. 253
Now It's Time for the Working Committee	p. 254
Making the Decision	p. 255
Escalating the Decision	p. 255
Set Up a Work Authorization System	p. 256
Administrative Procedures That Won't Hurt	p. 256
The Reports You May Need	p. 257
Simple Forms to Create Useful Reports	p. 258
Every Report Needs a Purpose	p. 258
Ask Two Final Questions Before You Start	p. 259
Why You Should Keep a Project Diary	p. 259
The Bottom Line	p. 260
Making Your Communications Count	p. 261
The Basics of Communications: It's All About Perceptions	p. 262
What Does a Communication Plan Look Like?	p. 263
Stakeholder Analysis	p. 263
Sensitivity Analysis	p. 264
Information Needs	p. 265
Media Requirements	p. 265
Delivery Personnel and Power Bases	p. 266
Timing Requirements	p. 267
Common Definitions	p. 267
Feedback Loops	p. 268
Macro and Micro Barriers	p. 268
Jargon and Acronyms	p. 269
Execute the Communications Plan	p. 269
Communications and Leadership	p. 270
Developing Effective Messages	p. 270
Listening Is Part of Communicating	p. 271
The Controlling Processes	p. 273
Monitoring and Controlling Schedules and Expenses	p. 275
Taking Charge and Getting Control	p. 276
Success Criteria for Project Control	p. 276
What Should You Monitor?	p. 278
What Monitoring Should Accomplish	p. 280
Using Earned Value Analysis to Determine Project Status	p. 280
Using Gantt Charts to Control Your Project	p. 282
The Project Review Meeting as a Control Process	p. 282
The Project Audit	p. 283
The Project Peer Review	p. 284
Monitoring and Controlling the Budget	p. 284
Putting It All Together	p. 285
Preparing Operations for the Project Deliverables	p. 289
Five Requirements for Operations Integration	p. 290
Create and Communicate the Conclusion	p. 290
Have the Skills to Use the Deliverable	p. 290
Give Users Incentives	p. 291
Help Users/Operators Make the Transition	p. 291
Let Stakeholders Know the Schedule	p. 292
Developing the Training Plan	p. 292
Symptoms That Operations Is Not Ready	p. 294
Overcoming Resistance to Change	p. 295
Fear	p. 295
Feelings of Powerlessness	p. 296
Discomfort	p. 297
Absence of Self-Interest	p. 297
Changes, Changes, and More Changes	p. 299
Develop a Process for Change Control	p. 300
What Might a Change Process Look Like?	p. 301
The Rules of Change Control	p. 302
Understanding and Estimating the Impact of Changes	p. 304
The Balancing Act	p. 304
Comparing Changes with Trade Off Analysis	p. 307
Communicating a Scope Change	p. 307
When Conflicts Occur	p. 308
Create an Issues Log	p. 309
Quality Management: Making It the Best It Can Be	p. 311
What Exactly Does Quality Mean in a Project?	p. 312
Planning for Quality Is the Starting Point	p. 312
Quality Planning Tools and Techniques	p. 313
Cost/Benefit Analyses	p. 313
Benchmarking	p. 314
Cause-and-Effect Diagrams	p. 314
Quality Assurance: The Real Proof	p. 316
Quality Control: It's All About Results	p. 317
Common Project Problems: Get Them Before They Get You	p. 319
Recognizing All Problems, Large and Small	p. 320
The Floating Start Date	p. 320
There's Not Enough Time, or They Need It Faster	p. 321
The 90-Percent-Done Syndrome	p. 322
Moving Target Objectives	p. 323
The Key Person Always Quits	p. 323
Costs Spiral out of Control	p. 324
The Staff Has More Enthusiasm Than Talent	p. 324
The Impossible Remains Impossible	p. 325
Politics, Politics, and More Politics	p. 326
Management by Best-Seller	p. 326
Taking Care of Yourself to Remain Sane	p. 327
A Parable of Last Resort	p. 327
The Close-Out Phase	p. 329
Will the Last One Out Please Turn Off the Lights?	p. 331
Is There Life After Project Termination?	p. 332
Why Is a Close-Out Phase Necessary?	p. 332
The Final Shutdown	p. 332
Closing a Small Project	p. 334
Closing a Large Project	p. 334
Write Out Your Lessons Learned	p. 335
Some Additional Details for Project Shutdown	p. 336
The After-Implementation Review	p. 339
Three Ways to Release a Workforce	p. 339
Give It Up!	p. 340
The Final Evaluation: The Short and Long of It	p. 343
Evaluating Your Project	p. 343
Meet with Core Team Members	p. 344
Compare Goals to Achievements	p. 344
Writing the Final Report	p. 345
Packaging Options for the Report	p. 347
The Political Impact of Final Reports	p. 348
Who Accomplished What and How Well?	p. 348
The Bottom Line and You	p. 349
The Organization and Tools to Make Project Management Prosper	p. 351
The Project-Enabled Organization	p. 353
Understanding the Benefits of Formalizing Project Management	p. 354
Is Your Organization Ready to Be Projectized?	p. 354
Define the Organizational Boundaries First	p. 356
Now Come the Standards	p. 358
Where Do Standards Come From?	p. 359
Establish a Life Cycle Standard	p. 359
Manage Projects Like an Asset for Your Future	p. 361
Putting a Project Office in Place to Support the System	p. 362
In the End, It's Leadership That Makes It Work	p. 363
Software for All Projects Great and Small	p. 365
Software That Simplifies the Details	p. 366
What Can Project Management Programs Do?	p. 366
The Virtual World of the Project Needs Virtual Tools	p. 369
The Power of Networking	p. 370
So What's in It for Me?	p. 370
Simple vs. Complex Projects and the Software They Need	p. 371
The Types of Project Management Programs	p. 371
Single-Project Programs	p. 372
Corporate-Level Programs	p. 372
Mega-Project Programs	p. 373
How Do You Choose?	p. 373
Pricing	p. 373
Total Number of Activities and Resources	p. 374
Direct Cost Assignment and Tracking	p. 374
Resource Scheduling and Leveling	p. 374
Flexible Calendar Functions	p. 374
Import and Export Functions	p. 375
Infrastructure Requirements	p. 376
Documentation and Support for the Program	p. 376
Reputation of the Product Manufacturer	p. 376
Word-of-Mouth Experience	p. 376
Technical Support	p. 377
Things Project Management Software Can't Do	p. 377
Go Get Yourself Some!	p. 379
Appendix
Web Resources for Project Managers	p. 381
Index	p. 383
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Project Management, 4th Edition

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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Project Management, 4th Edition

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