Project Management: In a Complex World

Faster, cheaper, and better has become the mantra of not only profit-making organizations seeking to increase market share and profits but also nonprofits and governmental organizations seeking to increase their value to clients. Organizations are increasingly using projects to meet these goals. Projects are goal directed and time framed, and when managed well, projects deliver on time and within budget. This book is about how to manage projects well.All projects have common characteristics: every project has a scope, budget, and schedule. Projects also differ. Understanding how projects differ and what that difference means to the management of the project is critical to successfully managing a project. Large, complex projects need project management tools, systems, and processes that are very different from the small and less complex project. Within this text, we provide a tool for profiling a project based on the complexity of the project and describe the different project management approaches needed for the difference in project profiles.Project management is complicated. In some ways, this is a good thing because students who learn how to manage projects well will find it a rewarding career, and there will always be a demand for their services. Project management is complicated because projects consist of many activities that are interrelated, and the actions taken in one activity affect several other aspects of the project. Project management is complex because project managers must understand several knowledge areas and develop a variety of tools and techniques to successfully manage a project. This complexity makes it challenging to learn about project management because regardless of which activity you begin to study, you need to know something about the other activities to which it is related.Students learn more about specific topics in chapters devoted to scope, planning, budgeting, cost management, quality, risk management, procurement, and closeout. They learn about the knowledge, skills, and tools used in each of these areas. They learn that different subsets of this knowledge, skills, and tools are needed depending on the complexity of the project and how to make the appropriate selection based on a project’s complexity profile. They also learn that different subsets of knowledge, skills, and tools are used depending on the phase of the project. Because they already have an overview, students can appreciate how the topics in each chapter in this section relate to other topics.