1st Edition

Further Advances in Project Management Guided Exploration in Unfamiliar Landscapes

Edited By Darren Dalcher Copyright 2017
    314 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    314 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Projects are ubiquitous to modern society, yet, concerns around successful delivery, value realisation, resilience and making change stick force a significant re-evaluation of the scope and extent of the ‘normal’ project discourse. The common thread for all of this is around capabilities, skills, attitudes, values and perspectives that are needed for successful delivery and the sustained realisation of interest, relationships, benefit, value and impact.

    The chapters collated in this volume bring together leading authorities on topics that are relevant to the management, leadership, governance and delivery of projects. Topics include people, communication, ethics, change management, value realisation, benefits, complexity, decision-making, project assurance, communication, knowledge management, big data, project requirements, business architecture, stakeholder engagement, strategy, users, systems thinking and resilience.

    The main aims of the collection are to reflect on the state of practice within the discipline; to propose new extensions and additions to good practice; to offer new insights and perspectives; to distil new knowledge; and to provide a way of sampling a range of the most promising ideas, perspectives and styles of writing from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the discipline.

    1. Quality  From Quality to the Pursuit of Excellent (Darren Dalcher)  The Best Practices of Managing Quality in Projects (Ron Basu

    2. Ethics  Professionalism, Ethics and the Freedom to Ask the Right Questions (Darren Dalcher)  Asking Why? – Ethics, Engineering and Project Management (Michael Cavanagh

    3. Complexity
    The Complexity Dialogues: ‘Complicated’ and ‘Complex’ – the Management Difference (Darren Dalcher, Kaye Remington and Michael Cavanagh

    4. Organisational Change  Managing Change: Organisations, People and the Search for Perfection (Darren Dalcher)  Managing Value in Organisations: New Learning, Management and Business Models – Why We Need Them (Donal Carroll

    5. Finance  Project Economics: Wishful Thinking, Conspiracy of Optimism or Self-fulfilling Prophecy? (Darren Dalcher)  Let in the Light on Project Finances (Derek Salkeld

    6. Hyperthinking  Seeing Change: The Power to Think in New Ways (Darren Dalcher)  New Mindset for a New Age (Philip Weiss

    7. Memory  When People Make Decisions: Thinking and Deciding in Projects (Darren Dalcher)  Memory and Project Mental Errors (Lev Virine, Michael Trumper and Eugenia Virine

    8. Beyond Goals  Whatever Happened To Management By Objectives? Learning to Look Beyond Goals (Darren Dalcher)  Insights From Beyond Goals (Susan David, David Clutterbuck and David Megginson

    9. Requirements  Who Needs Project Requirements? (Darren Dalcher)  Developing the Systems Requirements for a Local Health Care system in Cameroon (Mario Kossman

    10. Communication  Too Little, Too Late, Or Too Much, Too Early: Are We Paying Enough Attention to Stakeholders? (Darren Dalcher)  Rolling Back From the Power/Interest Matrix: A New Approach for Role Based Stakeholder Engagement in Projects (Lou Horton and Ann Pilkington

    11. Knowledge  Making Knowledge Count: Where to Find Meaningful Information? (Darren Dalcher)  Project Performance: Improving Our Understanding Through the Sharing of Lessons Learned (Robert Chapman

    12. Big Data  In Data We Trust: Establishing the Value of Information, big Data and Analytics (Darren Dalcher)  Realising Value out of Big Data through Small Data (Roel Wolfert and Roger Davies

    13. Urgency  Learning to Deal with Emergencies: what the Project Management Bodies of Knowledge Don’t Tell Us (Darren Dalcher)  Managing the Urgent and Unexpected (Stephen Wearne and Keith White-Hunt

    14. Users  For whose Benefit? Reclaiming the Role of Users in Projects (Darren Dalcher)  There are No Shortcuts From Projects to Benefits (Phil Driver and Ian Seath

    15. Assurance  Not by Accident: Revisiting Quality Management (Darren Dalcher)  Cost of Quality for construction Projects: a Fresh Look (Ron Basu

    16. Suppliers  Whose Success is it Anyway? Rethinking the role of Suppliers in Projects (Darren Dalcher)  Does One Size Really Fit All? (Adrian Taggart

    17. Architecture  There is Nothing so Permanent as Temporary: Some Thoughts on Adapting Project Structures (Darren Dalcher)  Managing Change in Complex Environments (Jonathan Whelan

    18. Value  The Sprint or the Marathon? Finding a Metaphor to Account for Value in Projects and Programmes (Darren Dalcher)  From Earned Value to Value Realisation: From Managing Projects to Managing Business Outcomes in change Programmes (Roger Davies and Roel Wolfert

    19. Stakeholders  Here Comes Everybody: Reframing the Stakeholder Concept When Just About Anyone can Become Your Stakeholder (Darren Dalcher)  What Stakeholder Management Should Learn from Sales and Marketing (Jake Holloway

    20. Resilience  Resilience as Bouncing Forward: Developing the Capability to Cope When Bouncing Back is no Longer Sufficient (Darren Dalcher)  Project Resilience—Moving Beyond Traditional Risk Management (Elmar Kutsch and Neil Turner

    21. Systems Thinking  Complexity, Projects and systems: Just Going Around in Circles? (Darren Dalcher)  Systemic Thinking as a Mechanism for Managing Risk Arising from Behavioural Complexity on Major Projects (Tony Llewellyn)

    22. People
    Progress Through People: The Study of Projects as if People Mattered (Darren Dalcher)
    Successful Projects and the Eight Compelling Behaviours (Martin Price)
    Conclusion—Project Management Insights: The Road Less Travelled

    Biography

    Darren Dalcher is Professor of Project Management at the University of Hertfordshire, Visiting Professor at the University of Iceland and Adjunct Professor at the Lille Graduate School of Management (SKEMA). He is the founder and Director of the National Centre for Project Management (NCPM), an interdisciplinary centre of excellence operating in collaboration with industry, government, charities, NGOs and the learned societies.

    Reviews of the first volume:

    This volume is a collection of concise and informative articles on topics highly relevant to both new and seasoned practitioners of modern project management. The book works well as both a weekend read, and as a reference compendium with 26 contributors including notable authors such as Harris, Hillson, Mueller & Turner, Remington, and Cavanagh. The range of subjects covered in this book is impressive. Above all, this book fills a current gap in the canon of PM literature by offering a practical a how-to bridge between the Books of Knowledge (e.g. PMI, APM certification) level, and the demands of more complex programmes and projects. I commend this book to any practitioner wanting to understand the added dimensions of the new and highly challenging world of advanced project management.
    ICCPM - International Centre for Complex Project Management

    What sets this book far apart from others is the breadth and open-mindedness of the reflections. Dalcher is not afraid of including nontraditional project management topics such as the psychology of project management and spirituality in project management. Each one of the 20-plus topics is introduced by Dalcher with his point of view and followed by a paper by the primary author. For example, the topic of ethics is introduced with cogitation on project ethics and professionalism, followed up by the paper Project Ethics: The Critical Path to Development. The book is a delight to read and can serve as an easy reference for project managers willing to look beyond the standards and guidelines of traditional project management.
    Project Management Journal, vol. 45, no. 6

    The book begins with an overview from Dalcher and some context-setting. It then offers a diversity of astute opinion from a range of experienced individuals, all with their own specific focus within project management. I was delighted that there were a number of chapters addressing what I would refer to as tough skills (more commonly, erroneously labelled soft skills) including stakeholder management, the psychology of project management, decision making, communication and benefits realisation.
    Project magazine, December 2014

    This book has something to offer the novice as well as the experienced professional, and gives insights to how and why project management is evolving as the global environment changes and challenges organizations and project success.
    Anne Manning, PMI Portland Chapter