Project management has become a key competence for most organisations in the public and private sectors. Driven by recent business trends such as fewer management layers, greater flexibility, increasing geographical distribution and more project-based work, project management has grown beyond its roots in the construction, engineering and aerospace industries to transform the service, financial, computer, and general management sectors. In fact, a Fortune article rated project management as the number one career choice at the beginning of the 21st century. Yet many organizations have struggled in applying the traditional models of project management to their new projects in the global environment. Project management offers a framework to help organisations to transform their mainstream operations and service performance. It is viewed as a way of organising for the future. Moreover, in an increasingly busy, stressful, and uncertain world it has become necessary to manage several projects successfully at the same time. According to some estimates the world annually spends well over $10 trillion (US) on projects. In the UK alone, more than £250 billion is spent on projects every year. Up to half of these projects fail! A major ingredient in the build-up leading to failure is often cited as the lack of adequate project management knowledge and experience. Some organizations have responded to this situation by trying to improve the understanding and capability of their managers and employees who are introduced to projects, as well as their experienced project managers in an attempt to enhance their competence and capability in this area. Advances in Project Management provides short, state of play, guides to the main aspects of the new emerging applications including: maturity models, agile projects, extreme projects, six sigma and projects, human factors and leadership in projects, project governance, value management, virtual teams and project benefits.
By Haukur Ingi Jonasson, Helgi Thor Ingason
January 10, 2013
How relevant is ethics to project management? The book - which aims to demystify the field of ethics for project managers and managers in general - takes both a critical and a practical look at project management in terms of success criteria, and ethical opportunities and risks. The goal is to help...
By Michael Cavanagh
January 28, 2012
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got, and if it's not good enough, you need to do something else. As project complexity increases, so too does the need to do new things. The existing Project Management tools - examples being Earned Value Management, PRINCE2, ...
By Gilbert Silvius, Ron Schipper, Julia Planko, Jasper van den Brink
May 18, 2012
The concept of sustainability has grown in recognition and importance. The pressure on companies to broaden their reporting and accountability from economic performance for shareholders, to sustainability performance for all stakeholders is leading to a change of mindset in consumer behaviour and ...
By David Hancock
November 28, 2010
The general perception amongst most project and risk managers that we can somehow control the future is, says David Hancock, one of the most ill-conceived in risk management. The biggest problem is how to measure risks in terms of their potential likelihood, their possible consequences, their ...
By Judi Neal, Alan Harpham
July 28, 2012
Projects have always been essentially human endeavours. Large modern projects are generally highly complex, fraught with technical difficulties and supported by diverse, often apparently conflicted stakeholders. The spirituality that originally defined some of the great construction projects of the...
Edited
By Darren Dalcher
December 09, 2016
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, ...
By Jake Holloway, David Bryde
August 04, 2015
All project stakeholders have different needs, objectives, responsibilities and priorities. For many project managers it is disturbing to realise that, for any number of personal or professional reasons, some of their stakeholders may not be as co-operative and helpful as they expect. It could be a...
Edited
By Darren Dalcher
August 26, 2016
On the evidence of the authors of Advances in Project Management: Narrated Journeys in Unchartered Territory, there is a sea change coming. That change will affect the way projects are perceived, lead and governed, particularly in the context of the wider organisation to which they belong; whether ...
By Stephen Wearne, Keith White-Hunt
October 15, 2014
Sometimes unanticipated threats or opportunities create a situation in which work is required unexpectedly. On these occasions, such urgent and unexpected work demands an instant start, in contrast to the often lengthy processes of investigation, evaluation, development, selection and planning ...
By Tony Llewellyn
January 12, 2016
Performance Coaching for Complex Projects recognises a world of complex undertakings for which the common transactional mindsets and methodologies will not produce the required results. The author advocates, instead, the novel concept that the project manager or team leader should coach the team ...