The Project Manager's Guide to Making Successful Decisions

The Project Manager's Guide to Making Successful Decisions PDF

Author: Robert A. Powell PhD

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2008-12

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1523096764

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Make Better Decisions While Managing Projects! Decision-making is critical in project management. Lack of decision-making knowledge, avoidable mistakes, and improper definitions can negatively impact your company's ability to generate profit. The Project Manager's Guide to Making Successful Decisions is a practical handbook that focuses on the significance of project decision-making skills that will all you to reach workable and effective results. This valuable resource highlights numerous decisions necessary to support the project management life cycle, presents various techniques that facilitate the decision-making process, provides an overview of decision analysis as it relates to project management, and much more! + Understand different types of decision-making processes and cycles + Recognize how to frame the decision and gather better information + Define alternatives and assessments to make the right decision + Analyze short case studies demonstrating project decision making success

Process Management

Process Management PDF

Author: Hans de Bruijn

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-08-13

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 3642139418

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• End: pro?t and loss account. As a result, there will be a stage at which the parties have developed relations and prospects of gain, while there are still a number of problems that are dif?cult to solve and that fail to evoke consensus. Each party will then draw up a pro?t and loss account. On the positive side of the balance are the relations developed and the gains collected, on the negative side there are the losses and the unsolved problems. For particular parties, who have no interest in the problem, the latter side is uninteresting; for others, who have an interest in a particular solution of this problem, it represents a form of loss. • Pro?t and loss balance positive for a critical mass: speed. The speed of the process will increase if the pro?t and loss account shows a positive balance for a critical mass of parties. They wish to collect their gains and therefore to make ?nal decisions. At this point there will be an important psychological mec- nism: parties tend to anticipate on collecting their gains, which increases their urge to speed up the process. It is clear from the above, however, that the end of a process is dif?cult to predict.

The Data-Driven Project Manager

The Data-Driven Project Manager PDF

Author: Mario Vanhoucke

Publisher: Apress

Published: 2018-03-27

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1484234987

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Discover solutions to common obstacles faced by project managers. Written as a business novel, the book is highly interactive, allowing readers to participate and consider options at each stage of a project. The book is based on years of experience, both through the author's research projects as well as his teaching lectures at business schools. The book tells the story of Emily Reed and her colleagues who are in charge of the management of a new tennis stadium project. The CEO of the company, Jacob Mitchell, is planning to install a new data-driven project management methodology as a decision support tool for all upcoming projects. He challenges Emily and her team to start a journey in exploring project data to fight against unexpected project obstacles. Data-driven project management is known in the academic literature as “dynamic scheduling” or “integrated project management and control.” It is a project management methodology to plan, monitor, and control projects in progress in order to deliver them on time and within budget to the client. Its main focus is on the integration of three crucial aspects, as follows: Baseline Scheduling: Plan the project activities to create a project timetable with time and budget restrictions. Determine start and finish times of each project activity within the activity network and resource constraints. Know the expected timing of the work to be done as well as an expected impact on the project’s time and budget objectives. Schedule Risk Analysis: Analyze the risk of the baseline schedule and its impact on the project’s time and budget. Use Monte Carlo simulations to assess the risk of the baseline schedule and to forecast the impact of time and budget deviations on the project objectives. Project Control: Measure and analyze the project’s performance data and take actions to bring the project on track. Monitor deviations from the expected project progress and control performance in order to facilitate the decision-making process in case corrective actions are needed to bring projects back on track. Both traditional Earned Value Management (EVM) and the novel Earned Schedule (ES) methods are used. What You'll Learn Implement a data-driven project management methodology (also known as "dynamic scheduling") which allows project managers to plan, monitor, and control projects while delivering them on time and within budget Study different project management tools and techniques, such as PERT/CPM, schedule risk analysis (SRA), resource buffering, and earned value management (EVM) Understand the three aspects of dynamic scheduling: baseline scheduling, schedule risk analysis, and project control Who This Book Is For Project managers looking to learn data-driven project management (or "dynamic scheduling") via a novel, demonstrating real-time simulations of how project managers can solve common project obstacles

Project Management Analytics

Project Management Analytics PDF

Author: Harjit Singh

Publisher: FT Press

Published: 2015-11-12

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 0134190491

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To manage projects, you must not only control schedules and costs: you must also manage growing operational uncertainty. Today’s powerful analytics tools and methods can help you do all of this far more successfully. In Project Management Analytics, Harjit Singh shows how to bring greater evidence-based clarity and rationality to all your key decisions throughout the full project lifecycle. Singh identifies the components and characteristics of a good project decision and shows how to improve decisions by using predictive, prescriptive, statistical, and other methods. You’ll learn how to mitigate risks by identifying meaningful historical patterns and trends; optimize allocation and use of scarce resources within project constraints; automate data-driven decision-making processes based on huge data sets; and effectively handle multiple interrelated decision criteria. Singh also helps you integrate analytics into the project management methods you already use, combining today’s best analytical techniques with proven approaches such as PMI PMBOK® and Lean Six Sigma. Project managers can no longer rely on vague impressions or seat-of-the-pants intuition. Fortunately, you don’t have to. With Project Management Analytics, you can use facts, evidence, and knowledge—and get far better results. Achieve efficient, reliable, consistent, and fact-based project decision-making Systematically bring data and objective analysis to key project decisions Avoid “garbage in, garbage out” Properly collect, store, analyze, and interpret your project-related data Optimize multi-criteria decisions in large group environments Use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to improve complex real-world decisions Streamline projects the way you streamline other business processes Leverage data-driven Lean Six Sigma to manage projects more effectively

Decision Making in Project Management

Decision Making in Project Management PDF

Author: Asbjorn Rolstadas

Publisher: Fagbokforlaget

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788245017731

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Project management involves decision making, and, for most projects, the ability to make good decisions is crucial to their success. In practice, many project management decisions are based purely on experience and judgement - not always successfully. Effective decision making requires an understanding of available alternatives, appropriate methods for deriving choices, and the ability to continually evaluate and select the best means for enhancing project success. This book presents a model for decision making in projects. It distinguishes between authorization, selection, and plan decisions, and it presents an overview of available techniques. In addition, the book presents research results to support methods for optimal decisions in projects in order to achieve success. (Series: NTNU Engineering - Vol. 4) [Subject: Project Management, Business]

Construction Risk Management Decision Making

Construction Risk Management Decision Making PDF

Author: Alex C. Arthur

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-12-13

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 1119693004

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CONSTRUCTION RISK MANAGEMENT DECISION MAKING Explores the relevance of systems thinking and behavioral science in construction risk management Effective risk management is a vital component of all successful construction projects. Although quantitative tools for evaluating data and minimizing risk are readily available, construction managers commonly adopt a more innate, experience-based approach. In Construction Risk Management Decision Making, project manager and senior consultant Alex C. Arthur provides step-by-step advice on assessing and prioritizing risk using qualitative decision-making systems in the construction industry. Incorporating key theories and concepts from systems thinking and behavioral science, this highly practical guide focuses on the behavior patterns of real people in the industry, rather than complex quantitative techniques and data. Concise, easy-to-understand chapters highlight the current practices of construction risk management while helping readers view risk and decision making from a broader perspective. Throughout the book, the author presents invaluable insights into the ways construction professionals think and behave in the real world. Addresses the actual risk management practices of construction professionals Applies human behavioral theories to the study of construction risk management decision making Illustrates the highly intuitive approaches prevalent in various construction projects Features real-life case studies and practical examples throughout Construction Risk Management Decision Making is an excellent textbook for advanced students in project management, engineering, construction, and surveying courses, and a must-have guide for practitioners of construction management, surveying, and architecture.

Project Governance

Project Governance PDF

Author: Ross Garland

Publisher: Kogan Page Publishers

Published: 2009-02-03

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0749456086

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Effective project decision making is recognised as a key feature of successful projects. Ineffective decision making leads to project delay and failure. Project Governance takes readers through the logical steps required for the establishment of a project governance framework for a project or organisation. Starting with problems typical of ineffective project governance, it develops a set of principles designed to overcome these problems and builds a framework based on these principles. This comprehensive guide explains how to populate the framework effectively, provides the accountabilities and responsibilities of the main roles , and describes how to integrate the project governance framework into the organisation. Whether you are a project management practitioner or a student of project management, the lessons learned in this valuable handbook make for essential reading.

Decision-making on Mega-projects

Decision-making on Mega-projects PDF

Author: Hugo Priemus

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2008-01-01

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1848440170

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It will be useful for those experienced and senior professionals who are charged with authorizing and controlling projects. Recommended. P.F. Rad, Choice Building on the seminal work of Bent Flyvbjerg, this book is a collection of expert contributions that will prove essential to anyone wanting to understand why mega-projects go wrong and how they can be made to work better. Professor Sir Peter Hall, University College London, UK This book offers a refreshing and fascinating look at mega-projects from the perspective of public evaluation and planning. With the changing role of the public sector in planning and implementing large-scale projects and a subsequent strong emergence of private public modes of operation, mega-projects have become a problematic phenomenon. This volume is a major source of information and reference. It provides the reader with unique insights and caveats in mega-projects planning. Peter Nijkamp, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands This book enlarges the understanding of decision-making on mega-projects and suggest recommendations for a more effective, efficient and democratic approach. Authors from different scientific disciplines address various aspects of the decision-making process, such as management characteristics and cost benefit analysis, planning and innovation and competition and institutions. The subject matter is highly diverse, but certain questions remain at the forefront. For example, how do we deal with protracted preparation processes, how do we tackle risks and uncertainties, and how can we best divide the risks and responsibilities among the private and public players throughout the different phases of the project? Presenting a state-of-the-art overview, based on experiences and visions of authors from Europe and North America, this unique book will be of interest to practitioners of large-scale project management, politicians, public officials and private organisations involved in mega-project decision-making. It will also appeal to researchers, consultants and students dealing with substantial engineering projects, complex systems, project management and transport infrastructure.

Exercising Agency

Exercising Agency PDF

Author: Mark Mullaly

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1317138090

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Exercising Agency is a book about decision making. In particular, it looks in detail at how a very important type of organizational decision gets made: whether or not to initiate a project. Making strategic decisions of this kind can never be a wholly rational and scientific process. And Exercising Agency lifts the lid on many of the important behavioural factors that inform project decisions: power and politics, personality, the ’rules’ of an organization. Mark Mullaly draws on his research to provide practical guidance for decision makers; project shapers, approving executives and those responsible for how initiation decisions are made. By explaining the influence, value and risks associated with the elements that inform the way we make strategic decisions he will help you identify how individuals and organizations can best support the process to ensure project initiation decisions are effective and most closely underpin the priorities of the organization. If you are involved in framing or making decisions about the future of your organization; the projects that you do or don’t decide to initiate, then read this book. It won’t make the decisions any easier but it will help you improve the quality of the decisions you make and over time, the effectiveness of your organizational decision making.

The Future of Project Management

The Future of Project Management PDF

Author: Project Management Institute

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13:

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Annotation In addition, The Future of Project Management examines the challenges facing the longevity of project management as a profession. This is a book for anyone interested in project management--along with business leaders and others who enjoy exploring the future, understanding its implications, and learning to deal with change.