Project Management For Mere Mortals

DESCRIPTION

Praise for Project Management for Mere Mortals

Project Management for Mere Mortals strips away the myths and mysteries of effective project management, giving you the skills,tools, and insights to succeed with your next projectand every project after that.

Long-time project manager and trainer, Claudia Baca, walks you through all five process groups of project management: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing. Baca examines each process group from the perspectives of the working project manager and team member, highlighting the organizational issues most likely to arise and offering proven solutions. For each process group, she presents tools you can start using right nowand demonstrates those tools at work in a realistic running case study.

This guide takes you from the absolute basics through advanced techniques, such as measures of performance and change control. You'll learn how to

Accurately scope projects and build workable timetables

Create trustworthy budgets and use them to manage your project

Organize work assignments for maximum efficiency

Build project teams, and keep them motivated

Intelligently assess quality goals, and decide "how good it has to be"

Identify and mitigate the real risks your project will encounter

Control changes and stay on track, no matter what surprises occur

Close projects successfully, and learn lessons for future projects

Gain crucial skills you'll need for PMI certification

This book has been crafted to support professionals who are new (or almost new) to project management, as well as experienced project managers who want to handle complex projects and organizational politics more effectively. Whatever your role or assignment, it's your fastest route to deep project management mastery.

Table of Contents
Foreword by Kim Heldman, PMP xv
Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xxv
Abou the Author xxvii
Chapter 1 Setting the Project Management Context 1
Chapter 2 You've Been Assigned a Project! 19
Chapter 3 How Big Is This Project? 53
Chapter 4 Laying Out the Work 99
Chapter 5 The Art of Estimating 131
Chapter 6 QualityHow Good Does It Have to Be? 169
Chapter 7 CommunicationWhat Do You Think About My Project? 207
Chapter 8 RiskWhat Should You Worry About? 257
Chapter 9 Creating the Schedule 291
Chapter 10 BudgetingHow Much? 331
Chapter 11 The Rhythm of Project Execution 369
Chapter 12 Keeping the Project on Track 397
Chapter 13 Controlling Changes 421
Chapter 14 Success!Closing the Project 441
Answers to the Review Questions 457
Glossary 471
Bibliography 477
Index 479