- The book is divided into the following parts:
Part I: Projects, ProjectManagers, and The Project Environment
We define a project and explore the environment in which it exists. We cover the role of the ProjectManager in depth.
We also cover Portfolio Management because, if the research is to be believed, companies are quite poor at it.
Part II: Technical Skills
We cover the skills that a project manager must master to be effective and we generally follow the project life cycle.
- Deliverables and Milestones
- Charter
- Stakeholders
- Scope
- WBS
- Cost Estimation
- Schedule Estimation
- Earned Value
- Cost & Schedule Tracking
- Quality
- Resources
- Communications
- Risks
- Procurement
- Ethics
Part III: Sample Projects
Throughout the book, we use cases and sample projects to illustrate the concepts. Students can use these as models for their own projects:
The New Kitchen Project
This illustrates the entire project management process for the design and implementation of a new kitchen with examples of deliverables, tools, and techniques.
The Graduation Picnic Project
Students of project management decided to hold a picnic at the end of the academic year and selected a classic American theme of hamburgers, hot dogs, and beer. The project, which is presented using templates, follows the PMBOK®.
The PMA Project
The ProjectManagement Association (PMA) is a small, Boston-based (hypothetical) organization dedicated to educating its members about project management. PMA is considering implementing a new web site with the following features: manage and increase memberships; facilitate social networking; distribute marketing emails to members; and display useful research materials.
Unlike the Kitchen and Picnic cases, the PMA case is used throughout the book to illustrate the topic under discussion. By using the same case throughout, details do not have to be repeated.
The SAMPL Agile Project
This is covered in Part V, where we follow the development of the Student AcademicMobile Planning App (SAMPL), which is accomplished as an agile development using sprints.
Part IV: Agile ProjectManagement
- Chapter 20, Agile, covers the terminology, fundamental principles, and processes of agile development focusing on the project management aspects rather than software development.
- Chapter 21 describes agile Sprints.
- Chapter 22 is devoted to the development of the SAMPL app, which follows an agile scrum process with sprints.
Part V: Microsoft Project® Tutorial
The graduation picnic project is implemented in Project. Assuming no previous knowledge ofMicrosoft Project, the tutorial gradually explains how to create the schedule and analyze the cost. Annotated screens explain the commands, data entry, and output reports.