Making It Happen E-Book

Mackenzie Kyle

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 343

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Making It Happen: A Non-Technical Guide to ProjectManagement provides a fresh and clear approach to projectmanagement. Written in the form of a novel, it covers the basics ofproject management in a friendly, interesting, and memorable way. Will Campbell, a reasonably competent middle manager, issuddenly thrust into managing a high-profile project that couldmake or break his career. With no project management experience,and armed only with the guidance of his eccentric menror, Martha,Will learns the hard way. As Will navigates the rough seas ofcompany politics, treacherous competition, and a project swirlingout of control, he narrowly evades many pitfalls, and masters someindispensable project management tools along the way. Against the backdrop of this personal drama, a simple, rationalapproach to project management unfolds. Will's ability to graspthese principles is the key to his survival, and could be the keyto yours. Making It Happen enables the reader to transformrisky, real-life situations into success. * Provides a simple, non-technical approach, useful to anybusiness person involved in teams or managing projects * Offers practical tools and principles that will make anyproject a success: from office moves to product roll-outs, systemsimplementations to training program delivery, and everything inbetween * Boxes, definitions, and charts highlight key points andpractical project management tips.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Preface

Part One - Genesis

Chapter 1 - Sink or Swim

The Company

The New Product

The Project Manager

Chapter 2 - Grasping the Scope

The First Cost Estimate

Gathering Courage

What is the Problem?

Chapter 3 - What is a Project?

Discovering Perspective

Chapter 4 - The Team Meets

Trying To Set Goals

A Variety of Answers

Chapter 5 - Sifting Through the Mess

Chapter 6 - Asking the Right Questions

Chapter 7 - Writing the Objective Statement

Chapter 8 - The Project Manager Faces the Board

The Board Has Questions

The Project Has a Sponsor

Setting the Schedule

Part Two - The Project Team

Chapter 9 - The Team’s Roles

The Sponsor

The Feasibility Analyst

The Project Manager

The Designer, Implementer, User’s Representative, and Project Administrator

A Contest of Convictions

Assigning the Roles

Chapter 10 - Company Politics

Keeping the Sponsor Happy

Part Three - The Design Phase

Chapter 11 - What is Design, and How Long Does it Take?

Chapter 12 - Organizing the Design Process

Design Steps and the Schedule

When is the Design Complete?

Keeping the Sponsor Informed

Chapter 13 - The User’s Needs

The Revised Objective Statement

Chapter 14 - Charts, Costs, and Other Puzzles

Coping with Delays

Making Adjustments

Chapter 15 - More Problems with Schedules

Completing the Design

Part Four - Execution Planning

Chapter 16 - Tasks

A Simple Set of Tasks

Grasping the Logic

Chapter 17 - A Dependency Chart

Changing Perspective

A Float

The Critical Path

When is a Task a Task?

As Complicated as it Needs to Be

Chapter 18 - Finding and Fixing Mistakes

Delivering What’s Wanted

Rearranging the Information

Signing Off the Execution Plan

Part Five - Execution

Chapter 19 - Altering Plans

Scope, Schedule, Cost, and Quality

Crashing

Chapter 20 - On a Crash Course

The New Schedule, the New Budget

A Contractor with An Opinion

Who Gets Rewarded?

Chapter 21 - A New Assignment

Doing this One Right

The Launch

Part Six - The Review Process

Chapter 22 - Assessing Assignments

Another Assignment?

The Team Wraps Up

Part Seven - The Project Manager’s Survival Manual

Chapter 23 - Recording the Fundamentals

This is a Manual?

The Survival Manual for Project Managers

Part Eight - New Frameworks

Chapter 24 - Checking Assumptions

Defining Quality

Other Techniques

Epilogue

Copyright © 1998 by Mackenzie Kyle

All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights herein may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Cancopy, 6 Adelaide Street East, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 1H6.

Care has been taken to trace ownership of copyright material contained in this text. The publisher’s will gladly receive any information that will enable them to rectify any reference or credit line in subsequent editions.

John Wiley & Sons Canada Limited 6045 Freemont Blvd. Mississauga, Ontario L5R 4J3

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Kyle, Mackenzie, 1966-

Making it happen : a non-technical guide to project management

eISBN : 978-0-470-73993-8

1. Industrial project management. I. Title.

HD69.P75K.4’04 C98-931280-1

Production Credits Cover & text design: JAQ, RGD Printer: Tri-Graphic Printing

Preface

This book has two things to offer you as a reader.

The first is a unique and superior approach to the discipline of project management. Much is known about projects (and vastly more is written), but not much is widely understood. The ideas presented here were refined over many years by individuals who have spent their careers in the field, making the concepts of the management sciences work. This useful approach was not developed without cost and frustration, and there is a great deal contained here that you will find nowhere else.

The second is the manner in which the ideas are conveyed. Learning should always be an adventure, although sometimes it is not. If you’ve ever stumbled through a dry textbook, struggling to make important information stick in your brain, you’ll appreciate the alternative approach taken by this book. Without the excitement generated by discovery, it is very hard to retain, let alone implement, new ideas.

Making learning interesting has been one of the greatest challenges of my job. My colleagues and I have developed a number of techniques for doing this, and in the course of our work, experienced a great deal of success in improving how companies operate. In early 1993, I decided to take the approach that became the following story. This is not another attempt to make a simple subject complex, nor to make a complex subject seem simple. It is a demonstration of how simple it really is.

If you choose this book to assist you in your learning adventure, you will follow the “real life” journey of discovery of a person not unlike yourself, and see the application of new and powerful ideas to the discipline of making things happen.

Mackenzie Kyle

MNP

Calgary, Alberta

September 2008

Part One

Genesis

1

Sink or Swim

“So you see, we’ll need a work breakdown structure almost immediately,” he said.

“I see,” I said. I didn’t.

“Ralph is also asking for earned value cost analysis, and he wants you to keep the scope flexible, understand?” he asked me.

“I understand,” I said. I didn’t.

“And he wants self-empowered work teams running the show on this one,” he continued.

“Got it,” I said, pretending to take notes. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“And the whole thing has to be part of our new Total Quality Management initiative,” he said.

I groaned. This was the last straw. Now was the time to get off this boat. “I’m not sure you have the right person for the job, Stu.”

I could tell by the way he looked at me that this was not what he wanted to hear. I prepared myself for his response, praying my lack of enthusiasm would get me bounced off the project team.

I didn’t hold out much hope. Stu Barnes is the vice-president of Operations at Hyler Recreation Systems Inc., and my boss. Me, I’m Will Campbell, and I’m in charge of Hyler’s Information Systems, or IS, group. Stu and I had worked together for almost three years by the time we had this conversation, and we knew each other pretty well. Although Stu looked and talked like a Marine Drill Sergeant (which is exactly what he used to be), he is the best boss I have ever had. While this was a good thing most of the time, it also meant that Stu was used to me whining.

“Look, Will,” he started in, “you know how I feel about all this stuff, but Ralph is the boss, and we all know that Ralph has his sights set on much bigger things than Hyler. If that means riding the crest of whatever wave comes rolling in from head office, that is exactly what he’ll do. And that means that’s exactly what we’ll do.”