Seeing a project through to completion involves not just technical knowledge--of tools like Work Breakdown Schedule, Gantt Charts, and Network Analysis--but also human skills, such as the ability to communicate, negotiate, listen, and lead. After all, it's people who do most of the work on projects, and "people problems" can derail even the most meticulously planned project. Practical and user-friendly, A Survival Guide for Project Managers covers both the technical side and the human side. Now in an affordable paperback edition, the book has been revised to reflect the latest version of the PMBOK(r) Guide, and includes new material on topics including Project Risk and the Project Management Office. The book shows readers how to: * develop the interpersonal and business skills required of a project manager * resolve conflicts and improve negotiation capabilities * understand and apply the technical tools of project management * establish project teams, and more Packed with forms and other tools, this is the ultimate resource for project managers

With this practical, hands-on guide, project managers will have all the skills they need to move a project through its complete life cycle. Topics include how to develop the necessary interpersonal, behavioural and business skills, how to resolve conflicts and improve negotiation capabilities, and how to understand and apply the technical tools of project management.

Troubleshooting tips and techniques for keeping projects and management careers on track Bestselling author James P. Lewis has become today's number one authority on the rules of project management in virtually any industry or environment. Now, in The Project Manager's Pocket Survival Guide, Dr. Lewis focuses on areas that are often the largest stumbling blocks to project managers both new and experienced, and provides the practical skills and hidden keys necessary for completing projects on time and within budget. Providing numerous case studies of project management successes and failures in the field, this no-nonsense book explains how to maintain project consistency and success in today's environment of fast change and even faster innovation. Managers will obtain new tools and insights for: Understanding the politics of projects Running a successful, results-driven meeting Managing effectively in the project environment

How to be sure your first important project isnþt your last.

In Project Management: The Black Experience, Eric presents his direct and honest experience as an African-American Project Manager in a white-dominated corporate world. He shares his 14+ years of experience and insights in the IT Project Management space of surviving as a black Project Manager. This journey begins with a small town kid from Bluefield, West Virginia seeking to achieve his dreams but faced with the reality of his "good enough, isn't good enough" as his parents taught him at an early age.Project Management: The Black Experience serves as the survival guide for experienced and aspiring black Project Managers. Eric shares the tactical principles to immediate add to your daily working experience to not only survive but excel as a black Project Manager. These life-learned principles include:*You must be two (sometimes 10) times better than you fellow white colleagues*Your good enough isn't enough as a black Project Manager*Break the cycle by helping other minority Project Managers*Learn your voice and be you (professionally)*How to adapt, survive, and excel in a white dominated corporate cultureBy combining his personal experiences and knowledge from his personal mentors, Eric hopes Project Management: The Black experience will shed more light on the diversity gap in Project Management and empower us all (blacks and whites) to make a difference.

From the beginning. The Project Manager's Survival Guide was intended as a list of ideas and thoughts--reminders about the things that are easy to forget but which always seem to come back and bite even the most experienced project manager. Many of these reminders come from executives, line managers, and project managers interviewed about their real-world experiences in project management. At the conclusion of each interview, they were asked to list the primary ways that projects, and project managers, get in trouble. Several chapters conclude with excerpts from these interviews. This new second edition of The Project Manager's Survival Guide is filled with checklists, quick assessment tools, and reminders that will prove valuable to even the most experienced project manager. Many of the chapters include a must read section, How To Get in Trouble, which identifies pitfalls common to project management. The book also includes self-evaluation exercises designed to help you think about your own effectiveness. Messages From the Brass lists top-management expectations and provides insights into project management from the perspective of the project manager's boss. New in this updated edition are a critical chapter on some of the unique aspects of dealing with international projects plus a revised team leader assessment instrument. Contents: Getting Started, The Project Manager's Role, Vision, Defining Goals and Objectives, Ownership, Planning, Organizing and Staffing, Team-Building, Running the Project, Reporting and Closedown, International Projects, A Self Assessment of Team-Oriented Leadership, The Project Manager's Checklist, Messages from the Brass

Escape “Zombie Scrum” and Get Real Value from Agile! “Professional Scrum and Zombie Scrum are mortal enemies in eternal combat. If you relax your guard, Zombie Scrum comes back. This guide helps you stay on your guard, providing very practical tips for identifying when you have become a Zombie and how to stop this from happening. A must-have for any Zombie Scrum hunter.” --Dave West, CEO, Scrum.org “Barry, Christiaan, and Johannes have done a magnificent job of accumulating successful experiences and sharing their inspiring stories in this very practical book. They don't shy away from telling it like it is, which is why their proposals are always as useful as they are grounded in reality.” --Henri Lipmanowicz, cofounder, Liberating Structures Millions of professionals use Scrum. It is the #1 approach to agile software development in the world. Even so, by some estimates, over 70% of Scrum adoptions fall flat. Developers find themselves using “Zombie Scrum” processes that look like Scrum, but are slow, lifeless, and joyless. Scrum is just not working for them. Zombie Scrum Survival Guide reveals why Scrum runs aground and shows how to supercharge your Scrum outcomes, while having a lot more fun along the way. Humorous, visual, and extremely relatable, it offers practical approaches, exercises, and tools for escaping Zombie Scrum. Even if you are surrounded by skeptics, this book will be the antidote to help you build more of what users need, ship faster, improve more continuously, interact more successfully in any team, and feel a whole lot better about what you are doing. Suddenly, one day soon, you will remember: that is why we adopted Scrum in the first place! Learn how Zombie Scrum infects you, why it spreads, and how to inoculate yourself Get closer to your stakeholders, and wake up to their understanding of value Discover why Zombie teams can't learn, and what to do about it Clear away the specific obstacles to real continuous improvement Make self-managed teams real so people can behave like humans, not Zombies Zombie Scrum Survival Guide is for Scrum Masters, Scrum practitioners, Agile coaches and leaders, and everyone who wants to transform the promises of Scrum into reality. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Did you know that more than 60 percent of executives say they struggle making kill/go decisions on their projects? Corporations are counting on project managers more than ever to help them navigate these tough decisions. Do you have the right tools, team, skills, and data necessary to help your executives? The environment that project managers operate in has turned global, with faster "to-market" turnarounds, higher sensitivities to regulatory compliance, and zero tolerance for low quality. Rapid advancements in technology and offshore resourcing make projects and their path to success more complex and fraught with risk. If you feel unprepared, then you need S.T.O.P. - The Project Management Survival Plan, a new book from The Actuation Press. S.T.O.P. provides the reader with proven project management principles complemented with tools, tips, techniques, and stories to ensure your success in project delivery. The S.T.O.P. management process is designed around the survival principles used by many of our armed forces divisions. Its foundation is based on the understanding that project management is more than just managing scope, schedule, and cost. Every project manager is familiar with the iron triangle. But it's time that a new triangle emerges. A triangle based on managing value, team performance, and communication. Steven has taken those principles and constructed a framework for project management planning, execution, monitoring, and control. The framework is designed to ensure you've done everything you need, from a project management perspective, to ensure you and your team succeeds and guarantee you're not the reason for stopping the project. What's inside the book: New equations providing focus and the ability to quantify value, team performance, and communication Tips and techniques to increase the value of your project schedule 5 steps to Risk Management Guidance and instruction on how to evaluate your project and stop it if necessary Heat map techniques for project portfolio management And much more... About the Author Steven Starke has more than 15 years of experience in Project/Program Management, specializing in solving business problems with technical solutions by delivering multi-million dollar projects and programs on time and within budget while maximizing project value. He's worked with organizations of all sizes - from small startups to mid-size corporations and multi-billion dollar corporations. Steve has held leadership positions in Product Management, Systems Engineering, Product R&D, and Global IT and has run full-fledged PMOs. His industry experience ranges from consumer products and medical devices to global IT Infrastructure, healthcare analytics, and software development. Steve presents frequently on team building, cross-functional integration, and PMO survival.

The turnover rate for companies in the construction industry is high. This book identifies the ten key elements of contractor failure and shows how to avoid them. Each element of failure is defined, illustrated by real examples, and ways are discussed to avoid or minimize the risks involved. The final chapter shows how to bring all these elements together to develop a positive and workable management strategy. This survival guide should prove invaluable to the 1.4 million individual construction-industry businesses in this country.

“This book is a contemporary classic—a shrewd and spirited guide to protecting ourselves from the jerks, bullies, tyrants, and trolls who seek to demean. We desperately need this antidote to the a-holes in our midst.”—Daniel H. Pink, best-selling author of To Sell Is Human and Drive How to avoid, outwit, and disarm assholes, from the author of the classic The No Asshole Rule As entertaining as it is useful, The Asshole Survival Guide delivers a cogent and methodical game plan for anybody who feels plagued by assholes. Sutton starts with diagnosis—what kind of asshole problem, exactly, are you dealing with? From there, he provides field-tested, evidence-based, and often surprising strategies for dealing with assholes—avoiding them, outwitting them, disarming them, sending them packing, and developing protective psychological armor. Sutton even teaches readers how to look inward to stifle their own inner jackass. Ultimately, this survival guide is about developing an outlook and personal plan that will help you preserve the sanity in your work life, and rescue all those perfectly good days from being ruined by some jerk. “Thought-provoking and often hilarious . . . An indispensable resource.”—Gretchen Rubin, best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before “At last . . . clear steps for rejecting, deflecting, and deflating the jerks who blight our lives . . . Useful, evidence-based, and fun to read.”—Robert Cialdini, best-selling author of Influence and Pre-Suasion