This new edition gives project managers practical methods and tools to make the right decisions while juggling multiple objectives, risks and uncertainties, and stakeholders. Project management requires you to navigate a maze of multiple and complex decisions that are an everyday part of the job. To be effective, you must know how to make rational choices with your projects, what processes can help to improve these choices, and what tools are available to help you with decision-making. An entertaining and easy-to-read guide to a structured project decision-making process, Project Decisions will help you identify risks and perform basic quantitative and qualitative risk and decision analyses. Lev Virine and Michael Trumper use their understanding of basic human psychology to show you how to use event chain methodology, establish creative business environments, and estimate project time and costs. Each phase of the process is described in detail, including a review of both its psychological aspects and quantitative methods.

Project management is the art of making the right decisions. To be effective as a project manager, you must know how to make rational choices in project management, what processes can help you to improve these choices, and what tools are available to help you through the decision-making process. Project Decisions: The Art and Science is an entertaining and easy-to-read guide to a structured project decision analysis process. This valuable text presents the basics of cognitive psychology and quantitative analysis methods to help project managers make better decisions. Examples that portray different projects, real-life stories, and popular culture will help readers acquire the essential knowledge and skills required for effective project decision-making. Readers will be able to: •Understand psychological pitfalls related to project management •Establish a creative business environment in their organization •Identify project risks and uncertainties •Develop estimates of project time and cost based on an understanding of human psychology •Perform basic quantitative and qualitative risk and decision analysis •Use event chain methodology in managing projects •Communicate the results of decision analysis to decision-makers •Review project decisions and perform adaptive project management •Establish a project decision analysis process in their organization PLUS — Test your own judgment through a quiz that examines your intuition!

Effective decisions are crucial to the success of any software project, but to make better decisions you need a better decision-making process. In Evaluating Project Decisions, leading project management experts introduce an innovative decision model that helps you tailor your decision-making process to systematically evaluate all of your decisions and avoid the bad choices that lead to project failure. Using a real-world, case study approach, the authors show how to evaluate software project problems and situations more effectively, thoughtfully assess your alternatives, and improve the decisions you make. Drawing on their own extensive research and experience, the authors bridge software engineering theory and practice, offering guidance that is both well-grounded and actionable. They present dozens of detailed examples from both successful and unsuccessful projects, illustrating what to do and what not to do. Evaluating Project Decisions will help you to analyze your options and ultimately make better decisions at every stage in your project, including: Requirements–Elicitation, description, verification, validation, negotiation, contracting, and management over the software life cycle Estimates–Conceptual solution design, decomposition, resource and overhead allocation, estimate construction, and change management Planning–Defining objectives, policies, and scope; planning tasks, milestones, schedules, budgets, staff and other resources; and managing projects against plans Product–Proper product definition, development process management, QA, configuration management, delivery, installation, training, and field service Process–Defining, selecting, understanding, teaching, and measuring processes; evaluating process performance; and process improvement or optimization In addition, you will see how to evaluate decisions related to risk, people, stakeholder expectations, and global development. Simply put, you’ll use what you learn here on every project, in any industry, whatever your goals, and for projects of any duration, size, or type.

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

Projects are constantly beset by problems, often caused by seemingly small mistakes which collectively lead to larger issues. Why do project managers and teams appear to repeat the same mistakes? Can they make better choices without introducing complex decision analysis processes? How can they make better estimates? Project management is the art and science of human interactions. ProjectThink identifies and explains the paths of those intentional and unintentional actions that lead to trouble. It provides advice and guidance in analysing information and risk and explains how ’choice-engineering’ can facilitate decision-making and encourage everyone involved in a project to follow the right procedures and work collaboratively.

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

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

A must-read for any project management professional or student. Projects are the life blood of any organization. Revised to reflect the latest changes to A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(R)) and the Project Management Professional Exam(R), the fourth edition of The AMA Handbook of Project Management provides readers with a clear overview of a complex discipline. Covering everything from individual projects to programs and strategic alignment, it addresses: Project initiation and planning Communication and interpersonal skills Scheduling, budgeting and meeting business objectives Managing political and resource issues Implementing a PMO Measuring value and competencies. The book compiles essays and advice from the field's top professionals and features new chapters on stakeholder management, agile project management, program management, project governance, knowledge management, and more. Updated with fresh examples, case studies and solutions to specific project management dilemmas, it remains an essential reference to the critical concepts and theories all project managers must master.

This book updates the use of computer-based techniques, promoting their general awareness throughout the business management, design, manufacture and operation of railways and other advanced passenger, freight and transit systems. Including papers from the Tenth International Conference on Computer System Design and Operation in the Railway and Other Transit Systems, the book will be of interest to railway management, consultants, railway engineers (including signal and control engineers), designers of advanced train control systems and computer specialists. Themes of interest include: Planning; Human Factors; Computer Techniques, Management and languages; Decision Support Systems; Systems Engineering; Electromagnetic Compatibility and Lightning; Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety (RAMS); Freight; Advanced Train Control; Train Location; CCTV/Communications; Operations Quality; Timetables; Traffic Control; Global Navigation using Satellite Systems; Online Scheduling and Dispatching; Dynamics and Wheel/Rail Interface; Power Supply; Traction and Maglev; Obstacle Detection and Collision Analysis; Railway Security.