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.

Decision analysis (DA) guides executives toward logical, consistent decisions under uncertainty. This book instructs readers in applying DA to feasibility analysis, project estimation, and project risk management.This is a wholly rewritten and expanded successor to the best-selling first and second editions.The entire investment lifecycle is covered, from conception, to the project plan, to the post-project review, and to a look-back analysis of the capital investment decision.DA applies to all manner of project management (PM) decisions for individuals, government, and non-profit organizations. The book uses a business investment perspective and assumes that maximizing value for the project owner is the objective.DA is a problem-solving process. There are four key features: 1) probabilities and probability distributions express best judgments about risks and uncertainties. 2) The organization has a decision policy expressed as a single metric (the objective function). 3) Probabilities and outcome values combine in the probability-weighting expected value calculation. 4) The organization as a policy to choose the best expected value alternative.This book aims to make decision making clear, simple, and logical. A clear decision policy can be elusive, and the author offers suggestions for making trade-offs among conflicting objectives. Converting the three pillars of project management (cost, schedule, and performance) into project value equivalents makes the trade-offs clear.This book is intended for serious PM students and practitioners. This is an essential concepts and how-to book. The scope is quantitative analysis, from project inception to post-project review. Project cost and schedule modeling, in modest detail, is essential to feasibility analysis and risk management. A general background in PM and corporate planning will be helpful. The methods are quantitative and straightforward. The reader should be comfortable with basic algebra and Microsoft(r) Excel(r).The book has eight pages of Suggested Reading annotated references (plus footnote additions), over 250 figures, approximately 600 Glossary definitions, and over 2400 Index entries. Online supplements include several whitepapers and other documents, example calculation spreadsheets, detailed color images of several important figures, four videos (including a critical chain simulation), and the Utility Elicitation Program (a web app, free for most users).Key topics include: Decision trees and Monte Carlo simulation for calculating outcome distributions and expected values * Probability concepts, including Bayes' rule for value of information analysis * Popular probability distribution types and when they apply * Eliciting expert judgments, with attention to potential cognitive and motivational biases * Recognizing the three pillars project in terms of project value * A 10-step decision analysis process * Project modeling concepts and techniques, with special attention to risk drivers and other correlations * Deterministic and stochastic sensitivity analysis * Decision policy that distinguishes objectives, time value, and risk attitude * @RISK(r) with Microsoft(r) Project for project simulations under uncertainty * Logical, consistent risk policy expressed as a utility function * Merge bias when task chains converge at a merge point * Tail estimate bias when estimating highly uncertain quantities * Optimizer's curse, a portfolio forecasting bias * Winner's curse, a bias characteristic of auctions * Using the best of critical chain and Monte Carlo simulation * Stochastic variance between a deterministic and a stochastic model * Modeling risk and uncertainty using probabilities, probability distributions, explicit formula relationships, correlation coefficients, risk drivers, conditional branching, and rework cycles.

Project management is a critical skill across a broad range of disciplines. Yet most people, regardless of educational background, have never received training in how to plan, manage, and execute projects. Project Management Essentials, Second Edition, is the go-to book for tried and true project management skills combined with the most current ideas from Agile in a concise, up-to-date, user-friendly format. It follows the project life cycle and provides several ready-to-use templates. Readers can use this book to plan and manage a project from start to finish or as a reference for help with one particular component of project management. Alongside each template is a brief description of what each template is and why it is useful, with an example to illustrate it.

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!

Tens of thousands of readers rely on James Lewis's classic Project Planning, Scheduling & Control for hands-on help in bringing projects in on time and on budget. Now, this higher-level guide takes project managers beyond basic skills. Using the flexible and down-to-earth approach for which Lewis is famed, it covers advanced topics such as identifying customer requirements using QFD (quality function deployment); allocating resources for improved scheduling applying systems thinking; and using decision-support tools in project management.

Not long ago project management was perceived as a highly technical endeavor with applications to highly specialized industries. Times have changed-and so have the collective perceptions about project management. Today project management skills are applied throughout a wide range of businesses and industries. Successful project managers are defined now not only by their skill in dealing with issues of planning, scheduling, and budgeting, but also by their ability to manage people. Clifford Gray and Erik Larson, both of Oregon State University, are aware of this evolution and have used the Third Edition of Project Management: The Managerial Process to address these shifts. This highly-qualified author team provides readers with a complete picture of project management. Technical issues are addressed thoroughly, but unlike similar books on this subject, Project Management: The Managerial Process presents them in context, demonstrating how project management techniques can be applied in a wide variety of businesses, while emphasizing the importance of accounting for the human element in the successful management of all types of projects. Case studies and "Snapshot from Practice" boxes are among the ways readers learn throughout this text. A pedagogically rich CD-ROM, and a second CD-ROM containing a trial version of Microsoft Project, are also available with all new copies of this text. Once again, the authors have succeeded in providing readers with a complete picture of project management: not only "what to do" and "how to do it," but also why it is done. Book jacket.

Before You Put the First Shovel in the Ground—This Book Could Be the Difference Between a Successful Mining Operation and a Money Pit Opening a successful new mine is a vastly complex undertaking, entailing several years and millions to billions of dollars. In today’s world, when environmental and labor policies, regulatory compliance, and the impact of the community must be factored in, you cannot afford to make a mistake. The Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration has created this road map for you. Written by two hands-on, in-the-trenches mining project managers with decades of experience bringing some of the world’s most successful, profitable mines into operation on time, within budget, and ethically, Project Management for Mining gives you step-by-step instructions in every process you are likely to encounter. It is in use as course material in universities in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Ghana, Iran, Kazakhstan, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. In addition, more than 100 different mining companies have sent employees to attend seminars conducted by authors Robin Hickson and Terry Owen, sessions all based around the material within this book. In the years following the first edition, the authors gratefully received a bevy of excellent suggestions from some 2,000 readers in over 50 countries. This helpful reader feedback, coupled with written evaluations from the more than 400 seminar attendees, has been an unparalleled source of improvement for this new book. This second edition is a significant accomplishment that includes 5 new chapters, substantial updates to the original 34 chapters, and 56 new or updated figures, flowcharts, and checklists that every project manager can use.

The Standard for Portfolio Management – Fourth Edition has been updated to best reflect the current state of portfolio management. It describe the principles that drive accepted good portfolio management practices in today's organizations. It also expands the description of portfolio management to reflect its relation to organizational project management and the organization.

Annotation Every designer has had to justify designs to non-designers, yet most lack the ability to explain themselves in a way that is compelling and fosters agreement. The ability to effectively articulate design decisions is critical to the success of a project, because the most articulate person often wins. This practical book provides principles, tactics and actionable methods for talking about designs with executives, managers, developers, marketers and other stakeholders who have influence over the project with the goal of winning them over and creating the best user experience.