Professional Skills: Project Management

Great managers are experts at getting bottom-line results, but often do not understand their role in the success or failure of their organization's projects. They balk at the arcane terminology and are unaware of how to use valuable project management techniques and tools-a knowledge gap that can be a serious career barrier! Functional managers with even basic project management (PM) knowledge are the best people for keeping projects business-focused. This new book demystifies the jargon and processes, encouraging managers to jump into the PM arena and arming them with strategies for increasing the business value created by their company's projects.

Projects fail to meet goals for many reasons: poor time and budget performance, failure to deal with complexity, uncontrolled changes in scope... Even the most experienced project managers can be caught off guard in the presence of these forces. Performance-Based Project Management shows readers how they can increase the probability of project success, detailing a straight forward plan for avoiding surprises, forecasting performance, identifying risk, and taking corrective action to keep a project a success.

Whatever your project - no matter how big or small - PRINCE2 For Dummies, 2009 Edition is the perfect guide to using this project management method to help ensure its success. Fully updated with the 2009 practice guidelines, this book will take you through every step of a project - from planning and establishing roles to closing and reviewing - offering practical and easy-to-understand advice on using PRINCE2. It also shows how to use the method when approaching the key concerns of project management, including setting up effective controls, managing project risk, managing quality and controlling change. PRINCE2 allows you to divide your project into manageable chunks, so you can make realistic plans and know when resources will be needed. PRINCE2 For Dummies, 2009 Edition provides you with a comprehensive guide to its systems, procedures and language so you can run efficient and successful projects.