Brad M. Jackson – författare

Project Management: Theory and Practice, Third Edition gives students a broad and real flavor of project management. Bringing project management to life, it avoids being too sterilely academic and too narrowly focused on a particular industry view. It takes a model-based approach towards project management commonly used in all industries. The textbook aligns with the latest version of the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) Guide, which is considered to be the de facto standard for project management. However, it avoids that standard’s verbiage and presents students with readable and understandable explanations. Core chapters align with the Project Management Institute’s model as well as explain how this model fits real-world projects. The textbook can be used as companion to the standard technical model and help those studying for various project management certifications. The textbook takes an in-depth look at the following areas important to the standard model: Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) Earned Value Management (EVM) Enterprise project management Portfolio management (PPM) Professional responsibility and ethics Agile life cycleThe text begins with a background section (Chapters 1–9) containing material outside of the standard model structure but necessary to prepare students for the 10 standard model knowledge areas covered in the chapters that follow. The text is rounded out by eight concluding chapters that explain advanced planning approaches models and projects’ external environments. Recognizing that project management is an evolving field, the textbook includes section written by industry experts who share their insight and expertise on cutting-edge topics. It prepares students for upcoming trends and changes in project management while providing an overview of the project management environment today. In addition to guiding students through current models and standards, Project Management: Theory and Practice, Third Edition prepares students for the future by stimulating their thinking beyond the accepted pragmatic view.

Thousands of project management–related books have been written. Why is Optimizing Project Work, Management, and Delivery different?This book represents the authors’ experiences gained from looking at the problem of project management for 50 years and wondering why projects cannot be more successful. Experience from various management models and techniques has helped but still does not fit reality or provide accurate forecasts. Industry surveys have compiled the root causes of project failure, and yet they persist. Is there no answer to this problem?As the book explains, the management solution is not in the models or the theory but is found in how they are mapped against the actual target project characteristics. This is the book’s unique strength. There are major coverage gaps in current project management models that also need to be recognized. All of the existing models are correct in some ways, and yet each is also wrong.The book starts by reviewing popular models and related topics that help construct the building blocks of an integrated model structure, which is at the core of this book. The integrated model described here is meant to be a decision-oriented view related to the project life cycle rather than a cookbook of success steps. Project management is too complex for a cookbook approach. This text helps managers find that right path.

Thousands of project management–related books have been written. Why is Optimizing Project Work, Management, and Delivery different?This book represents the authors’ experiences gained from looking at the problem of project management for 50 years and wondering why projects cannot be more successful. Experience from various management models and techniques has helped but still does not fit reality or provide accurate forecasts. Industry surveys have compiled the root causes of project failure, and yet they persist. Is there no answer to this problem?As the book explains, the management solution is not in the models or the theory but is found in how they are mapped against the actual target project characteristics. This is the book’s unique strength. There are major coverage gaps in current project management models that also need to be recognized. All of the existing models are correct in some ways, and yet each is also wrong.The book starts by reviewing popular models and related topics that help construct the building blocks of an integrated model structure, which is at the core of this book. The integrated model described here is meant to be a decision-oriented view related to the project life cycle rather than a cookbook of success steps. Project management is too complex for a cookbook approach. This text helps managers find that right path.

With ever-increasing competitive pressures, the need to reduce the time-to-value (or time-to-bail) of a “big idea” – a new product, an organizational transformation, a healthcare initiative, or a humanitarian development project – has never been greater. Unfortunately, the current digital infrastructure for vision delivery teams is woefully inadequate. Improvement opportunities lie in replacing it with one that is designed to support teams working together in a unifying manner. The focus of this book is describing the Digital Office Complex and the accompanying digital teaming and governing capabilities needed to reengineer vision delivery.Digital Office Complex: Reengineering Vision Delivery by Transforming Teaming offers an in-depth understanding of the elements of “digital teaming and governing” and how they can be applied to vision delivery to accelerate and improve performance. The book identifies and describes the requirements for an integrated infrastructure to support: team goal management, teamwork coordination, team decision support, team “work product” support, and approval workflow capabilities in addition to “team-to-team” navigation, “team-to-team” coordination, and “team-to-team” data exchange. The aim for this book is to describe and illustrate “digital teaming and governing” practices using the Digital Office Complex to improve performance. The book goes on to a team-centric delivery method for initiatives and artificial intelligence capabilities to augment teamwork. The book concludes with critical success factors for implementation and an approach for reengineering vision delivery.Written for people who desire to implement the next level of high-performance teaming to improve organizational performance, this book is an ideal read for management consultants, executives, strategy managers, project managers, HR managers, team leaders, team members, and students in business and engineering programs.

With ever-increasing competitive pressures, the need to reduce the time-to-value (or time-to-bail) of a “big idea” – a new product, an organizational transformation, a healthcare initiative, or a humanitarian development project – has never been greater. Unfortunately, the current digital infrastructure for vision delivery teams is woefully inadequate. Improvement opportunities lie in replacing it with one that is designed to support teams working together in a unifying manner. The focus of this book is describing the Digital Office Complex and the accompanying digital teaming and governing capabilities needed to reengineer vision delivery.Digital Office Complex: Reengineering Vision Delivery by Transforming Teaming offers an in-depth understanding of the elements of “digital teaming and governing” and how they can be applied to vision delivery to accelerate and improve performance. The book identifies and describes the requirements for an integrated infrastructure to support: team goal management, teamwork coordination, team decision support, team “work product” support, and approval workflow capabilities in addition to “team-to-team” navigation, “team-to-team” coordination, and “team-to-team” data exchange. The aim for this book is to describe and illustrate “digital teaming and governing” practices using the Digital Office Complex to improve performance. The book goes on to a team-centric delivery method for initiatives and artificial intelligence capabilities to augment teamwork. The book concludes with critical success factors for implementation and an approach for reengineering vision delivery.Written for people who desire to implement the next level of high-performance teaming to improve organizational performance, this book is an ideal read for management consultants, executives, strategy managers, project managers, HR managers, team leaders, team members, and students in business and engineering programs.

Project management is truly an art‑seeking science with complex processes balancing project output objectives against restraints of time, budget, human resources, quality, and customer satisfaction. Achieving this balance requires skill, experience, and a host of supporting tools and techniques. Project Management Theory and Practice, Fourth Edition, explores the project delivery process through an examination of multiple strategies. Its core material reflects the traditional model approach to the life cycle; however, it also highlights common usage errors and reality gaps. This book describes the full life cycle of common processes and tools every project manager needs to understand.This fourth edition features a contemporary perspective on project management, explores future needs, and discusses new directions in the project management model. This textbook introduces new processes and aims to address known gaps in current methodologies and outlines logical future directions. Given the current success rates for projects, a serious project manager must be prepared to make significant changes to the existing toolset and related processes. This book aims to raise awareness of these needs and encourages examination of the shortcomings in current models.This textbook emphasizes that, beyond the theoretical aspects of project planning and control, effective management is fundamentally a human activity. While processes and tools serve as supports for human decision‑making, they primarily help define the project’s objectives and later aid decision‑makers in determining the execution plan. This textbook emphasizes how to transform a project vision into a format that is suitable for execution. It also emphasizes a life cycle perspective along with the essential mechanics needed to develop the projects. The book’s case study examples have been classroom evaluated with students and professionals to ensure they are effective and relevant.