Routledge Frontiers in Project Management – serie

People play a vital part in the success of projects, initiatives and organisations, yet traditional project management sources offer limited guidance and insights that extend beyond technical roles and prescriptions. Leading the Project Revolution delves into the dynamics of people, teams and organisations exploring their impact on leadership, strategy, success and achievement. The book offers a progressive agenda for improving project practice, enabling the dialogue to advance from the typical coverage of static toolsets towards an understanding of flexible mindsets. Flexibility, agility and resilience are addressed as the social, cultural and complexity dimensions of leadership, strategy, organisations and project execution are examined and practical insights are synthesised into pragmatic models and frameworks.The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on teams, leadership, corporate culture, human behaviour, organisational dynamics, psychology, complexity, strategy, execution, innovation, social media and decision sourcing.

Sometimes unanticipated threats or opportunities create a situation in which work is required unexpectedly. On these occasions, such urgent and unexpected work demands an instant start, in contrast to the often lengthy processes of investigation, evaluation, development, selection and planning normal in businesses and public services before the start of a project. Managing the Urgent and Unexpected explores what is different managerially if work is unexpected, its implementation is urgent and an immediate start it is required. The authors draw on twelve cases ranging from the launch of the Freeview television system in the United Kingdom to the sifting and removal of the New York World Trade Center pile of debris following the 9/11 terrorist attack. They summarise how the response to each of these events was managed, demonstrate that opportunities may sometimes be created in the face of adversity and suggest how normal organizations can prepare to manage abnormal demands. Urgent and unexpected projects have to be rare in business or government to be economically and socially tolerable. And yet organizations can and should be prepared for the unexpected. The lessons offered here will help private and public organizations plan how to authorize and support future urgent work to take advantage of immediate new business opportunities or to protect or restore systems and services.

People play a vital part in the success of projects, initiatives and organisations, yet traditional project management sources offer limited guidance and insights that extend beyond technical roles and prescriptions. Leading the Project Revolution delves into the dynamics of people, teams and organisations exploring their impact on leadership, strategy, success and achievement. The book offers a progressive agenda for improving project practice, enabling the dialogue to advance from the typical coverage of static toolsets towards an understanding of flexible mindsets. Flexibility, agility and resilience are addressed as the social, cultural and complexity dimensions of leadership, strategy, organisations and project execution are examined and practical insights are synthesised into pragmatic models and frameworks.The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on teams, leadership, corporate culture, human behaviour, organisational dynamics, psychology, complexity, strategy, execution, innovation, social media and decision sourcing.

Performance Coaching for Complex Projects recognises a world of complex undertakings for which the common transactional mindsets and methodologies will not produce the required results. The author advocates, instead, the novel concept that the project manager or team leader should coach the team as part of their role. Managing complexity requires greater use of influence and less reliance on coercion. Learning how to recognise the clues that reveal personal preferences, character traits and motivations will allow you to communicate in a way that recognises how different team members see the world. Team coaching helps the project team work together to think through their issues and then collectively implement the solution. Tony Llewellyn has structured his book in two parts. Part I looks at the challenges of complexity and makes the case for a shift from a transactional directive mindset to a transformational coaching philosophy. Part II introduces a model of project team coaching including the processes and methodologies that have been shown to be effective in improving team performance. Complex projects are invariably messy, not least because of the human factors associated with them. Performance Coaching for Complex Projects is essential reading for anyone responsible for managing in uncertain, challenging and changing environments.

Dealing effectively with uncertainty requires today's project manager to be familiar with a broad spectrum of strategies, encompassing both 'hard' and 'soft' methods. This theme of unified thinking (i.e. the need to selectively draw upon a wide range of strategies in any given situation) will differentiate the book from its contemporaries. By picking up where traditional risk management techniques begin to fail, it brings together leading-edge thinking from a variety of disciplines and shows how these techniques can be used to conquer uncertainty in projects. The ability to make good decisions when faced with uncertainty is the real challenge. It is a universal truth that a decision is only as good as the information it is based on. But good information is often hard to come by, and all projects are vulnerable to the unknown and the unknowable. Thus, uncertainty becomes the sworn enemy of the project manager. Wherever we try to analyse, quantify, plan and act, uncertainty lies in wait to surprise us with its ambiguity and unpredictability. It lurks in every stage of the project lifecycle: in the planning (how long will this really take?), the initiation (this isn't the situation I expected!), the execution (who could have foreseen that happening?), and even the completion of a project (where are the expected benefits?). But managing uncertainty is a lot more than just applying risk management techniques. It requires a deep appreciation of how uncertainty arises and, by recognising its different guises, the appropriate strategies can be formulated. If we can learn how to reduce uncertainty, we can make better management decisions and increase the chances of the project succeeding. This book addresses five key questions: ¢ Why is there uncertainty in projects? ¢ How do you spot the symptoms of uncertainty, preferably at an early stage? ¢ What can be done to avoid uncertainty? ¢ What strategies can be used to deal with project uncertainty? ¢ How can both the individual and the organisation learn to cope more effectively in the future? The reader is assumed to be a either a project management professional, or a senior manager looking for ways to improve project management strategy within their organisation. As such, a foundation in project management basics is assumed, although not essential. The book then builds on this by exposing new ideas and concepts, and shows how these can be harnessed to tackle uncertainty in its many guises.

Success in business depends on two broad management skills: 'doing the right thing' (choosing the right projects) and 'doing things right' (good project management). This book examines the challenges that managers face in assessing the likely risks and benefits that need to be taken into account when choosing projects. It then explores the strategic level risks that will need to be dealt with in managing those projects and suggests risk management strategies. In so doing, it makes a rare but important link between strategic level appraisal of project opportunities and project risk management. Many projects have similar characteristics that are common to a number of projects experienced by the same or other organizations. Elaine Harris shows how the use of a project typology can guide project risk management by identifying common risks shared by projects of each type. Her cutting edge research will help advanced project practitioners and researchers in projects and risk management to develop a risk management strategy that is better suited to the context of their projects and one that is flexible enough to develop and adapt once the project decision has been taken and the real-world of project management and delivery begins.

From the perspective of delivering successful projects, the value of a skilled project sponsor and project manager outweighs many other factors. Projects need leaders who can give them vision, identity, keep the stakeholders and the project team on board and make the difficult decisions that will enable the project to continue (or, if necessary, be terminated). These are human skills that don't necessarily feature large in the project management bodies of knowledge. Ralf Müller and Rodney Turner's Project-Oriented Leadership explains the key leadership models of managerial, intellectual and emotional leadership and shows how they can be applied within projects to lead processes, functions and people, and ensure an ethical and inclusive approach within projects and programs.

The general perception amongst most project and risk managers that we can somehow control the future is, says David Hancock, one of the most ill-conceived in risk management. The biggest problem is how to measure risks in terms of their potential likelihood, their possible consequences, their correlation and the public's perception of them. The situation is further complicated by identifying different categories of problem types; Tame problems (straight-forward simple linear causal relationships and can be solved by analytical methods), and 'messes' which have high levels of system complexity and have interrelated or interdependent problems needing to be considered holistically. However, when an overriding social theory or social ethic is not shared the project or risk manager also faces 'wickedness'. Wicked problems are characterised by high levels of behavioural complexity, but what confuses real decision-making is that behavioural and dynamic complexities co-exist and interact in what is known as wicked messes. Tame, Messy and Wicked Risk Leadership will help professionals understand the limitations of the present project and risk management techniques. It introduces the concepts of societal benefit and behavioural risk, and illustrates why project risk has followed a particular path, developing from the basis of engineering, science and mathematics. David Hancock argues for, and offers, complimentary models from the worlds of sociology, philosophy and politics to be added to the risk toolbox, and provides a framework to understand which particular type of problem (tame, messy, wicked or messy and wicked) may confront you and which tools will provide the greatest potential for successful outcomes. Finally he introduces the concept of 'risk leadership' to aid the professional in delivering projects in a world of uncertainty and ambiguity. Anyone who has experienced the pain and blame of projects faced with overruns of time or money, dissatisfied stakeholders or basic failure, will welcome this imaginative reframing of some aspects of risk management. This is a book that has implications for the risk management processes, culture, and outcomes, of large and complex projects of all kinds.

Large public projects represent major complex investment and whilst there has been much written about how to develop, manage and deliver such projects, practice still does not match up with expectations. In this book, researchers from the Norwegian Concept Research Programme explore the paradoxes between theory and practice in collaboration with experts in the field of project governance. This book delves into the reality of large public projects, to show how they can be managed effectively and efficiently, recognising the realities of their context. It offers a range of practical conclusions as to the paradoxes of the governance and management of public projects. The international spectrum of authors draw their examples from the UK, Norway, Canada, France, Australia and the Netherlands. Bridging the gap between research, theory and practice, this book will benefit academics and researchers in the field of project management and corporate governance as well as those in the practice of public project governance, civil servants and industry practitioners.

Large public projects represent major complex investment and whilst there has been much written about how to develop, manage and deliver such projects, practice still does not match up with expectations. In this book, researchers from the Norwegian Concept Research Programme explore the paradoxes between theory and practice in collaboration with experts in the field of project governance. This book delves into the reality of large public projects, to show how they can be managed effectively and efficiently, recognising the realities of their context. It offers a range of practical conclusions as to the paradoxes of the governance and management of public projects. The international spectrum of authors draw their examples from the UK, Norway, Canada, France, Australia and the Netherlands. Bridging the gap between research, theory and practice, this book will benefit academics and researchers in the field of project management and corporate governance as well as those in the practice of public project governance, civil servants and industry practitioners.

Sustainable project management is a new school of management thought and a growing trend yet there is a scarcity of research on the linkage between individual PM methodologies and sustainability in projects. This book fills a gap through the theoretical and empirical research on the implications of sustainability in project management and, in particular, agile project management.The book explores three main themes. Firstly, it identifies and assesses the validity of the application of the concepts of sustainable development in the family of agile methodological frameworks. Secondly, the research results are presented as an introduction to further in-depth research on the future relationships between sustainable development and agile project management. Thirdly, the book identifies the competencies that are needed to successful implement projects in the context of sustainable development.Sustainability and Agile Project Management will be of direct appeal to academics and scholars in the management sciences, including project management, corporate governance and human resource management.

Sustainable project management is a new school of management thought and a growing trend yet there is a scarcity of research on the linkage between individual PM methodologies and sustainability in projects. This book fills a gap through the theoretical and empirical research on the implications of sustainability in project management and, in particular, agile project management.The book explores three main themes. Firstly, it identifies and assesses the validity of the application of the concepts of sustainable development in the family of agile methodological frameworks. Secondly, the research results are presented as an introduction to further in-depth research on the future relationships between sustainable development and agile project management. Thirdly, the book identifies the competencies that are needed to successful implement projects in the context of sustainable development.Sustainability and Agile Project Management will be of direct appeal to academics and scholars in the management sciences, including project management, corporate governance and human resource management.

Project practice has undergone significant changes requiring new ways of thinking about and managing projects. The single focus on the staged delivery of artefacts is gradually being replaced by a wider interest in stakeholders, value, benefits, and complexity. As a result there is a growing interest in the development of practitioner capabilities, grounded in the recognition that dealing with permeable boundaries and unstructured situations transcends normative processes. Modern practitioners increasingly utilise deliberative and reflective approaches, often challenging received wisdom and traditional interpretations.This volume provides a sampling of some of the best writing in the project domain, enabling readers to access a wider group of authors, ideas, and perspectives. Key topics covered include agility and programme management, planning, people, business cases, contracts, teams, sponsorship, collaboration, strategy, patterns, context, change, and benefits. The main aims of the collection are to reflect on the state of practice within the discipline; to propose new extensions and additions to good practice; to offer new insights and perspectives; to distil new knowledge; and, to provide a way of sampling a range of the most promising ideas, perspectives and styles of writing from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the discipline.

Project practice has undergone significant changes requiring new ways of thinking about and managing projects. The single focus on the staged delivery of artefacts is gradually being replaced by a wider interest in stakeholders, value, benefits, and complexity. As a result there is a growing interest in the development of practitioner capabilities, grounded in the recognition that dealing with permeable boundaries and unstructured situations transcends normative processes. Modern practitioners increasingly utilise deliberative and reflective approaches, often challenging received wisdom and traditional interpretations.This volume provides a sampling of some of the best writing in the project domain, enabling readers to access a wider group of authors, ideas, and perspectives. Key topics covered include agility and programme management, planning, people, business cases, contracts, teams, sponsorship, collaboration, strategy, patterns, context, change, and benefits. The main aims of the collection are to reflect on the state of practice within the discipline; to propose new extensions and additions to good practice; to offer new insights and perspectives; to distil new knowledge; and, to provide a way of sampling a range of the most promising ideas, perspectives and styles of writing from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the discipline.

Projects are ubiquitous to modern society, yet, concerns around successful delivery, value realisation, resilience and making change stick force a significant re-evaluation of the scope and extent of the ‘normal’ project discourse. The common thread for all of this is around capabilities, skills, attitudes, values and perspectives that are needed for successful delivery and the sustained realisation of interest, relationships, benefit, value and impact.The chapters collated in this volume bring together leading authorities on topics that are relevant to the management, leadership, governance and delivery of projects. Topics include people, communication, ethics, change management, value realisation, benefits, complexity, decision-making, project assurance, communication, knowledge management, big data, project requirements, business architecture, stakeholder engagement, strategy, users, systems thinking and resilience.The main aims of the collection are to reflect on the state of practice within the discipline; to propose new extensions and additions to good practice; to offer new insights and perspectives; to distil new knowledge; and to provide a way of sampling a range of the most promising ideas, perspectives and styles of writing from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the discipline.

Projects are ubiquitous to modern society, yet, concerns around successful delivery, value realisation, resilience and making change stick force a significant re-evaluation of the scope and extent of the ‘normal’ project discourse. The common thread for all of this is around capabilities, skills, attitudes, values and perspectives that are needed for successful delivery and the sustained realisation of interest, relationships, benefit, value and impact.The chapters collated in this volume bring together leading authorities on topics that are relevant to the management, leadership, governance and delivery of projects. Topics include people, communication, ethics, change management, value realisation, benefits, complexity, decision-making, project assurance, communication, knowledge management, big data, project requirements, business architecture, stakeholder engagement, strategy, users, systems thinking and resilience.The main aims of the collection are to reflect on the state of practice within the discipline; to propose new extensions and additions to good practice; to offer new insights and perspectives; to distil new knowledge; and to provide a way of sampling a range of the most promising ideas, perspectives and styles of writing from some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the discipline.

On the evidence of the authors of Advances in Project Management: Narrated Journeys in Unchartered Territory, there is a sea change coming. That change will affect the way projects are perceived, lead and governed, particularly in the context of the wider organisation to which they belong; whether that is in the public, private or not-for-profit sectors. Many organisations have struggled to apply the traditional models of project management to their new projects in the global environment. Anecdotal and evidence-based research confirms that projects continue to fail at an alarming rate. A major part of the build-up to failure is often the lack of adequate project management knowledge and experience. Advances in Project Management covers key areas of improvement in understanding and project capability further up the management chain; amongst strategy and senior decision makers and amongst professional project and programme managers. This collection, drawn from some of the world’s leading practitioners and researchers and compiled by Professor Darren Dalcher of the National Centre for Project Management, provides those people and organisations who are involved with the developments in project management with the kind of structured information, new approaches and novel perspectives that will inform their thinking and their practice and improve their decisions.

Project management is at a crossroads: There is a pressing need to rethink the approaches used in initiating, managing and governing projects, programmes and change initiatives. The aim of this book is to progress the dialogue around project practice by shifting the focus from instrumental methods and prescriptive techniques towards a context-sensitive consideration of people, strategy and change. Projects are initiated to deliver agreed outputs that can be translated into meaningful outcomes capable of satisfying the wishes and expectations for improvement and development. Yet, people, strategy and change, which are largely ignored by the conventional bodies of knowledge, are clearly central to the sustainable and enduring success of projects, efforts and initiatives. The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on key topics including trust, ethics, people, psychology, requirements, project performance, audits, uncertainty, anti-fragility, strategic initiatives, governance, change management and commercial management. The collection offers an invaluable new resource for informed managers looking to engage with the latest thinking and research.

Project management is at a crossroads: There is a pressing need to rethink the approaches used in initiating, managing and governing projects, programmes and change initiatives. The aim of this book is to progress the dialogue around project practice by shifting the focus from instrumental methods and prescriptive techniques towards a context-sensitive consideration of people, strategy and change. Projects are initiated to deliver agreed outputs that can be translated into meaningful outcomes capable of satisfying the wishes and expectations for improvement and development. Yet, people, strategy and change, which are largely ignored by the conventional bodies of knowledge, are clearly central to the sustainable and enduring success of projects, efforts and initiatives. The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on key topics including trust, ethics, people, psychology, requirements, project performance, audits, uncertainty, anti-fragility, strategic initiatives, governance, change management and commercial management. The collection offers an invaluable new resource for informed managers looking to engage with the latest thinking and research.

How relevant is ethics to project management? The book - which aims to demystify the field of ethics for project managers and managers in general - takes both a critical and a practical look at project management in terms of success criteria, and ethical opportunities and risks. The goal is to help the reader to use ethical theory to further identify opportunities and risks within their projects and thereby to advance more directly along the path of mature and sustainable managerial practice. Project Ethics opens with an investigation of the critical success factors in project management. It then illustrates how situations can arise within projects where values can compete, and looks at how ethical theories on virtue, utility, duty and rights can be used as competence eye-openers to evaluate projects. The reader is challenged to think of their project management experiences where questions of competing values surfaced, and mirror them in short vignettes taken from real practice from all round the globe. Finally, a new method is introduced, based on classical ethical theory, which can help project owners, project managers, project teams and stakeholders, to identify, estimate and evaluate ethical opportunities and risks in projects.

Projects have always been essentially human endeavours. Large modern projects are generally highly complex, fraught with technical difficulties and supported by diverse, often apparently conflicted stakeholders. The spirituality that originally defined some of the great construction projects of the classical era surely has a role in project management today. The Spirit of Project Management explains the context for spirituality in projects and explores how it can be used to create a larger sense of purpose and achievement; to help encourage an esprit de corps amongst all those involved; to act as a touchstone for ethical and sustainable decision-making. This is a very pragmatic book. The first part includes an explanation and a variety of useful models for understanding the significance and value of spirituality in projects. Judi Neal and Alan Harpham devote the second part of the book to help you integrate these ideas into your day-to-day management of projects. Thus there are chapters on spirituality from the perspective of the individual, the project team, the project organization and even project management within a sustainable world framework. Read this book, use the ideas to help you articulate your projects; engage and sustain your project team and your stakeholders; and frame how you work in terms of your organisation, society and the environment.

From the perspective of delivering successful projects, the value of a skilled project sponsor and project manager outweighs many other factors. Projects need leaders who can give them vision, identity, keep the stakeholders and the project team on board and make the difficult decisions that will enable the project to continue (or, if necessary, be terminated). These are human skills that don't necessarily feature large in the project management bodies of knowledge. Ralf Müller and Rodney Turner's Project-Oriented Leadership explains the key leadership models of managerial, intellectual and emotional leadership and shows how they can be applied within projects to lead processes, functions and people, and ensure an ethical and inclusive approach within projects and programs.

Dealing effectively with uncertainty requires today's project manager to be familiar with a broad spectrum of strategies, encompassing both 'hard' and 'soft' methods. This theme of unified thinking (i.e. the need to selectively draw upon a wide range of strategies in any given situation) will differentiate the book from its contemporaries. By picking up where traditional risk management techniques begin to fail, it brings together leading-edge thinking from a variety of disciplines and shows how these techniques can be used to conquer uncertainty in projects. The ability to make good decisions when faced with uncertainty is the real challenge. It is a universal truth that a decision is only as good as the information it is based on. But good information is often hard to come by, and all projects are vulnerable to the unknown and the unknowable. Thus, uncertainty becomes the sworn enemy of the project manager. Wherever we try to analyse, quantify, plan and act, uncertainty lies in wait to surprise us with its ambiguity and unpredictability. It lurks in every stage of the project lifecycle: in the planning (how long will this really take?), the initiation (this isn't the situation I expected!), the execution (who could have foreseen that happening?), and even the completion of a project (where are the expected benefits?). But managing uncertainty is a lot more than just applying risk management techniques. It requires a deep appreciation of how uncertainty arises and, by recognising its different guises, the appropriate strategies can be formulated. If we can learn how to reduce uncertainty, we can make better management decisions and increase the chances of the project succeeding. This book addresses five key questions: � Why is there uncertainty in projects? � How do you spot the symptoms of uncertainty, preferably at an early stage? � What can be done to avoid uncertainty? � What strategies can be used to deal with project uncertainty? � How

The Net Present Value (NPV) forecast lies at the heart of the business case on many projects. Martin Hopkinson's guide explains when, why and how NPV models should be built for projects and how this approach can be integrated with the risk management process. NPV models tend to be used during the earliest phases of a project as the business case is being developed. Typically, these are the stages when uncertainty is at its highest and when the opportunities to influence the project's plan are at their greatest. This book shows how project financial forecasting and risk management principles can be used to both improve NPV forecasts and to shape the project solution into one that is risk-robust. The text is sufficiently broad to be practicable for first-time users to employ the methods described. But it also contains insights into the process that are likely to be new to the majority of experienced practitioners. All users should find that the models used in this book will help to provide useful templates for exploiting the techniques that are used.

There has been a sea-change in the focus of organizations - whether private or public - away from a traditional product- or service-centricity towards customer-centricity and projects are just as much a part of that change. Projects must deliver value; projects must involve stakeholders, and Elizabeth Harrin and Phil Peplow demonstrate convincingly that stakeholders are the ones who get to decide whatvalue actually means. Customer-Centric Project Management is a short guide explaining what customer-centricity means in terms of how you work and its importance for project performance; using tools and processes to guide customer-centric thinking will help you see the results of engagement and demonstrate how things can improve, even on difficult projects. The text provides a straightforward implementation guide to moving your own business to a customer-centric way of working, using a model called Exceed and provides some guidance for ensuring that customer-centricity is sustainable and supported in the organization. This is a practical, rigorous and well-researched text. It draws on established models and uses the example of project implementation in a healthcare environment to demonstrate the impact of this significant way of thinking about value. The authors can‘t guarantee that the Exceed process will radically improve project success rates, and no process can. Adopting a customer-centric mindset and using the Exceed process to measure and monitor customer satisfaction will, however, help you move towards working with happier, more engaged stakeholders.

The concept of sustainability has grown in recognition and importance. The pressure on companies to broaden their reporting and accountability from economic performance for shareholders, to sustainability performance for all stakeholders is leading to a change of mindset in consumer behaviour and corporate policies. How can we develop prosperity without compromising the life and needs of future generations? Sustainability in Project Management explores and identifies the questions surrounding the integration of the concepts of sustainability in projects and project management and provides valuable guidance and insights. Sustainability relates to multiple perspectives, economical, environmental and social, but also to responsibility and accountability and values in terms of ethics, fairness and equality. The authors will inspire project managers to be aware of these considerations, and to apply them to the role they play in projects, not just 'doing things right' but 'doing the right things right'.

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got, and if it's not good enough, you need to do something else. As project complexity increases, so too does the need to do new things. The existing Project Management tools - examples being Earned Value Management, PRINCE2, Lifecycle Management, PMBOK- are incredibly useful; but they were designed for linear project development in a stable, understood environment. We term them 'First Order'. Second Order Project Management (PM) goes beyond, addressing the issues of a complex, unstable, uncertain environment with all its associated difficulties. Second Order PM has to address four major issues: the conspiracy of optimism, inappropriate contracting models, the application of methods and tools capable of dealing with complexity, and the need for creative, inspirational, adhocratic leadership. These problems are compounded by the need to convince executive sponsors from different disciplines to invest in the necessary process improvement - this book is designed to help alleviate the frustration that every member of the profession has experienced when trying to gain such approval. Illustrated by interviews with an international group of very senior managers responsible for managing highly complex projects, Michael Cavanagh explains why there is nothing magical, or even complicated, about Second Order PM. The techniques discussed include aspects of System Thinking, Experiential Learning and its application, Ethics and Governance, Stakeholder Relationships, Appropriate Contracting Models, Outcome-driven Management and Leadership Behaviour, all recognised as increasingly necessary in direct proportion to the complexity of the project at hand.

All project stakeholders have different needs, objectives, responsibilities and priorities. For many project managers it is disturbing to realise that, for any number of personal or professional reasons, some of their stakeholders may not be as co-operative and helpful as they expect. It could be a negative and powerful sponsor (the 'Anti-sponsor'), a demotivated team, low-maturity or unrealistic external clients, maliciously compliant gatekeepers and finance teams, or uninterested internal customers. The reality of project management is that stakeholders can be difficult! Jake Holloway, Professor David Bryde and Roger Joby bring their years of project management experience and combine it with research and insight from social psychology to delve into how and why project stakeholders can be difficult. The book describes some of the common stakeholder types - such as Sponsors, the Team, Gatekeepers, Clients and Contractors - and associated unhelpful or difficult behaviour profiles that you will often come across on projects. It then provides practical ideas, techniques and methods that will help the project manager to effectively manage the impact of these stakeholders on the project. As projects get larger and more complicated, the role and influence of stakeholders grows too. A Practical Guide to Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders will provide your project teams with the basis for a more sophisticated and resilient approach to stakeholder management.

Project managers appear to accept theiron triangle of cost, budget and quality but in reality focus more on being on time and budget. Quality in projects is often paid mere lip service and relegated to tick-box compliance. This lack of clarity and focus on quality is often the source of project failures. Ron Basu‘s Managing Quality in Projects shines the spotlight on this aspect of project management that can often be overshadowed by the pressure to deliver on time and on budget. His investigation focuses initially on defining the dimensions of quality in project management and identifying sources of measurement for project excellence. Thereafter he expands his focus to discuss which tools can be effectively used in the quest for achieving and sustaining project excellence; and which processes are important in assessing the project maturity. The text also explores how the successes of operational excellence concepts, such as supply chain management, Lean Thinking and Six Sigma may be gainfully deployed in enhancing project quality and excellence. Finally a structured implantation plan guides those directly involved in project delivery, including suppliers, in how tomake it happen. A shared understanding and implementation of project quality by key project stakeholders will go a long way to ensuring a stable platform for delivering successful projects with longer lasting outcomes. It is also a fundamental building block in any organization‘s strategy for improving consistency and achieving sustainable performance. On that basis, Ron Basu‘s book is a must-have reference and guide for all project organizations.