The complete idiot's Guide to Project Management [antikvár]

Foreword Project management isn't just for construction engineers and military logistics experts any more. Consider the case known in my circle as "The Wedding from Hell." Two of my friends—a pair of the most organized managers I've ever met—once catered an out-of-town, afternoon wedding for a colleague. They spent days consulting with the bride and her mother, hiring bartenders and waiters, lining up transportation, and buying and preparing the food, all in addition to handling their busy jobs at a major arts institution. Then, at noon on Friday, the day before the big event, they received a phone call from another colleague. "I have some bad news about the wedding," he said. "It's today." The wedding still took place, with dinner only an hour late. Not bad, considering that when they arrived at what had been promised was a fully stocked kitchen, there wasn't a pot or pan to be found anywhere, and they had to cook the vegetables in coffee percolators. But the moonlighting caterers paid a high price for their failure to manage the project properly. The mistake cost them their friendship with the bride, not to mention their fee. And they had to spend a fortune to dry clean their business suits. (Try making ceviche while driving 70 miles an hour up Interstate 95.) "The Wedding from Hell" makes a good argument for project management. Like my friends the caterers, you may be taking on a project as a way to launch your own small business. Perhaps you have to organize a conference for your company's hundred biggest clients. Or your company asked you to open its new store on Madison Avenue or its regional sales office in Sioux Falls. You may even have been charged with reconfiguring your company's whole information system or developing a new product or service. Top executives like to talk about how their strategy depends on their company's vision, mission and values. But when pressed, they admit that what really matters is their ability to execute—to get the job done flawlessly, under budget and on time. Without that ability, strategy is just wishful thinking. And great project management skills are essential to anyone who wants to put their strategy into action. This book will teach you the nuts and bolts of project management, from setting priorities to controlling schedules and expenses to reporting on the results. Using plenty of humor and plain-spoken good sense, Kim and Sunny Baker tell you how to plan a project, set up and lead a team, monitor progress, and bring your project to a satisfying close. Along the way, you'll learn techniques for communicating with team members and anyone else with a stake in the project, resolving the inevitable conflicts, and handling any changes that come your way. Finally, you'll find out how to choose the right computer software to make project management easier.