Despite two decades of investment in project management as many as 80 per cent of business change and IT projects continue to rack up cost overruns and fail to deliver their expected benefits. Business people who must have more certainty in their project investments will find this book refreshing. It contains commonsense but groundbreaking techniques that deal with just this challenge. The authors, far from rejecting current methods, take an imaginative approach to encapsulating established best practices such as PRINCE2TM within a framework of new thinking, innovative techniques and hard-nosed portfolio management. This book shows how project sponsors can radically improve the certainty of getting the benefits that they want and accelerate their projects to get them sooner rather than later (or never). Finance and portfolio managers will find techniques that provide them with the means for drilling down and tracking not only the costs, but also the cash values of project benefits, both tangible and intangible. Business people and project managers will find ideas here that enable them to create and control change in communities of stakeholders; which is the ultimate aim of the organizations that are investing time, resources and money in projects of this kind. Accelerating Business and IT Change is essential reading for anyone seeking to define the nature and value of what they expect from their projects, set realistic implementation schedules and then ensure that all the intended benefits are realized. Important: The CD version of this product requires a Java Run Time environment. If you are planning to use the CD in your office please check with your IT Department to make sure you will be able to use it.

Speed-to-market is the most critical factor determining the success of new products. James Lewis and Louis Wong, one of today's most accomplished project management author teams, discuss often-overlooked principles that can make the difference in the never-ending race to be first and best. They give project managers, engineers, and top-level decision makers the needed tools and techniques to: Establish a solid and well-grounded vision Turn that vision into an actionable road map Implement platforms to support new processes

Step by step, Facilitating the Project Lifecycle guides theproject manager/facilitator in making smart choices about when andhow to pull key talent together to spell success for the projectand ultimately the organization. The authors will help youunderstand the benefits of using facilitated group work sessions toget real work done during a project and get it done better and moreefficiently than more traditional individual work approaches. Inaddition, the book includes: Recommendations for capitalizing on group knowledge toaccelerate the building of key project deliverables and ensuretheir quality as they are built A work session structure for planning, delivering, andfollowing up facilitated work sessions Guides for building key project deliverables Sample agendas Proven techniques for managing the group dynamics

NCHRP Report 662 describes how selected transportation agencies have reduced the time required to complete the project delivery process. This process takes new or renewed transportation facilities and services from conception to completion, ready for users. Project delivery is a primary indicator of an agency's effectiveness. Individual highway and other transportation projects are developed under programs intended to implement agency and legislative initiatives and other public policy. The way programs are organized and managed can determine the speed and efficiency of project development. Accelerating program functions can speed up project delivery. This report describes the experiences of eight state departments of transportation (DOTs) that made improvements in their project delivery and the lessons to be learned from their experiences. The information will be useful to DOT managers seeking to ensure that their agencies' organization, policies, and program operations facilitate project delivery.

Accelerating the project delivery process: eliminating bureaucratic red tape and making every dollar count