This new edition gives project managers practical methods and tools to make the right decisions while juggling multiple objectives, risks and uncertainties, and stakeholders. Project management requires you to navigate a maze of multiple and complex decisions that are an everyday part of the job. To be effective, you must know how to make rational choices with your projects, what processes can help to improve these choices, and what tools are available to help you with decision-making. An entertaining and easy-to-read guide to a structured project decision-making process, Project Decisions will help you identify risks and perform basic quantitative and qualitative risk and decision analyses. Lev Virine and Michael Trumper use their understanding of basic human psychology to show you how to use event chain methodology, establish creative business environments, and estimate project time and costs. Each phase of the process is described in detail, including a review of both its psychological aspects and quantitative methods.

This new edition gives project managers practical methods and tools to make the right decisions while juggling multiple objectives, risks and uncertainties, and stakeholders. Project management requires you to navigate a maze of multiple and complex decisions that are an everyday part of the job. To be effective, you must know how to make rational choices with your projects, what processes can help to improve these choices, and what tools are available to help you with decision-making. An entertaining and easy-to-read guide to a structured project decision-making process, Project Decisions will help you identify risks and perform basic quantitative and qualitative risk and decision analyses. Lev Virine and Michael Trumper use their understanding of basic human psychology to show you how to use event chain methodology, establish creative business environments, and estimate project time and costs. Each phase of the process is described in detail, including a review of both its psychological aspects and quantitative methods.

Some of Schuyler's tried-and-true tips include: - The single-point estimate is almost always wrong, so that it is always better to express judgments as ranges. A probability distribution completely expresses someone's judgment about the likelihood of values within the range.- We often need a single-value cost or other assessment, and the expected value (mean) of the distribution is the only unbiased predictor. Expected value is the probability-weighted average, and this statistical idea is the cornerstone of decision analysis.- Some decisions are easy, perhaps aided by quick decision tree calculations on the back of an envelope. Decision dilemmas typically involve risky outcomes, many factors, and the best alternatives having comparable value. We only need analysis sufficient to confidently identify the best alternative. As soon as you know what to do, stop the analysis!- Be alert to ways to beneficially change project risks. We can often eliminate, avoid, transfer, or mitigate threats in some way. Get to know the people who make their living helping managers sidestep risk. They include insurance agents, partners, turnkey contractors, accountants, trainers, and safety personnel.

Project management is the art of making the right decisions. To be effective as a project manager, you must know how to make rational choices in project management, what processes can help you to improve these choices, and what tools are available to help you through the decision-making process. Project Decisions: The Art and Science is an entertaining and easy-to-read guide to a structured project decision analysis process. This valuable text presents the basics of cognitive psychology and quantitative analysis methods to help project managers make better decisions. Examples that portray different projects, real-life stories, and popular culture will help readers acquire the essential knowledge and skills required for effective project decision-making. Readers will be able to: •Understand psychological pitfalls related to project management •Establish a creative business environment in their organization •Identify project risks and uncertainties •Develop estimates of project time and cost based on an understanding of human psychology •Perform basic quantitative and qualitative risk and decision analysis •Use event chain methodology in managing projects •Communicate the results of decision analysis to decision-makers •Review project decisions and perform adaptive project management •Establish a project decision analysis process in their organization PLUS — Test your own judgment through a quiz that examines your intuition!

Project management is the art of making the right decisions. To be effective as a project manager, you must know how to make rational choices in project management, what processes can help you to improve these choices, and what tools are available to help you through the decision-making process. Project Decisions: The Art and Science is an entertaining and easy-to-read guide to a structured project decision analysis process. This valuable text presents the basics of cognitive psychology and quantitative analysis methods to help project managers make better decisions. Examples that portray different projects, real-life stories, and popular culture will help readers acquire the essential knowledge and skills required for effective project decision-making. Readers will be able to: -Understand psychological pitfalls related to project management -Establish a creative business environment in their organization -Identify project risks and uncertainties -Develop estimates of project time and cost based on an understanding of human psychology -Perform basic quantitative and qualitative risk and decision analysis -Use event chain methodology in managing projects -Communicate the results of decision analysis to decision-makers -Review project decisions and perform adaptive project management -Establish a project decision analysis process in their organization PLUS - Test your own judgment through a quiz that examines your intuition!

Project management is a critical skill across a broad range of disciplines. Yet most people, regardless of educational background, have never received training in how to plan, manage, and execute projects. Project Management Essentials, Second Edition, is the go-to book for tried and true project management skills combined with the most current ideas from Agile in a concise, up-to-date, user-friendly format. It follows the project life cycle and provides several ready-to-use templates. Readers can use this book to plan and manage a project from start to finish or as a reference for help with one particular component of project management. Alongside each template is a brief description of what each template is and why it is useful, with an example to illustrate it.

To manage projects, you must not only control schedules and costs: you must also manage growing operational uncertainty. Today’s powerful analytics tools and methods can help you do all of this far more successfully. In Project Management Analytics, Harjit Singh shows how to bring greater evidence-based clarity and rationality to all your key decisions throughout the full project lifecycle. Singh identifies the components and characteristics of a good project decision and shows how to improve decisions by using predictive, prescriptive, statistical, and other methods. You’ll learn how to mitigate risks by identifying meaningful historical patterns and trends; optimize allocation and use of scarce resources within project constraints; automate data-driven decision-making processes based on huge data sets; and effectively handle multiple interrelated decision criteria. Singh also helps you integrate analytics into the project management methods you already use, combining today’s best analytical techniques with proven approaches such as PMI PMBOK® and Lean Six Sigma. Project managers can no longer rely on vague impressions or seat-of-the-pants intuition. Fortunately, you don’t have to. With Project Management Analytics, you can use facts, evidence, and knowledge—and get far better results. Achieve efficient, reliable, consistent, and fact-based project decision-making Systematically bring data and objective analysis to key project decisions Avoid “garbage in, garbage out” Properly collect, store, analyze, and interpret your project-related data Optimize multi-criteria decisions in large group environments Use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to improve complex real-world decisions Streamline projects the way you streamline other business processes Leverage data-driven Lean Six Sigma to manage projects more effectively