Real-world project management tools and techniques you can start using today! IT professionals are often faced with extremely challenging project deployments, as well as initiatives that are mission-critical to their organizations. For IT project managers, a strong understanding of the discipline of project management can be invaluable—both to success with individual projects and to their overall careers. However, most books and training materials on project management pay little or no attention to the unique challenges IT project managers face. PM Crash CourseTM for IT Professionals is full of project management tools that you can apply immediately to your IT projects—to deliver them on time, on budget, and with fewer headaches. Authored by world-renowned project management trainer Rita Mulcahy, this book will help you get your IT projects back on track using proven, real-world project management tools and techniques. This revolutionary Course in a Book® covers the basics of project management, including planning, scheduling, budgeting, and more. It also moves beyond the basics to cover a number of real-world project management tools and techniques for IT initiatives. The authors provide indispensable practical checklists, templates, and exercises to reinforce your learning of these concepts. The book includes dozens of tricks, insights, and contributions from real project managers sharing what has made a difference for them when managing real-world projects. If you are looking for easy-to-use tools and processes to make an immediate impact on your current IT project, PM Crash CourseTM for IT Professionals is the resource for you. Rita Mulcahy, PMP, founder and CEO of RMC Project Management, is the most popular project management author in the world. Since 1991, hundreds of thousands of project managers have utilized her 30+ best-selling books and resources to expand their project management knowledge and further their careers. Real-World Issues Covered: • Understanding why IT projects fail--—and preventing failure • Defining effective IT project charters and requirements • Organizing IT roadmaps into manageable projects • Capturing, creating, and using historical data • Establishing “soft” and “hard” project metrics and milestones • Defining project scope, and avoiding scope creep • Identifying and managing stakeholders and expectations • Choosing the right PM tools for your needs—including in-house, hosted, and cloud-based solutions

This book offers time management tools, tips, and techniques for busy librarians, so they can better serve their communities and feel greater satisfaction with work and life. Being short on resources is now "the new normal" for libraries—and having too little money and too few staff members always brings library staff to the same predicament: not enough time. While it is not possible to create more time, by making use of the right time management tools and techniques, it IS possible to make huge improvements in your productivity—and as side benefits, a decrease in job stress and frustration and a greater sense of work satisfaction. This book shows how to apply powerful time management strategies so you can get more done, deliver the best service possible to your patrons, and enjoy being in an environment that fosters greater creativity and workplace satisfaction. Topics include time tracking, task management, identifying goals and priorities, beating the obstacles of procrastination and perfectionism as well as distractions and interruptions, and staying on top of time management when collaborating. Quotes and stories from individuals who work in libraries illustrate key points and concepts throughout the book. The final chapter explains how to set a personal plan for time management—using the awareness of your own patterns, obstacles, and goals, and the experience you have gained with various time management techniques and tools—to create your own unique time management strategy and make time management an ongoing, long-term priority.

A Step by Step Guide to Project Management. The Project Management Crash Course is a clear and concise guide on How to Manage a Project. It is an accelerated walkthrough of all you need to know to quickly start managing projects the right way, right now. Especially written for beginners and those who are just starting out with project management, you will learn the roadmap on how to manage scope, schedule, cost, resources, and risks on a project. Experienced Project Managers will find it valuable as a go-to handy guidebook for quick reference while managing projects and for clarifying/refreshing your concepts. Clear, simple, and easy to understand, this book covers essential principles that can be applied to any industry and help you achieve professional and personal success. What you will learn: How to Initiate, Plan, Execute, Monitor, Control, and Close Projects Learn the essential pillars of project management: Integration, Scope, Schedule, Cost, Risk, Resource, Quality, Procurement, Communications, Stakeholders Understand the exact Role and Responsibilities of a Project Manager How to Manage Project Teams How to Develop a Project Charter How to avoid making the biggest mistakes while managing projects How to go from being a Good Project Manager to a Great Project Manager

A Step by Step Guide to Agile Project Management, Scrum, and the PSM 1 Scrum Master Certification Agile Scrum Crash Course is a quick and complete guide on all you need to know to learn the essentials of Agile Project Management and Scrum. It will also help you prepare for the Professional Scrum Master Certification, PSM 1 and pass on your first attempt. Written in simple language with easy to understand examples, it has been especially written for beginners. No matter what your industry background is, you will be able to quickly learn the fundamentals of Agile and Scrum and start using them on your projects. Complete Overview of Agile project management and Scrum Pass the PSM 1, Scrum Master Certification on your first try Learn Agile Values and the Agile manifesto The Difference between Waterfall and Agile Project Management What is a Sprint - A Step by Step Walkthrough Learn the concepts of the Official Scrum Guide in simple language Learn about Scrum Roles, Scrum Events, and Scrum Artifacts Scrum Roles - Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team Scrum Events - Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Retrospective, Sprint Review Scrum Artifacts - Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment And more - User stories, Story Points, Definition of Done

Your answer to the software project management gap The Complete Software Project Manager: From Planning to Launch and Beyond addresses an interesting problem experienced by today's project managers: they are often leading software projects, but have no background in technology. To close this gap in experience and help you improve your software project management skills, this essential text covers key topics, including: how to understand software development and why it is so difficult, how to plan a project, choose technology platforms, and develop project specifications, how to staff a project, how to develop a budget, test software development progress, and troubleshoot problems, and what to do when it all goes wrong. Real-life examples, hints, and management tools help you apply these new ideas, and lists of red flags, danger signals, and things to avoid at all costs assist in keeping your project on track. Companies have, due to the nature of the competitive environment, been somewhat forced to adopt new technologies. Oftentimes, the professionals leading the development of these technologies do not have any experience in the tech field—and this can cause problems. To improve efficiency and effectiveness, this groundbreaking book offers guidance to professionals who need a crash course in software project management. Review the basics of software project management, and dig into the more complicated topics that guide you in developing an effective management approach Avoid common pitfalls by perusing red flags, danger signals, and things to avoid at all costs Leverage practical roadmaps, charts, and step-by-step processes Explore real-world examples to see effective software project management in action The Complete Software Project Manager: From Planning to Launch and Beyond is a fundamental resource for professionals who are leading software projects but do not have a background in technology.

A review for the book from another world renown author.Rita Mulcahy, PMP, is an author, consultant and member of the Project Management Institute's Risk Management Special Interest Group. Either through frustration at the lack of good, practical risk management reference materials, or because she is bubbling over with ideas on the subject, Rita has written a comprehensive book: "Risk Management - Tricks of the Trade? for Project Managers." The book is structured according to the Institute's view of project risk management and is therefore supportive of the Project Management Professional certification exam. It even has a 50-question Final Exam in the certification examination mode.However, Rita's book is much more than that. It provides a very clear and down-to-earth explanation of what project risk management is all about. I was particularly pleased to see an emphasis on things going right (opportunities enhancement) as well as going wrong (risks). The book is lavishly endowed with bulleted lists of explanation for rapid absorption of content by busy project people. It also has very practical quick-read "Tricks of the Trade" sidebars (e.g. How to interview an expert), check lists, charts, forms and how to use them with worked examples. It is even topped off with quiz games to make it a fun encounter.For University instructors and training workshop leaders there are plenty of "Questions for discussion". In an appendix there is a long list of potential risks, their cause and effect in various industries. No doubt that list has been culled from the brainstorming efforts of many of Rita's workshop attendees over the years. Still, I could not help but empathize with chagrin the construction risk-cause entry "Local politicos, unruly elements, etc." Well said!Armed with this book, there should be no excuse any longer for anyone to declare that they don't know how to apply risk management to their projects, however large or small their projects may be. Nor should there be any question of how to get started or even why they should get started and when. The real benefit of the book is that it demonstrates very clearly that project risk management does not have to be difficult, nor academically challenging. I have always held that project risk management is really very simple.When you are gearing up for your next project, the best advice I can give is "Don't leave home without it!"R. Max Wideman, P.Eng.FCSCE, FEIC, FICE, FPMI