This book provides a stakeholder-centered analysis of projects and explains which identification, analysis, communication, and engagement models are relevant to different types of projects. If stakeholders matter, then they must make a difference in the way we plan structure and execute projects. Do they matter on your projects? This book provides a stakeholder-centered analysis of projects and explains which identification, analysis, communication, and engagement models are relevant to different types of projects: from an office move to IT enterprise change to transformational business change and complex social change. Using case studies from around the world, it illustrates what goes wrong when stakeholders are not engaged successfully and what lessons we can learn from these examples. In this second edition, we also look at the impact of Agile practices on the stakeholder management process. What changes in approach can we anticipate, and what practices must continue regardless of the product development life cycle adopted? Key models introduced include: Role-based and agenda-based stakeholders; The stakeholder-neutral to stakeholder-led project continuum; The extended stakeholder management process; Purposeful communication—the six whys model for communication; The principles of stakeholder engagement; Stakeholder engagement in an agile world.

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.

The focus of this book is aimed at providing a mechanism to determine the individual and cumulative contribution of portfolio components to strategic objectives so that the right decisions can be made regarding those components. Project portfolio management (PfM) is a critically important discipline, which organizations must embrace in order to extract the maximum value from their project investments. Essentially, PfM can be defined as the translation of strategy and organizational objectives into projects, programs, and operations (portfolio components); the allocation of resources to portfolio components according to organizational priorities; alignment of components to one or more organizational objectives and the management and control of these components in order to achieve organizational objectives and benefits. The interest and contribution to the body of knowledge in project portfolio management has been growing significantly in recent years, however, a particular area of concern is the decision-making, during the management of the portfolio, regarding which portfolio components to accelerate, suspend, or terminate. Failing to determine how the individual and cumulative components of a portfolio contribute to an organization’s strategic objectives leads to poorly informed decisions that negate the positive effect that a sound understanding of project portfolio management could have in an organization.

Project management processes have been intertwined within every fabric of human evolution including advances in communication, farming, construction, medicine, law, architecture, physics, and economics to name a few. At each evolutionary stage, there was a project manager who was studying the how and why of everything, trying new techniques, and documenting trials, errors and successes until a specific craft was mastered, thrusting progress forward in an upward trajectory that has been carved into human history. There are countless books and articles that focus on the practice of project management. What makes this book different is the focus placed largely on the project management processes for United States (U.S) bankers. This book starts with a look at the historical progression of project management processes but quickly focuses the material on project management processes for bankers, heavily leaning towards project managers in United States (U.S.) banks. The book also looks at the bank regulatory agencies that govern U.S. banks, regulations critical to the U.S banking system, and concludes with an overview of U.S. banking technologies and the management of a U.S. banking customer call center. The book provides a comprehensive perspective on the U.S. banking project management processes, the regulatory agencies that govern and influence those processes, how technology, and more specifically, the development and use of artificial intelligence, will create a shift in the evolutionary trajectory of U.S. banking practices, and how U.S. banking project management practices will be at the core of how quickly and how successfully this evolution unfolds.

The global economy and free market philosophy have resulted in higher global competition and increased expectations from customers. It is obvious that new approaches are needed to satisfy demands and many of them fall under a broad umbrella called agile. To capitalize fully on the benefits of agile, one must first understand the concepts that underpin it. In this book, we first identify many concepts that various approaches advocate for agile and group them into three areas forming a simple, robust system. Then, we describe the most useful agile methods in savage summaries regardless of the approach that promotes them, grouping them logically and showing how to use them. We have an agnostic agile model that can be useful to anyone using any form of agile. Both concepts for being agile and techniques for doing agile are summarized in this book and there are several ways to use this book. To understand the concepts of agile, consult Chapters 3, 4, and 5. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 will help you learn and perform agile tools and techniques.

Organizations are successful based on their ability to achieve strategic goals. Why didn’t you achieve your strategy? Too many organizations waste time and money on developing strategy but don’t achieve their goals. What goes wrong? Poor predictions about the future; internal politics that impact the projects selected; biases in the decision-making process, and other stumbling blocks. This book provides the approach that significantly increases an organization’s ability to achieve its strategy. This is not a book about developing strategy. This is a book that will help you actually achieve the strategy the organization’s leadership has developed. Strategy is necessary but it is a complete waste of time unless it is effectively turned into real results. If you want to see where an organization will be in 5 years, don’t look at its strategic goals. Look at where management spends the money.

This book provides a simple explanatory guide for the layman that clarifies the ‘big picture’ of the PMBOK. The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), published by the Project Management Institute, provides a roadmap of performance domains designed to support project managers in all phases of project management. The sheer number of models, methods, and artifacts may leave project managers in a quandary about where to start and how to apply the many components. This book provides a simple explanatory guide for the layman that clarifies the ‘big picture’ of the PMBOK.