The Practitioner's Handbook of Project Performance: Agile, Waterfall and Beyond

Description

Practitioners operate in a necessary reality. We work in a space where project performance is above theory or methodology. In the best environments, delivery and an affirmative culture are what matter most. In the worst, it is politics and survival. In any environment, we are challenged to adopt best practices and adapt our style to the environment in which the project is occurring. This is a book about those best practices and practitioner experiences. It is a must-have reference and guidebook for project managers, general managers, business leaders and project management researchers. This book is the result of the hard work and dedication of more than 35 authors from more than 15 countries across four continents. It brings a diversity of experience, professional and personal. It includes practitioners, leading academics, renowned theorists and many who straddle those roles. The chapters cover experiences in software, large-scale infrastructure projects, finance and health care, to name a few. The chapters themselves take many forms. Check out the Table of Contents to get a deeper sense of the topics included. All provide real-world guidance on delivering high-performing projects and show you how to build, lead and manage high-performing teams. The Practitioner's Handbook of Project Performance is complete in itself. It can also be an enticing start to an ongoing dialogue with the authors and a pleasurable path to get deeper into the subject of project performance. Find your favorite place to begin learning from these chapters, to begin taking notes and taking away nuggets to use in your everyday. But don’t stop there. Contact information and further resources for this diverse team of experts are found throughout. The Practitioner's Handbook is a modern guide to the leading edge of project performance management and a path to the future of project delivery. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Contents List of figures List of tables Introduction Section I: Individuals and interactions Chapter 1: Chasing mercury: The emotional and social pillars of high-performing teams Emotional intelligence What is EI? What EI is not Why EI matters in the workplace The importance of EI for project resources The role of EI in a larger project management competency framework Important mediating factors Essential project features Team-based skills: Emotional management and awareness How can team members develop their own EI? Chapter 2: Values as the basis for successful teams: A Scrum perspective and primer Introduction Value The project Agile methods Project performance defined Performance indicators Measuring and predicting project performance? Achieving performance Values and practice A recipe for project success An overview of Scrum Pillars in practice Sprint Retrospectives Self-organizing teams Inspecting and adapting – The right way Summary of the recipe Pitfalls and challenges Preventing backsliding Benefits Is Scrum right for me? Odds and ends Conclusion Chapter 3: The power of empowering others: Coaching as a leadership model for high-performing teams Introduction Coaching in a project environment The impact of coaching on project performance The psychology of successful teams Diminishers and multipliers Coaching as a leadership style Mentoring is different from coaching A good coach listens and asks open questions Identifying opportunities to coach the team The GROW model as a framework Options – Brainstorm options for moving forward Way forward – Establish actions How to apply coaching Potential pitfalls Conclusion Chapter 4: Coping with the unexpected: Flexibility, resilience and culture Introduction The unexpected Projects and project performance High-reliability and resilient projects – First insights Improving performance: Successfully managing the unexpected Lessons learned: Examining select project cases Challenges and pitfalls Conclusion Acknowledgments Chapter 5: Leading without authority Remove roadblocks and anti-flow that inhibit the team’s performance Successful team equation  Get to know each other and build trust Promote team autonomy Be a human first and a project manager second Section II: Processes, tools and techniques Chapter 6: Performance: A combined project and portfolio perspective Case study: The new Ashgabat airport What is a project? Project vs portfolio management What is project performance and how do we measure it? What are the root causes of poor project performance? What are the warning signs? Saving troubled projects Conclusion Chapter 7: Communications shape reality Planning communication strategically Getting the most from your communication lead Who is your spokesperson? In conclusion Chapter 8: Knowledge management shapes culture Introduction Organisational learning Lessons learned Storytelling Systemic Lessons Learned Knowledge model Wiring an organisation with knowledge and lessons learned Implementing the Syllk model in project organisations Conclusion Chapter 9: Risk management principles Overview Measuring project success Chapter 10: Risk management practices Data and processes needed to reduce risk and increase the probability of success Dependencies, structures and correlations of risk Representing risk interactions using DSM Simulating a risk network in Arena A risk-adjusted schedule Reducible risk management processes are held in the schedule Irreducible risk management processes include use of margin and alternate points of integration Development of schedule margin Key insertion points for schedule margin Next steps to increase the probability of project success Uncertainty Quantification Chapter 11: Act fast and think fast: Agile schedule performance Chapter roadmap Target projects Schedule performance is the efficiency of value delivery Measure Agile schedule performance Set schedule performance levels Improve Agile schedule performance Capturing empirical data Assessing results Improving performance Agile challenges to Earned Schedule Agile benefits from Earned Schedule Leverage Earned Schedule for Agile projects Conclusion Chapter 12: Monitoring and controlling: Understanding your project’s status Introduction Back to basics: Systems, projects and the PMBOK® Guide Did you see the gorilla? Early warning signals Too many reports, use a feedback loop To change or not to change? Common cause vs special cause variation Making no change and the funnel experiment Change the right thing and the red bead experiment Time to implement the change Stuff happens Conclusion The Project Management Office (PMO) Why it’s more important now than ever to consider how PMO supports Project Delivery Chapter 13: Managing change: From adoption to completion Chapter 14: Securing benefits Chapter 15: Beyond the triple constraints: Creating conditions for optimal performance Introduction 1. The triple fallacy of project performance 2. Project management, management of projects, and management for projects Which conditions for optimal project performance? Conclusion Section III: Experience Chapter 16: Critical success and failure factors in large-scale complex projects 16.1 Introduction 16.2 Methodology 16.3 Overview of selected publications 16.4 Results 16.5 Discussion and recommendations 16.6 Failure factors Chapter 17: Performance and measurement: An interdisciplinary study of public sector projects 17.1 Introduction 17.2 Project performance 17.3 Measuring performance 17.4 Improving the performance of public sector projects 17.5 Conclusion: Beyond performance Chapter 18: Creating value in infrastructure projects: The Public Value Chain The Public Value Chain Perspectives on performance Developing the Public Value Chain Validating the Public Value Chain Implications of the Public Value Chain Conclusion and discussion Chapter 19: Evaluating project performance: A comprehensive approach studying EU structural programs 19.1 A background and framework 19.2 Evaluation of project performance 19.3 An illustrative case – The implementation of regional venture capital fund projects 19.4 Three Ps in project performance 19.5 The three Ks in project performance evaluation 19.6 Serendipities and evaluation for project performance Chapter 20: Project performance in the financial sector Introduction Disclaimer So, why a chapter on the financial area? What’s special about projects in the financial area, after all? With such a variety of projects, how to measure them in a consistent way? What does exist in between Waterfall and Agile in the financial sector? How to assess where my project stands? Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan What are the steps to become a high-performance project? How to have a smooth transition from the current Waterfall-like environment we live in into a more Agile environment? Section IV: Responding to change Chapter 21: Matching theory to practice in a complex world: A philosophical approach Introduction Talking about complex project management performance Meeting social complexity Venturing an epistemological turn Balancing progress Realising good project governance Chapter 22: The future of global program leadership: A sci-fi narrative A look back for context IPMS and CPE map Awakening session Norming and Planning session (NaP) Collaboration and Reimagining sessions (CaR) Retrospective session CPE in 2100 Chapter 23: Mindfulness: Achieving performance in an accelerating technology landscape Chapter 24: Continuous Digital and #NoProjects It is not 1970 any more The Agile menace The problem with projects Requirements for an alternative Continuous digital Businesses work this way Conclusion Afterword: What the heck are we studying? Projects, performance, and laws References and further reading Author profiles and resources Index