Every project and as a consequence every project manager has to deal with different targets, different environments and, last but not least, with different people. Therefore, only the Know-how and the Do-how will transform a project manager into an excellent project manager. Read this book to learn more about Project Management. The main topics of this book are: Project Organisations, Estimation of Times and Cost, Estimation of Times and Cost, Risk Management and much more.

Searching in any library for books on project management will definitely lead to success. Much seems to have been written about how to manage a project successfully. But why do most projects in real life still fail or end up exceeding the originally agreed upon budget, time or resources? The answer is quite easy: The project simply does not exist. Every project and as a consequence every project manager has to deal with different targets, different environments and, last but not least, with different people. Therefore, only the Know-how and the Do-how will transform a project manager into an excellent project manager.

This book is based upon the global project management experiences I gained in different positions, especially with international management consulting companies and working as a member and chairman of executive boards. I now have the pleasure to share my knowledge and gain new experiences (not only in project management) as a professor with eager and enthusiastic students.

Every project manager will develop his or her own management style in their career. Due to the constraints in the number of pages of this book I have limited the examples and case studies to an absolute minimum. Also the so-called “soft-skills” of project management could not be discussed in detail.

This book should provide the interested reader with an overview of the methods and tools which have been proven successful for project managers. Everybody who would like to have an extended reading about some chapters should refer to the endnotes, where additional references are listed.

If you have any comments, please do not hesitate to contact me at olaf_passenheim@web.de.

Have fun reading the book and implementing some techniques in your next projects.

April 2009

Prof. Dr. Olaf Passenheim

Foreword

1. Project Management
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Project Management and Process Management
1.3 Conceptual Framework

2. Project Organisations
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Project Organisation and Responsibilities
2.3 Organisational Models
2.4 Choosing the Project Organisation
2.5 Conclusion

3. Project Scope and Estimation of Times and Cost
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Project Kick-Off Meeting
3.3 Project Scope Management
3.4 Activity Resource Estimating
3.5 Project Time Management
3.6 Estimation of Project Cost
3.7 Conclusion

4. Project Plan
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Developing a Project Network Plan
4.3 Activity-On-Node Network Techniques
4.4 Time Calculations
4.5 Conclusion

5. Progress and Performance Measurement
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Project Control Process
5.3 Performance Indicators
5.4 Project Monitoring, Evaluation and Control
5.5 Conclusion

6. Risk Management
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Risk Management
6.3 Risk Identification
6.4 Risk Analysis
6.5 Risk Response
6.6 Risk Control
6.7 Conclusion

7. Documentation, Audit, Termination and Closure
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Documentation
7.3 Audit
7.4 Project Termination
7.5 Project Closure
7.6 Conclusion

8. Final Remarks and further Readings

Endnotes