Project Management Books

Title:
The Practice and Theory of Project Management: Creating Value through Change

Author:
Richard Newton

Managing projects, a prominent feature of working life, inevitably involves change at some level. Even though successful project management depends on organisational change, textbooks often fail to recognise this symbiotic nature.

This book offers students a practical understanding of the strategic and organisational role of projects.

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Title:
Managing Sensitive Projects: A Lateral Approach
Author:
Mr Olivier D'Herbemont and Mr Bruno César

Every day, managers must adapt to rapidly changing markets and situations. This book deals with sensitive or difficult projects. They range from redundancy programmes to disposal of radioactive waste, from the launch of a new product to the introduction of a new computer system. The method - the strategy of the lateral project - is radically different from those used in projects which are normally associated with traditional project management. It is based upon the lateral thinking concepts of Edward de Bono and is derived from 20 years experience of working with brave managers on projects which many others would have left to their successors.

This is a revised translation of the prize-winning and best-selling French management book.

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Title:
The Delta Project: Discovering New Sources of Profitability in a Networked Economy
Authors:
Arnoldo C. Hax and Mr Dean L. Wilde

Emerging from the authors' work with companies such as Coca-Cola, Motorola, 3M, General Motors and Unilever, The Delta Project provides a unique model through which to develop strategy in the new economy.

Hax and Wilde examine how globalization, deregulation and the emergence of the internet infrastructure have changed the rules for success and identify three distinct strategic positions that can be used to realign the direction of your business. Introducing new models of 'bonding', 'complementors' and 'customer lock-in' this book provides a fundamental shift in the way we think about competitive positioning.

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Title:
Sun Tzu and the Project Battleground:
Creating Project Strategy from 'The Art of War'
Authors:
Mr David E. Hawkins and Shan Rajagopal

The Art of War by Sun Tzu has influenced a generation of business leaders and strategy gurus. Yet for many people in business and students of management this remains a mystery.

For the first time the authors provide a fully comprehensive account of this work and the influence of Sun Tzu and the relevance to business strategy and project management. Their book will give the reader the opportunity to appreciate and benefit from this crucial work.

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Title:
Customer-Focused Management by Projects
Author:
Ronald Vaupel, Gernot Schmolke and Andreas Krueger

Customer-Focused Management by Projects provides a comprehensive overview of project management, and places it in a company-wide perspective. Vaupel, Schmolke and Krüger use their long-term practical experience in management by and of projects to present a complete management concept which can be directly transferred into practice.

The authors set out an integrated management concept for project-oriented companies, including developing the management of individual projects as a company's core competence. The crucial role of corporate culture in the success of project management is emphasized, and an outline of the procedures and functions integral to a project-supportive culture is provided. The principles of organizational learning, metric systems and project benchmarking are applied to project-management, making this a useful and informative book for newcomers to Project Management and more experienced readers alike.

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Title:
Cultivating Learning Within Projects
Author:
Andrew Sense

Drawing on new research in an under-explored topic, this book offers an entirely fresh perspective on how to cultivate learning within a project environment. It provides a framework to facilitate project practitioners' systematic reflection on their learning activities and to assist them in building a project learning practice. It also identifies new points of interest for researchers to further investigate the learning phenomenon in projects.

This book weaves together diverse theories and empirical data in a way that should appeal to a wide academic and practitioner audience, and challenges all readers to consider intra-project learning as primarily a social activity which requires their deliberate commitment, understanding and attention.

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Title:
Knowledge Management in Project-Based Companies:
An Organic Perspective
Author:
Kaj U. Koskinen and Pekka Pihlanto

Knowledge management is a prerequisite to sustain a competitive advantage in project-based companies. However, in these companies and projects in general, the activities like knowledge acquisition and sharing are often very complex tasks. This is due to the fact that project management teams are often a set of diversely skilled people working together over a limited amount of time, and they often include members who have never worked together before and who do not expect to work together again.

This book presents a new portfolio of various concepts and insights into the management of knowledge in project-based companies. In doing this it utilizes autopoietic epistemology and a holistic concept of man as observational schemes and analytical tools, with a focus on organic, human issues.

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