Practical Project Management: Learning to Manage the Professional

The pressure's on. In today's economy, organizations must perform faster, better and cheaper. Projects have to conform to ever-tightening schedules and budgets. Yet most technical professionals have no training in project management.

Starting with an overview of what every project manager needs to know, this book serves as a practical tool for the technical professional. It defines each unique phase of a project and then provides practical knowledge in areas such as budget and cost estimates, contracts, negotiating, team building, scheduling, and choosing project management software. This book devotes special attention to often-neglected project completion and closeout activities, including tips for how to write and make the most of final project reports. In addition, the book includes a number of appendices that provide sample forms, contracts, and bids used for industrial projects.

Managers of technical projects are discovering that these proven techniques are highly effective to successfully complete large and small jobs. Practical Project Management: Learning to Manage the Professional goes beyond the scope of a simple how-to book. It provides a concise discussion of project management theory along with practical applications that will avoid reinventing the wheel. This resource was written to provide project managers with a complete set of tools to save time and money.

Gerald W. Cockrell, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Technology at Indiana State University. He teaches project management and automation systems technology. He has served as a consultant on numerous projects with major manufacturing companies in the U.S. Prior to joining the faculty at ISU, Dr. Cockrell was an electrical engineer for Rockwell International's Collins Avionics Division.