Project Management Essentials

These days, project management is seen as 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 will be the go-to book for tried and true project management skills in a concise, up to date, user-friendly format. We will follow the project lifecycle and provide several ready-to-use templates. Alongside each template, we will provide a brief description of what each template is, why it is useful, and an example to illustrate it. The techniques with templates in this book start with selecting and chartering the project. Then multiple issues with team members and other stakeholders are covered. Collecting and organizing the requirements into a work breakdown structure provides the basis for scheduling, resourcing, budgeting, and baselining the project. Once the project is well-planned, the book covers how to control quality, change, schedule, budget, and communications. Finally, the book shows how to successfully close the project and reap the desired benefits. A manager or individual contributor can use this book as they serve as project manager or team member if they plan and manage a project from start to finish or as a reference for help with one particular component of project management. An executive can use this book to understand what the managers reporting to them need to accomplish on their projects and see a straightforward way to perform each activity. This book can also be used in university courses that have a component of project management and in corporate training programs.

Kathryn N. Wells, M.Ed., PMP, is a project management educator who has taught at multiple universities in the United States and abroad. Kathryn has also consulted and trained in project management. She is coauthor of Contemporary Project Management, 4th edition and Project Management for Archaeology and has produced educational materials used around the world. Kathryn's specialty within project management is residential and investment-based real estate.

Timothy J. Kloppenborg is a professor emeritus from Xavier University and is an accomplished author of 12 books. Tim has worked in manufacturing, construction, research, and consulting on six continents and is a retired U.S. Air Force Reserve officer. He holds a PhD in operations management from University of Cincinnati. He is a PMP, an agile certified practitioner (PMI-ACP), and a disciplined agile senior scrum master (DASSM).