Project and Program Management: A Competency-based Approach

Choosing the right people to carry out a project is essential to its success, and when multiple projects are combined into a complex program, the human aspect becomes even more important. Project and Program Management: A Competency-Based Approach, Sixth Edition balances a complete account of the technical aspects of project and program management with a practical approach to understanding and developing the core competencies required to accomplish desired goals. On the technical side, this book is a complete introduction to predicting costs, setting schedules, and assessing risks. On the human side, it sheds new light on how to mold different personality types into a team, how to motivate the team's members, and how to produce extraordinary results. The author details the blocking and tackling of the program management approach, describing the best way to define, organize, and schedule the work to be done, while identifying risks and controlling costs throughout the process.

The sixth edition updates those chapters impacted by the many corporate policies, processes, and methodologies attendant to their student learners who use this text as part of their program and project management education. While the quantitative material remains largely intact, the qualitative chapters continue to evolve in real time with leadership, management, and change management processes, as well as the quickly changing demographics of the United States. In numerous instances, technology mandates these many changes and therefore the modification of those applicable chapters. The sixth edition also addresses one of the biggest threats to the discipline of program and project management―the shortfall of available, PM-oriented, knowledgeable people.

Dr. Mitchell L. Springer has extensive theoretical and practical experience based in the defense industry and subsequently higher education spanning four disciplines: software engineering, systems engineering, program management, and human resources. He possesses a significant strength in pattern recognition, analyzing and improving organizational systems, with expertise in program/project management, organizational restructuring, change management, negotiation, and mediation processes. He is internationally recognized and has contributed to scholarship more than four hundred books, articles, presentations, editorials, and reviews. Dr. Springer is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, including local, regional, and national acknowledgment for leadership in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). He is the past president of the Indiana Council for Continuing Education as well as the past chair of the Continuing Professional Development Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He serves as a division delegate to the ASEE Commission on DEI. He sits on university and community boards and advisory committees. Dr. Springer is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP), Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SCP), in Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR), and in civil and domestic mediation.