Understanding Project Practices and Processes

Understanding Project Practices and Processes distills the author’s experiences in developing program management offices (PMOs) and as an IT project office to guide project managers who may be facing challenges in delivering project goals and managing teams and stakeholders. With insights into the behavior of project teams, project managers, stakeholders, and project organizations, the book brings to life such processes and practices of project management as risk management, innovation, and design thinking.

In presenting principles dedicated to achieving successfully good, sound business and technological maturity, the book explains the following:

• Using lessons learned to improve processes.
• When to implement process improvement to better attain goals.
• Process capability maturity as a continuous process of improving and maturing a process to achieve consistent and repeatable results.
• Distinction between processes and projects.
• How projects turn a strategy into action.
• Key roles of communications and technology.

Research and real-world scenarios explain the practice of project management. With in-depth coverage of project management offices, knowledge management, change management, and project best practices, this book is an indispensable guide for new, as well as veteran, project managers.

Mel Bost is a project management consultant specializing in project closeout and lessons learned, as well as process improvement, best practices, and benchmarking. He has taught “Project Management for Research” to postgraduate students at Arizona State University, as well as developed new approaches to the research process.

He was formerly a practice leader in BOT International’s PMO Practice and is a specialist in PMO best practices, Project Lessons Learned, and program management. He is experienced in all aspects of project and program management, including strategic planning, design thinking, knowledge management, risk management, and business process analysis. Bost has successfully developed the processes, standards, procedures, and organizational structures for the PMOs of several major corporations.

Before becoming a consultant, Bost worked for a number of large national and international companies, including Exterran Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Phillips Petroleum, Tosco Corporation, UNOCAL, Atlantic Richfield Company, and Ford Motor Company. Bost began his career in the industry with Ford Motor Company, where he directed product programs for the North American and European markets. He was also instrumental in a group that introduced finite element analysis in Ford Product Engineering using NASA programs.

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