Prentice Hall

Business



Project Management: Achieving Competitive Advantage and MS Project
Jeffrey K Pinto, Penn State University-Erie

ISBN-10: 0132229676
ISBN-13: 9780132229678

Publisher: Prentice Hall
Copyright: 2007
Format: Kit/Package/ShrinkWrap
Published: 01/19/2006

Suggested retail price: $170.00
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For undergraduate or graduate courses in Project Management.

 

This text takes a holistic, integrated approach to managing projects, exploring both technical and managerial challenges.

It emphasizes not only individual project execution, but also provides a strategic perspective, demonstrating means to manage projects at the program and portfolio levels.    Overall, the text strikes a balance by using cases, examples, and problems from a variety of project types, including IT examples, construction, engineering, manufacturing, new product development, R&D, and services.  This balance was designed to create a text that was useful for teaching project management across the widest possible range of settings.


This text takes a holistic, integrated approach to managing projects, exploring both technical and managerial challenges. It emphasizes not only individual project execution, but also provides a strategic perspective, demonstrating means to manage projects at the program and portfolio levels. 

 

How do you show students the relevance of project management to their lives?

  • Project Profiles
    • Each chapter contains one or more Project Profiles that highlight current examples of project management in action.  Some of the profiles reflect on significant achievement while others detail famous (and not-so-famous) examples of project failures.  Covering a diverse ground (IT projects, construction, new product development, and so forth), there should be at least one profile per chapter that is meaningful to the class's focus.

Do you assign cases?

  • Cases
    • At the end of each chapter are final cases that take specific examples of the material covered in the chapter and apply them in the alternate formation of case studies.  Some cases are fictitious, but a majority are based on real situations, even in the case where aliases are used to mask the names of real organizations.  These cases also include discussion questions that can be used for either homework or to facilitate classroom discussions.

 

Do you have your students create a project plan?

  • Integrated Project Exercise

    • Many chapters include a unique end-of-chapter opportunity to develop a detailed project plan.  These Integrated Project exercises afford students the opportunity to learn the mechanics of developing a detailed, comprehensive project plan. These exercises in project management require students, either in teams or individually, to learn the mechanics of project management, including scope, scheduling, risk assessment, budgeting and cost estimation. Students are assigned their project planning activities and have a template (ABCups, Inc.) that helps them complete these exercises.

Do you try to prepare students with the skills that are critical to the Project Managements Body of Knowledge?

  • Integration with the PMBoK
    • The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the world's largest project management organization, comprising over 150,000 members worldwide.  Their Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) is generally regarded as one of the most comprehensive frameworks for identifying the critical knowledge areas project managers must understand if they are to master their discipline.  The PMBoK has become the basis for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification offered by PMI for the professional project managers.  As a means to demonstrate the coverage of the critical PMBoK elements, readers will find that the chapters in this text identify and cross-list the corresponding knowledge areas from the PMBoK.  Further, all terms (including the Glossary in Appendix B) are taken directly from the most recent addition of the PMBoK.   

OTHER POINTS OF DIFFERENTIATIONDo you have students do research on the Internet?

 

Do you use Microsoft Project?

  • MS Project Exercises
    • Included at the end of each chapter are sample problems or activities that require students to generate MS Project output files.  For example, in the Chapter on Scheduling, students must create an MS Project Gantt chart and network diagram.  In the chapter on Control & Evaluation, students must use provided data to generate Earned Value figures. Likewise, other reports can be assigned that require students to become minimally adept at interacting with this program.  It is not the purpose of this text to fully develop those skills but rather, to begin to plant the seeds for future application.

  

Do you assign any articles from the popular press or journals?

  • Research in Brief
    • A unique feature of this text is that it includes short (usually one page) text boxes that highlight the results of current research on topics of interest.  Students will find it useful to read studies that highlight the text material and provide additional information that expands their learning.  Although not all chapters include a "Research in Brief" box, most have one and in some cases, two examples of this feature.

Do you use the internet to assign material?

  • Internet Exercises
    • Each chapter contains a set of internet exercises that require students to search the web for key information, access course readings on the Prentice-hall website supporting the text, and perform other activities that lead to student learning through out-of-class, hands-on activities.  Internet exercises are a useful supplement, particularly in the area of project management, because so much is available on the World Wide Web relating to projects, including cases, news releases, and internet-based tools for analyzing project activities.

This text is available for personalization in the PHCBR custom database program.  Select only the chapters you require or supplement with recommended case studies all under one cover.  CLICK HERE to go directly to the PHCBR book-build site or visit our product page for additional information at pearsoncustom.com/business.

Project Profiles
  • Each chapter contains one or more Project Profiles that highlight current examples of project management in action.  Some of the profiles reflect on significant achievement while others detail famous (and not-so-famous) examples of project failures.  Covering a diverse ground (IT projects, construction, new product development, and so forth), there should be at least one profile per chapter that is meaningful to the class's focus.

Cases

  • At the end of each chapter are final cases that take specific examples of the material covered in the chapter and apply them in the alternate formation of case studies.  Some cases are fictitious, but a majority are based on real situations, even in the case where aliases are used to mask the names of real organizations.  These cases also include discussion questions that can be used for either homework or to facilitate classroom discussions.

Integrated Project Exercise

  • Many of the chapters include an end-of-chapter feature that is unique for this text: the opportunity to develop a detailed project plan.  A very beneficial exercise in project management classes is to require students, either in teams or individually, to learn the mechanics of developing a detailed and comprehensive project plan, including scope, scheduling, risk assessment, budgeting and cost estimation, and so forth.  The Integrated Project exercises afford students the opportunity to develop such a plan by assigning these activities and giving a detailed example of a completed example (ABCups, Inc.) in each chapter.  Thus, students are assigned their project planning activities and have a template that helps them complete these exercises.

Integration with the PMBoK

  • The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the world's largest project management organization, comprising over 150,000 members worldwide.  Their Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) is generally regarded as one of the most comprehensive frameworks for identifying the critical knowledge areas project managers must understand if they are to master their discipline.  The PMBoK has become the basis for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification offered by PMI for the professional project managers.  As a means to demonstrate the coverage of the critical PMBoK elements, readers will find that the chapters in this text identify and cross-list the corresponding knowledge areas from the PMBoK.  Further, all terms (including the Glossary in Appendix B) are taken directly from the most recent addition of the PMBoK. 

MS Project Exercises

  • Included at the end of each chapter are sample problems or activities that require students to generate MS Project output files.  For example, in the Chapter on Scheduling, students must create an MS Project Gantt chart and network diagram.  In the chapter on Control & Evaluation, students must use provided data to generate Earned Value figures, Likewise, other reports can be assigned that require students to become minimally adept to interacting with this program.  It is not the purpose of this text to fully devlelop those skills but rather, to begin to plant the seeds for future application.

Research in Brief

  • A unique feature of this text is to include short (usually one page) text boxes that highlight the results of current research on the topics of interest.  Students often find it useful to read of actual studies that highlight the text material and provide additional information that expands their learning.  Although not all chapters include a "Research in Brief" box, most have one and in some cases, two examples of this feature.

Internet Exercises

  • Each chapter contains a set of internet exercises that require students to search the web for key information, access course readings on the Prentice-hall website supporting the text, and perform other activities that lead to student learning through out-of-class, hands-on activities.  Internet exercises are a useful supplement, particularly in the area of project management, because so much is available on the World Wide Web relating to projects, including cases, news releases, and internet-based tools for analyzing project activities.

Chapter 1 -    Introduction: Why Project Management?

Chapter 2 -    The Organization Context: Strategy, Structure, and Culture

Chapter 3 -    Project Selection and Portfolio Management

Chapter 4 -    Leadership and the Project Manager

Chapter 5 -    Scope Management

Chapter 6 -    Project Team Building, Conflict, and Negotiation

Chapter 7 -    Risk Management

Chapter 8 -    Cost Estimation and Budgeting

Chapter 9 -    Project Scheduling: Networks, Duration Estimation, and Critical Path

Chapter 10 -  Project Scheduling: Lagging, Crashing, and Activity Networks

Chapter 11 -  Critical Chain Project Scheduling

Chapter 12 -  Resource Management

Chapter 13 -  Project Evaluation and Control

Chapter 14 -  Project Close-out and Termination

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