Managing Business and Engineering Projects

by John M. Nicholas

This book presents the concepts of project management as they apply to a wide range of business and technical situations. The emphasis is on the systems development cycle in projects, organizational issues and methods of planning, control, and project leadership. The text focuses in particular on the skills necessary for project management - behavioural and organizational as well as quantitative methods and computer systems. It examines behavioural issues such as leadership, team building, and conflict and stress management, and uses illustrative cases from construction, product development, research, engineering, government, and auditing industries.

Philosophy and concepts - what is project management? systems and organizations; systems methodologies. Systems development cycle - systems development cycle - early stages; systems development cycle - middle and later stages. Organization behaviour - project organization structure; project roles, responsibility and authority; managing conflict and stress in projects. Systems and procedures - work definition and scheduling; network scheduling and PERT; CPM, network resource allocation and extensions; cost estimating and budgeting; project control; project management information systems; project evaluation, reporting and termination; project failure, success and lessons learned; appendices.