Proactive Project Management

We all know what it takes for a project to be inspiring to be a part of and to lead efficiently to the requested outcome. It is common sense to be proactive in the management of a project!

This book claims that it is a kind of natural law that we immerse ourselves into the project execution — even at stages when proactive project management is needed for creating suitable conditions for the project execution. The consequence is that the project management takes place reactively, after the problems have already occurred during the execution.

This book aims at shifting the project management from taking place reactively — towards, to a greater extent, taking place proactively. To be proactive implies that the management initiatives takes place where managerial challenges have not yet occurred or been recognized by the participants and parties.

A shift from recognizing what is common sense — towards making it common practice implies a conscious and persistent effort by the project manager and other partners involved in the management of the project. The book supports such a shift by presenting a variety of mindsets and related methods and tools.

One mindset is that the project management process itself should be lead. You promote proactive project management by planning and evaluating relevant management initiatives — and by adapting the level of effort and the tools for the project’s degree of complexity. The entire book can be considered as a method with tools for such planning and evaluating the project management.

Another mindset is that the project management is not only a task for the project managers. The project owners, the participants and other parties must also be proactively involved in the management process. Such co-management means that the analyses and plans created will become more relevant– and have more impact on the project process. The general tool for such an approach, as presented in this book, is to facilitate the management activities.

The entire book is a supplement to the existing literature on project management. The new mindsets and methods promote the idea of being a more reflective project manager — and thereby gaining even more benefit from knowledge obtained from other books and from personal experiences.

• Preface

1. How to use the book
2. Projects and project management
3. Leading project management
4. Facilitate the management activities
5. Project preparation
6. Project analysis
7. Master project planning
8. Project anchoring
9. Project start-up
10. Detailed project planning
11. Manage project execution
12. Ongoing project leadership
13. Stepwise project follow-up
14. Project close-out

• Postscript

1. Project Model Example
2. Index and Keyterms
3. Other literature by the same author
4. Project Management Model — for outfolding
5. Applications of management methods — for outfolding

A pretty good book that describes the how of project management, but manages to exclude program management and to a large part the why of project management. Of course, the how is described very well, so it is still worth reading.

With a bit less emphasis on techniques and with some added program management inside it as well as discussions of the why some techniques are relevant, it could have been a very good book, but as it stands today, it is only a good book.