Visualizing Project Management ^{3rd Ed.}

Projects are becoming the heart of business. This comprehensive revision of the best-selling guide to project management explains the processes, practices, and management techniques you need to implement a successful project culture within your team and enterprise. Visualizing Project Management simplifies the challenge of managing complex projects with powerful, visual models that have been adopted by more than 100 leading government and private organizations.

In this new Third Edition, the authors — leading thinkers and practitioners in the field — keep you on the cutting edge with a sophisticated approach that integrates project management, systems engineering, and process improvement. This advanced content can help take your career and your organization well beyond the fundamentals.

New downloadable forms, templates, and worksheets make it easy to implement powerful project techniques and tools.

Includes references to the Project Management Institute Body of Knowledge and the INCOSE Handbook to help you pass:

• The Project Management Professional Certification Exam
• The INCOSE Systems Engineer Certification Exam (CSEP)

• Part One: Using Models and Frameworks to Master Complex Systems
1. Why Are Project Requirements a Critical Issue?
   Maintaining consistency of the business case, the project scope, and customer needs
2. Visualizing the Project Environment
   Using systems thinking to understand and manage the bigger picture
3. Modeling the Five Essentials
   Visualizing the critical relationships in managing projects
• Part Two: The Essentials if Project Management
4. Organizational Commitment
   Ensuring Success with Management Support
5. Project Communication
   Communicating clearly, completely, and concisely
6. Teamwork
   Maximizing team energy and output
7. The Project Cycle
   Understanding the steps and gates in every project life cycle
8. The Ten Management Elements
   Comprehending the relationship among the techniques to be applied throughout the cycle
• Part Three: The Ten Management Elements in Detail
9. Project Requirements
   Ensuring satisfied users by determining and delivering what's wanted
10. Organization Options
    Selecting and adapting the structure for the project
11. The Project Team
    Getting the right people
12. Project Planning
    Determining the best way to get there
13. Opportunities and Their Risks
    Seeking and seizing opportunities and managing their risks
14. Project Control
    Making sure the right things happen and the wrong things don't
15. Project Visibility
    Providing project transparency for everyone involved
16. Project Status
    Discovering the problems
17. Corrective Action
    Fixing the problems
18. Project Leadership
    Motivating and inspiring the team
• Part Four: Implementing the Five Essentials
19. Principles and Tactics for Mastering Complexity
    Implementing the technical development process
20. Integration, Verification, and Validation
    Delivering the right thing, done right
21. Improving Project Performance
    Moving beyond success
• Appendixes
1. Web Site for Forms and Templates
2. The Professional and Standards Environment
3. The Role of Unified Modeling Language in Systems Engineering
4. A Summary of the Eight Phase Estimating Process
   
5. Overview of the SEI-CMMI
• Glossary: One Hundred Commonly Misuderstood Terms

A pretty good book, that doesn't really live up to its title. It is more an advanced introduction to project management than an in-depth or advanced book on the subject.

As a first book for anyone, it is recommended reading, as it lays out the ideas in a easy to read manner and follow through the some logic. Be warned, though, it really isn't very "visual" except some tables and a lot of cartoons.

For the right audience, it is worth the money and time spent reading it, but don't expect to pass any certifications by reading this.