Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the patience, support, and teamwork demonstrated by the following individuals: my editors, Loretta Yates and Songlin Qiu; the entire Que Publishing team; the management team at INRANGE Consulting Corporation; my project team; and my parents (Carla and Bud).

I extend a special thanks to my technical editor, Mr. Andrew Cline, for his perspective and insights. It was a pleasure working with you on this venture.

I wish to acknowledge the talents and professionalism of Mr. Craig Thurmond for his graphical design contributions to this book.

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Introduction

As organizations continue to move toward " project-based " management to get more done with less resources, and as the demand for effective project managers continues to grow, more and more individuals find themselves with the "opportunity" to manage projects for the first time.

In an ideal world, every new project manager candidate would complete certified project management training programs and serve as an apprentice before starting their first project manager opportunity, but…this is the real world. In many cases, a quicker, more accessible, and more economical alternative is needed to guide this audience in managing projects successfully the first time.

The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Project Management is intended to provide this alternative with a helpful, fun, and informative style.

About This Book

Let's take a quick review of the objectives and approach of this book.

Objectives

The objectives of this book include the following:

• To be an easy-to-use tutorial and reference resource for any person managing their first project(s)

• To teach the key concepts and fundamentals behind the project management techniques

  If these are understood , they can be applied effectively independent of toolset, environment, or industry

• To reduce the "on-the-job" learning curve by sharing the traits of successful projects and "lessons learned" from less-than -successful projects

• To balance the breadth of topics covered with adequate depth in specific areas to best prepare a new project manager

• To review the skills and qualities of effective project managers

  Emphasize the importance of project "leadership" versus just project "management"

Approach

Consistent with the Absolute Beginner's Guide series, this book will use a teaching style to review the essential techniques and skills needed to successfully manage a project. By "teaching" style, we intend the following:

• A mentoring, coaching style.

• Assumes that the reader does not have previous hands-on experience with project management.

• Teaches the material as if an instructor were physically present.

• Task-oriented, logically ordered, self-contained lessons (chapters) that can be read and comprehended in a short period of time (1530 min).

• Emphasis on understanding the principle behind the technique or practice.

• Teaches the material independent of specific tools and methodologies.

• Teaches the material with the assumption that the reader does not have access to organizational templates or methodologies.

• Provides a summary map of the main ideas covered at the end of each chapter. Research has shown that this type of "mind-map" approach can drive better memory recollection when compared to traditional linear summary approaches.