Preface
It ‚ s been said that a person with a
hammer
tends to see everything as a nail, but good craftspeople know that there ‚ s a tool for every job. Project management can provide a veritable Swiss army
knife
of tools that can
prove
useful in many different situations within your organization. Interest in project management as a discipline continues to grow, and the knowledge base within most organizations has grown
accordingly
. Project management works best when all of the parties involved in a project understand the basic tools and practices being used. No one can afford ‚ or would even want ‚ to
certify
everyone in the organization as a Project Management Professional. On the other hand, today ‚ s emphasis on doing more with less makes basic project management skills a must for almost every member of your organization.
Project management is many things to many people, but you are the training professional who can best determine who needs what level of project management training. This book offers some suggestions that may be helpful, but you alone are familiar enough with your organization ‚ s unique project management needs to create a training program that will have the greatest short-term and long-
term
benefits.
You may decide to use the workshops provided here ‚“right out of the box, ‚½ but you will more likely tailor each of them to fit the needs of your various audiences. However, you rarely should find it necessary to create a workshop from scratch and you will most likely find yourself mixing and matching materials and adding new modules that you can use both in current and future workshops.
The content of this book reflects more than 30
years
‚ experience in project management, both as a practitioner and as a trainer. As a result, the list of people who have inspired and influenced me would fill a book of its own. There are, however, a few key individuals who have been major influences and whose ideas permeate much of what
follows
. I am forever indebted to Lou Russell and my fellow facilitators at Russell Martin & Associates for their ideas,
enthusiasm
, encouragement, and comradeship. Thanks as well to my fellow faculty
members
in the Project Management M.B.A. program of Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University,
especially
my colleague and mentor, Cathy Grogan.
Finally, I want to thank the Reverend Joette Waters, advisor Marsha Haake, and trusted friend John Sears for their ongoing inspiration and support throughout the writing the book.
Bill Shackelford
Chicago, Illinois
January 2004
Chapter 1:
Introduction ‚ How to Use This Book Effectively
What ‚ s in This Chapter?
-
A look at 12 common myths about project management
-
Suggestions on how to make the most of the materials in this workbook
-
A guide to what ‚ s included in the workbook and on the CD
The
art
of project management
reaches
back to prehistory: We still marvel that achievements
ranging
from Stonehenge to the Great Pyramids to the
cathedral
at Chartres to the Wright brothers ‚ first successful flight in December 1903 were all created without the benefit of the formal tools and
methods
we now think of as part of the
science
of project management. So you might be asking, ‚“Hey, if those folks didn ‚ t need it, why should we bother spending time and money training people in our organizations to be project managers? ‚½ Well, I think first of all that project management is
both
an art and a science. I also believe that both the science and the art are teachable, that people within organizations can benefit immediately from even small doses of project management knowledge, and that organizations can put together effective project management mini-curricula without incurring a lot of expense.
As an instructor in a graduate M.B.A. program in project management, I also hasten to add that we are talking in this book
mainly
about the teaching of introductory project management. Most of the training we ‚ ll be designing here will be for training events of a couple of days or less. Yes, project management by now has an
extensive
body of knowledge ‚ with a small ‚“b.o.k. ‚½ here; we ‚ ll discuss the Project Management Institute ‚ s
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2000 Edition
(PMBOK) a little later on. We will focus on training in project management basics, but we will make sure to include essential material and pointers to ‚“what ‚ s
next
? ‚½
