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