The first edition of Gerald Bradley's Benefit Realisation Management quickly established itself as the definitive, practical guide to using measures to track performance throughout the life of a project or programme; enabling organisations to eliminate wasted investment, realise more benefits and realise them earlier. The second edition takes you step-by-step through the benefits realisation process, explaining along the way, how to: ∗ define your projects and programmes by mapping the benefits ∗ produce a convincing and accurate business case ∗ communicate the benefits and get all your stakeholders on board ∗ agree the measures you will use to encourage the desired behaviours, to monitor progress and to assess the ultimate success of the project or programme ∗ use the benefits realisation approach to understand and address the human aspects of the project, including resistance to change, training needs and new ways of working ∗ integrate this approach into your organisation's culture and systems The second edition includes expanded guidance on benefits realisation for portfolio management and includes revisions to the original text along with additional case study examples. The text of the latest edition is now printed in four-colour which make the detailed and varied benefit maps throughout the text immediately more striking and comprehensible. The benefits realisation management methodology fits closely with existing programme and project management approaches such as MSP and Prince 2, making it appropriate for both public and private sector environments. If you are investing heavily in change management, IT infrastructure or project working, then this book is a must-read that will justify its price many times over.
Change programmes in both private and public sectors have a poor record of delivering their intended value. The reasons given most often for their failure include lack of executive support or buy-in from key users, loose requirements definition, weak programme management, and plain wishful thinking. They rarely include technical limitations. Value Management puts forward the view that the true problem lies in failing to understand the causal links between the intended stakeholder outcomes and the actual programme outputs. Repeating the pattern of failure can be avoided by asking two questions: – Before implementation, what capabilities must a change programme deliver, when and in what order so as to cause intended value against a defined purpose with speed and certainty? – During and after implementation, what minor adjustments and/or major shifts are needed to be certain that the programme remains on purpose and on value? and two answers to be given: – Target, time and align change programmes to deliver maximum intended value to stakeholders - the baseline business case – track and respond to changes during and beyond implementation to ensure that the programme actually delivers or exceeds intended value - value realisation. The authors show how, by asking and answering these questions, direction and delivery of any programme can be clarified and greater economic value achieved.
If you don't communicate your strategy in a way that your people understand and find compelling, how can you expect them to help you succeed with it? Research suggests only 5% of the people in an organization understand its strategy. If that is true for your organization, whose strategy are the other 95% implementing? Not yours, that is for sure.' Phil Jones' Communicating Strategy is designed to help you communicate your strategy in a compelling and effective way, and dramatically improve implementation and the resulting outcomes. It provides a clear framework for building a communication plan as well as practical information, techniques, tools, tips and exercises that can be applied to explain and deliver a complete and coherent message. There is guidance on how to identify likely obstacles to change and how the psychology behind your story - and the language you use - can help create change champions; as well as details of how to use metaphor, quotations and imagery to paint a vivid picture. The author also explores the reasons why your organization's structure, processes and culture may stifle your story and the steps you can take to align each of these to the strategy. This is an exceptional book that includes elements of organizational theory, human psychology and good, straightforward common sense. If you believe that people will do a better job if they understand what you are thinking and what you want, this book is for you.
There is more than a touch of 'The Emperor's New Clothes' in the way many organizations approach project management and the consequences are all too clear: project methodology inappropriately applied; little or no consideration of complexity or ambiguity; alienation of the stakeholders and a statistically poor record of performance for major business or infrastructure projects. Charles Smith's groundbreaking book Making Sense of Project Realities offers convincing explanations as to why project management theory and practice have become disconnected and describes the kind of complex, human skills that are required to deliver successful projects. The text draws heavily on the experiences of practising project and programme managers from across private and public sector organizations, many of whose stories were shared and analysed during the two-year research network 'Rethinking Project Management', which brought together thought leaders on project management from consultancy, industry and academia. The result is a highly readable, very credible and imaginative exploration of the nature of projects and programmes that will strike a chord with every project practitioner; a book that offers a realistic set of ideas for developing creative and effective project players, who understand the purpose of what they are doing, the context within which they are working, and the people with whom they need to engage. Update: Several MBA Courses use this book and the tutor feedback is encouragingly positive, including: "can be used from day one to change the mindset of the students concerning projects and their management.
Organisations continue to struggle with their strategies; even when they have a strategy development process, their plans rarely have the impact that was intended. Too many of their people don't know about the strategy, don't understand it or can't translate it into what it means for their role. Validating Strategies addresses the taxonomy, syntax and semantics of strategies; in other words: what does the strategy say, how does it relate to other plans, what are the causalities between the strategy and successful business outcomes and how should this all be expressed in a language that everyone in the organization can understand. The model at the heart of this book - Organisations run Projects that produce Results and enable people to Use them to create Benefits (PRUB) - offers an intuitive approach that links collaborative strategic planning and validation to project and programme management so as to create, validate and implement strategies. The strategy development and validation model offered by Phil Driver addresses the struggle of organisations to realise their strategy, replacing endless projects that don't quite seem to deliver what the organization needs with an easy-to-understand, implementable methodology that can be validated with evidence.
This very practical guide describes the whole process of contracting for goods and services, from selecting tenderers to placing a contract. It details the key topics that are necessary for success, such as contract strategy, contract types, contract law and evaluating tenders. Whilst the book also addresses the project context in which purchasing takes place, the subject matter could equally be applied to any business context. The treatment of the subject assumes no prior knowledge but, at the same time, provides the experienced person with new, and sometimes unconventional, insights into the subject. The book includes personal experiences, cases and exercises in order to root the subject into the real world. The Project Manager's Guide to Purchasing has been structured so that the reader can choose the chapter topic areas that they wish to study in isolation. Where necessary references are provided to complement the individual chapters. Illustrations of key documents in the purchasing and contracting process are also provided.
Ongoing research shows that whilst 90 per cent of large companies are conducting global projects to take advantage of distributed skills, around-the-clock operations and virtual team environments, less than one third of them have effective, established practices to help project managers and team members working over a distance. As a consequence, most organisations struggle to reach the required levels of quality and effectiveness from these projects because their methods and practices are not adapted to a global multi-cultural environment, where most communication is in writing and asynchronous. Global Project Management describes how to adapt your organisation and your projects to thrive in this environment. The book goes beyond the recommendations on collaborative tools, to suggest the development of best practices on cross-cultural team management and global communication, recommend organisational changes and project structures, and propose alternatives for the implementation of the new practices and methods. The text is filled with real-life examples and techniques and illustrates how to apply the recommendations as part of the successful management of any global project.
Organizations and those who work within them are under attack from the increasingly pervasive impacts of commoditization. With little to distinguish one company's products and services from another or one person's skills and capabilities from the next, organizations and workers alike are finding themselves trapped in the me-too hell of commoditization. For many this means the survival of the cheapest, as price becomes the principal basis for decision making. For others it requires them to think creatively to avoid the trap of commoditization, even though this may only provide a temporary respite. In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Holmes sets out why commoditization represents such a clear and present danger to every corporation and all white-collar workers. Starting with the nature of the commodities we are familiar with such as coal and cotton, Holmes moves on to describe how commoditization is affecting entire industries and is increasingly touching the work of the professional classes. The evidence is both fascinating and compelling and it is clear that the impacts of commoditization are far reaching. The author also outlines the impact of commoditization on an organization's strategy towards brand, supply chain, value chain, innovation, pricing and competition. He explores the implications for skills, attitudes and behaviours in the workplace before describing a series of strategies for avoiding the risk and exploiting the opportunities offered by a new commoditized world, such as outsourcing, innovation, offshoring, mergers and acquisitions, divestments and first mover advantage. Holmes offers organizations and white-collar workers a range of strategic responses which can be used to combat its worst impacts. And as commoditization continues to make inroads into the corporate and working worlds, this book will be an invaluable companion to addressing the challenges which it presents.
In The Focused Organization Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez shows you how fewer, more effectively elected and managed projects are the key to strategic and long-term success. Using his own research and work experience he explains how and why those organizations that focus on just a few key initiatives can perform significantly better than unfocused organizations, not only financially but also in achieving their strategic objectives and motivating their staff. The author introduces a new way of looking at a company through two very different and often conflicting dimensions: running-the-business and changing-the-business. What you add to one dimension you have to subtract from the other one. Finding the right balance between these two dimensions represents one of the major challenges to successful strategy execution. Becoming a focused organization involves a radical change in the way companies are organized and the way they select and manage projects - the creation of a new culture. The Focused Organization discusses the characteristics that comprise a focused organization. It describes key areas where a focused organization builds its levels of maturity; provides examples of focused organizations that outperform the rest; and explains in practical steps how all enterprises can become focused. The book finishes with a unique and inspiring case study that transports us to the early days of the current business world. Through the main character, Benny White, we learn how a business was conducted and how management evolved over decades with the introduction of business theories, including project management.
The Single-Minded Project offers an approach to project management that is entirely complementary to the existing methodologies; one that recognises that at its heart, the management of a project relies on the perceived choices and methods, behaviours and decision-making of its players and the freedom of action that is permitted to the project regime. It fills in the gaps where the methodology doesn’t provide any kind of response to questions such as ‘how fast should we deliver this project’ and ‘how much diligence is appropriate in our decision-making’. It recognises that performance ultimately rests on human knowledge, resolve, skill and collaboration.
Industry consolidation, mergers, changes to business models, the emergence of new threats all require managers to understand highly complex situations, assess risk and opportunity and make informed decisions. How can senior managers do this effectively when so often they are wrestling with brand new scenarios? One of the emerging solutions is business wargaming. Daniel F. Oriesek and Jan Oliver Schwarz provide the first comprehensive look at wargaming as a business tool in a book that explores the anatomy and success factors of a typical wargame. The authors explain how and when wargaming can be used to test strategies, plan and prepare for crises, manage change or increase your organization's ability to anticipate and adapt for the future. Creating imaginative and credible scenarios, and testing them against smart opponents who are eager to find holes and counter your strategy, allows you to learn about a plan or a new venture in the security of the conference room rather than learning the hard way when you go live. Business wargames are sophisticated but they are also very demanding in terms of time and resources. Business Wargaming: Securing Corporate Value will enable you to assess the potential value of the technique for your own organization, to understand what you will be committing to and develop an informed business case and brief for working with the organization that will facilitate the game.
As medical technology advances and severely injured or ill people can be kept alive and functioning long beyond what was previously medically possible, the debate surrounding the ethics of end-of-life care and quality-of-life issues has grown more urgent. In this lucid and vigorous book, Craig Paterson discusses assisted suicide and euthanasia from a fully fledged but non-dogmatic secular natural law perspective. He rehabilitates and revitalises the natural law approach to moral reasoning by developing a pluralistic account of just why we are required by practical rationality to respect and not violate key demands generated by the primary goods of persons, especially human life. Important issues that shape the moral quality of an action are explained and analysed: intention/foresight; action/omission; action/consequences; killing/letting die; innocence/non-innocence; person/non-person. Paterson defends the central normative proposition that ‘it is always a serious moral wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human person, whether self or another, notwithstanding any further appeal to consequences or motive’.
Describes and illustrates over four hundred different airplanes likely to be seen in North America, grouped in the categories of biplanes, agricultural planes, low-wing singles, amphibians, low-wing twins, high-wing twins, twin-boom and canard twins, four-engine props, business jets, jet airliners, military aircraft, recently retired military aircraft, and helicopters.
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