Exercising Agency is a book about decision making. In particular, it looks in detail at how a very important type of organizational decision gets made: whether or not to initiate a project. Exercising Agency lifts the lid on many of the important behavioural factors that inform project decisions: power and politics, personality, the ‘rules’ of an organization. If you are involved in framing or making decisions about the future of your organization; the projects that you do or don’t decide to initiate, then read this book. It won’t make the decisions any easier but it will help you improve the quality of the decisions you make and over time, the effectiveness of your organizational decision making.
Project work, driven by competent project leaders drives positive outcomes. Unfortunately these optimistic initial results are often short-sighted with few evaluations of their long-term impact. The research contained in Managing Sustainable Development Programmes reveals an extraordinary level of failure in the durability of large change programmes and projects in both the private and public sectors. In this book the authors question whether sustainable development be achieved within the framework of large publicly financed programmes. This strong critique of traditional programme implementation overturns much of our current thinking about project delivery and governance. The authors focus instead on sustainable change and development. They show how active ownership and collaboration between different actors and the dynamics of developmental learning can be used to create programmes and projects that contribute to innovation, employment and growth in a way that favours companies, employees, customers and society in a broader sense. The message at its heart is 'don't blame the project leader' but rather look for dynamic possession of projects, joint knowledge management and sharing with external stakeholders that will secure long-term effects.
Architects and engineers can build models to test their ideas - why not managers? In Game Theory in Management: Modelling Business Decisions and Their Consequences, author Michael Hatfield presents a series of mathematically structured analogies to real-life business and economic interaction scenarios, and then, using modern game theory, he shows how to test common managerial technical approaches for their effectiveness. His results are astonishing: if game theory is correct then many commonly-held and taught management approaches and techniques are not only less effective than thought, they are actually detrimental in many areas where they are held to be beneficial. Game Theory in Management also examines managerial implications from network theory, cartage schemes, risk management theory, management information system epistemology, and other areas where the quantification and testing of business decisions can be employed to identify winning and losing stratagems. While the topic may seem complex, Game Theory in Management is a readable and fast-paced book; readers will come away with an entirely new perspective on the objectives, tactics, even purpose of management, and ways of evaluating the selected strategies and decisions of those within the team, inside the macro organization, and among competitors. Easily-employed tests for the validity and efficacy of management information systems are also addressed, as are those environments where cartage schemes can be most effective, and where they are not. In the areas of asset, project, and strategic management, Game Theory in Management is certain to become a game-changer.
The Social Project Manager describes a non-traditional way of organising projects, managing project performance and progress. The aim being to deliver, at the enterprise level, a common goal for the business; one that harnesses the performance advantages of a collaborative community. Social elements help mitigate the constraints associated with the control aspect of project management, which is essential for governance. Team collaboration, problem solving and engagement in projects will never come from technology alone but require careful management. Peter Taylor draws on research from projects and the worlds of social media and communication to paint a vivid and practical guide to the why and how of social project management. There is no simple template for you to follow; instead he provides an explanation of the benefits, the tools and the constraints so that readers can navigate through to an approach that is sensitive to the culture of their organization and the nature of the projects that they run. Alongside the author’s ideas, the text features advice and case examples from many of the leading technology providers. The Social Project Manager is a very-readable and down-to-earth guide from one of the most highly-regarded practitioners and commentators on the world of project management.
As the title suggests, Project Resilience is about making projects and project managers more resilient. It offers a glimpse into our tendencies to be irrational in the face of adversity: risk, uncertainty and complexity. The second purpose is to offer a new perspective to aid in managing risky, and in particular uncertain and complex projects. The authors go beyond commonly-accepted standards in project management with the aim of providing an understanding of how to implement project-wide resilience. The purpose is to guide, not to prescribe. It is best used as a trigger for a thinking process to define your own unique approach to managing uncertainty, not to replace your experience and judgement. Ultimately, it has been written to challenge traditional wisdom in project management, and to address the rationale for creative best practices.
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