Optimize the Role of the Project Sponsor

The project sponsor is critical to project success, yet it is a role that is often assigned to a member of the organization with little knowledge or training in project management practices. This creates challenges not only for the sponsor but for the project manager. The organization suffers too if key members of the project team are not fully utilized, as valuable resources are wasted.

In Strategies for Project Sponsorship, the authors address this challenge from all three vantage points—that of the project manager, the project sponsor, and the organization. Based on their practical experience and solid research, they offer practical methods that project manager s can use to optimize the participation of the sponsor. They also offer clear and straightforward guidance for project sponsors on how to properly execute their duties and contribute to project success. Executives will gain valuable perspective on the organization's projects and key players.

From defining the roles and responsibilities of the project sponsor to suggesting specific practices that maximize the working relationship between the sponsor and project manager, this book is the ultimate guide. Examples from real-world sponsor experiences, as well as tips, techniques, and tools, enhance its applicability and practicality.

This book should be given to every newly assigned project sponsor, read and referred to by every project manager, and on the desk of every organizational executive as a reference.

The Government Manager's Guide to the Work Breakdown Structure

The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a cornerstone of managing any project. Every government manager should understand how to construct a WBS in the project or program lifecycle. This quick reference presents the fundamental WBS principles, pragmatic steps for the government manager to follow in developing a project WBS, and a checklist for the project manager to use in reviewing a WBS. In addition, DOD recommendations for avoiding pitfalls in constructing a WBS are highlighted.

The Government Manager's Guide to Contract Negotiation

Federal managers often find themselves at the negotiating table, charged with reaching a solid, fair deal for their agency. Now, you can gain a competitive edge in even the most difficult negotiations with time-tested, effective tactics from a noted authority on federal negotiations. This guide will help you understand the negotiation process, plan for it, develop strategies and tactics, anticipate and counter the other side's strategies and tactics, and conclude and document the negotiation. Concise, accessible, and authoritative, this book offers a veritable arsenal of winning strategies that you and your team can use in your next negotiation.

Strategic planning deals with long-term goals and objectives. Performance management focusing on the performance of an organization, department, process, or employee is what makes strategic planning work. Neither can be done without the other, but both must be adapted to the organization. This volume is designed as a reference for those involved in the day to-day challenge of performance management and measurement. Government managers will find ideas and practices that can be applied effectively in the federal environment.

This realistic cross-section of the project management discipline in the federal arena will help anyone leading, working on, or affecting the direction of a project team. It covers the entire scope of project management from organization to methodology, technology to leadership. This volume focuses on the three project management organizational dimensions of culture, systems, and structure. Federal practices and successes in the areas of communication, project leadership, stakeholders, and key competencies are highlighted. The book offers clear and practical advice drawn from a variety of project management successes in the federal arena.

Acquire the leadership skills that are the hallmark of the successful project manager!

Project management is often defined by processes and methodology, but projects are accomplished by people. Successfully leading those people is the core of a project manager's job. Even the seasoned project manager will encounter situations that present unique leadership challenges.

Bernardo Tirado offers a clear path to help develop leadership skills within the project management framework. Using a hands-on, practical approach, he presents a model for taking any project manager's leadership skills to the next level. His model focuses on techniques to develop and apply three areas of awareness—self-awareness, awareness of team dynamics, and organizational or “political” awareness. The first three parts of the book provide tools for understanding and influencing behavior and the last part brings the three types of awareness together in a case study.

Exercises throughout make the book interactive and offer a continual assessment of the reader's progress.