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Because of their general nature, these SPM factors may not act as we have hypothesized. Project Management Process : Projects that are organized as a streamlined sequence of activities and that are intended to create added value for project customers will mean improved PMC. Process can be based on structured project life cycle stages, project management activities, and milestones, for example Clark and Wheelwright These stages are typically composed of logically related project activities, usually culminating in the completion of a major deliverable such as a project milestone or a significant event.

To structure these stages as a sequential, overlapping, or concurrent engineering process is determined by the control needs of the organizations involved in the projects Calantone and Benedetto ; Yassine, Chelst et al Project Organization : Bringing together all company projects and organizing their management as a coordinated portfolio will increase the ability to deliver projects in tune with the project goals and thus drive PMC.

Logic :Several previous studies have found that companies that organize their projects around cross-functional, dedicated, and accountable project teams with strong management support outperform those who do not Cooper and Kleinschmidt ; Zirger and Hartley ; Merrills ; Song, Thieme et al The present study does not take this project-level view.

Logic : Project management information systems based upon project management software technology have been considered an important part of project success Clark The current trend is to use integrated information technology, called enterprise project management software Levine , which links individual projects together, thus allowing management of the projects as a portfolio.

By assisting in gathering, integrating, and disseminating the output of the portfolio management process, information technology makes the process accessible to management and enables support of all projects and facilitation of their goals and of PMC.

Project Management Methods : Employing good project management methods that are selected to support project delivery and that are mutually compatible will enhance the accomplishment of project goals, and consequently, PMC. Logic : Although many project management books emphasize the contribution that methods can make to the attainment of project goals, empirical studies on this issue are scarce. Shenhar proposed that certain methods are drivers of project success, and Sobek et al found that standard project methods are crucial in providing a smooth project management process that will lead to reaching project goals.

Their rationale is that methods—for example, work breakdown structure or earned value analysis—improve the quality execution of project tasks and enable the project management process, making the project goals therefore easier to achieve.

Metrics : Projects using comprehensive metrics to measure and monitor performance will have fewer problems, hence higher PMC. Logic : Metrics are performance measures that are often cited as a key to project success Hauser ; Tipping, Zeffren et al when they include all strategic areas of project health, are tiered to reflect success indicators for all management levels in a project, and are mutually compatible e. If all these factors prevail, such metrics should help in understanding how well the project strategy works, where and why it is flawed, and how to devise actions to eliminate the flaws, bringing a project closer to its goals.

Thus, designing and deploying such metrics should promote PMC. Project Culture : In a strong project culture, team members are more satisfied, engaged, and mutually supportive.

They will therefore work harder, and be more effective and more successful, which will eventually lead to increased PMC. Logic : Organizational culture has been cited as a key success factor on the organizational level.

Similarly, project management organizations strive to design an effective project culture, expressed as a set of shared behavioral norms and expectations Cooke It is intended that personnel will identify with the norms and expectations and invest both materially and emotionally in the project Schacht ; Fricke and Shenhar , thus making them more engaged, committed, enthusiastic, and willing to support each other to accomplish project goals Aronson, Lechler et al Leadership : Projects managed by project managers with strong leadership skills are more successful and effective, thus influencing PMC.

Logic : The concept of a strong project leader as a key to project success has been a consistent topic of many studies Cooper and Kleinschmidt ; Sobek II , Liker et al ; Shenhar Along this line, Sobek et al stated that each person in a project should be equipped with the same set of standard skills to accomplish their tasks effectively in order to attain project goals, hence driving PMC. In particular, this definition implies the following characteristics of projects Project Management Institute :.

This means that each project has a definite beginning and a definite end. When the objectives have been met or it is apparent that the objectives cannot be met, the project is terminated. Projects undertake to accomplish something that has not been accomplished before, which makes them unique. Basically, each project proceeds through a set of interrelated activities. Clearly, this definition is generic in nature, perhaps to accommodate the wide variety of project types in organizations.

Under examination here are two types that occur frequently: new product development and software development projects. The essential differences in characteristics between new product and software development projects are intuitively apparent to many project managers. However, going beyond the intuitive calls for establishing a set of characteristics that can methodically differentiate between the two types.

On the most generic level, new product development projects involve designing and building new products, whereas software development projects involve the creation of the software programs.

Each project type has further natural subtypes. For example, NPD projects can be classified as research or advanced development, breakthrough development, platform or generational development, and derivative development projects Wheelwright and Clark In addition, these two categories of project development exhibit some cross-group similarities and differences. For example, they are similar in that they both often deal with high technological uncertainty, system complexity, and risk.

On the other hand, and we recognize that this generalization may not be applicable to all cases , SWD projects are often more invisible, unvisualizable, and changeable than NPD projects Brooks A comparison of several key characteristics can demonstrate issues of similarity and dissimilarity Exhibit 2.

Some examples of those common challenges are the level of technological uncertainty, system complexity, and risk involvement. Projects involving more novel technologies are considered to have a higher technological uncertainty than those with more mature technologies Shenhar For example, breakthrough NPD projects that create product platforms based on a new generation of technology are characterized by a higher level of technological uncertainty than derivative NPD projects, whose purpose is to adapt the platform for a certain market niche Wheelwright and Clark Similarly, an SWD project focused on maintenance, including minor upgrades, has a lower level of technological uncertainty than a breakthrough program Raz Since the essence of NPD and SWD projects is innovation advantage, a large portion of these projects deal with a medium to high level of technological uncertainty.

For example, imagine a project with a single component and a single function of a limited scale that is implemented within a functional group, such as the development of a computer hard drive or development of a software translator. In contrast, a complex project would have multiple components and multiple functions and require the involvement of multiple organizations, e. Many NPD and SWD projects have medium to high levels of system complexity, which causes further complexities in their development process e.

A risky situation tends to be severe when the firm has limited knowledge and experience with the product and process technologies that they intend to incorporate into the product Gupta and Wilemon ; Wheelwright and Clark ; Raz In both NPD and SWD projects, the risk level increases if the project involves many personnel, has a high application complexity, involves a high number of technology acquisitions, and there is a lack of sufficient resources and team expertise Jiang, Klein et al ; Little and Leverrick ; Handfield, Ragatz et al The complexity of the product being developed and the use of novel technology can also lead to undesirable project outcomes Griffin ; Tatikonda and Rosenthal Differences : Several characteristics are good indicators of how the two project types present differing management issues, issues that need to be tackled in different ways.

These issues include product visualization, product and process visibility, and changeability Exhibit 1. In this context, a software product cannot be visualized: we are unable to form a mental image of a software program. While we may know that it is a set of instructions, for most of us, that is as far as we can go in envisaging it. Such a low visualization level is not true of NPD projects.

Even early in an NPD project, when it may not be quite clear how the product will look, prototyping techniques can help us visualize the future.

Thus, product visualization in NPD projects is most often medium to high. And since the hardware product can be relatively easy to visualize, the NPD team can share the product vision more easily. On the other hand, because the software product cannot be visualized, communicating the product concepts and design among project team members creates challenges Brooks This issue addresses product visibility, a corollary to product visualization McDonald To put it simply, software products are not tangible.

In contrast, NPD products are can be touched; they have concrete visibility. NPD teams can visualize the product, transform it into a product prototype, project deliverables and eventually project milestones Clark and Wheelwright ; Cooper and Kleinschmidt ; Kappel and Rubenstein Because of this, an SWD project manager faces challenges in transforming vision into project milestones, which will help create the visibility of the SWD process.

The corresponding lack of process visibility is, therefore, also common for SWD projects McDonald Traditionally, uncontrolled design changes have been perceived as a major cause of project failure because the changes may have scope, cost, and schedule ramifications that can derail the project.

And, typically, the later in project life cycle that the changes occur, the graver are the consequences. The conventional wisdom, therefore, holds that design changes should be fully studied and understood before they are made. For hardware NPD projects, the level of changeability is kept low because of the high costs of change. Such change might involve changes in interfaces, tooling and fixtures, materials, the manufacturing process, etc.

In contrast, if we characterize software as a pure thought-stuff Brooks , there are no tools, materials, and manufacturing process changes in SWD projects. Thus, it becomes more apparent that changing the software and making it conform to other interfaces is relatively easier.

These differences in changeability in these two classes of projects may result in different needs in managing the projects. However, the fundamental differences in the characteristics that differentiate many NPD and SWD projects—product visualization, product and process visibility, and changeability—may lead to certain differences in SPM factors, thus invalidating our hypotheses.

For example, high changeability in SWD projects may render a disciplined, highly standardized project management process less effective because of frequent project changes. Since the process is often built around template project management methods, standardized methods may not be important to SWD projects either. Rather, as our discussion has proposed and as this study indicates, the correlation between SPM factors and PMC may be contingent upon the project types under study.

The extent of that contingency is discussed later in the findings section. Due to the exploratory nature and the complexity of the research, we engaged in a two-phase study, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The first phase employed the grounded-theory research approach Eisenhardt , a qualitative method, and was based on six case studies from NPD, SWD, and other project types.

Using within-case and cross-case analysis, we identified a set of issues that were then grouped into seven SPM factors as extracted from the literature: project management process, organization, information technology, methods, metrics, culture, and leadership.

Next, a questionnaire was developed to elicit quantitative data for statistical analyses. These respondents, primarily attendees of project management workshops, were project managers with at least two years of experience in managing projects. Multiple follow-up interviews were conducted after statistical analysis to add richness to the interpretation of the test results, which yielded insights into practices and substantiating our findings.

PMC in NPD and SWD projects was measured as a set of multiple items, including the degree of accomplishment of project schedule, cost, quality, and customer satisfaction goals, which were captured on a five-point Likert scale five being the highest extent and one being the lowest extent. The numerical level of standardization of the seven SPM factors project management process , organization , information technology , methods , metrics , culture , and leadership in NPD and SWD projects was also measured on a five-point Likert scale five being the highest extent and one being the lowest extent.

The questionnaire asked respondents to think of projects that they were currently managing or had recently completed. These projects were to serve as their frame of reference in answering the questions. Note that determining SPM factors typically requires involvement of the multiple key members of an organization. Given the nature of this study, we were not in a position to follow such procedure; instead, we relied on the perceptions of project managers. Pearson product-moment correlation was also used in conjunction with multiple regression analysis to explore the relationship among SPM factors and between SPM factors and each PMC criterion.

Time tracking reports are useful for building a project plan because they give the team an idea of how long previous tasks have taken. This can give the project manager and the individual contributors more context when they go to assign tasks. Larger teams have a greater need to track and analyze key project data that comes from multiple sources. They need a project management software with a reporting and analytics engine to display the following metrics to help in the successful delivery of projects:.

Reporting and analytics can also be useful to help the team benchmark successful projects and understand where they can streamline their processes in the future. Large companies have the financial and infrastructure resources to implement enterprise-scale solutions. They need to find the right project management software that will maximize their resources as well as provide them the insights from across a huge amount of data while keeping data secure. Enterprise businesses thrive on automation and connected apps.

Whether your project management tool lives inside an ERP or business process management BPM system, or exists as a standalone solution, integrations are essential. API connections and native plugins ensure key information flows quickly into the project management tool and reporting metrics flow back out to the right systems.

Reporting and analytics features in enterprise project management systems play a vital role for the software to be widely useful. These features show bottlenecks in the process or other indicators of needed efficiencies.

They help the team build a future project plan based on real data from previous projects and provide a talking point for otherwise subjective measures. Enterprise companies need to check if their business intelligence tool can seamlessly integrate, import directly, or is compatible with the export format of their candidate PM solution. Data safety and security should matter to companies of any size, but enterprise companies need user controls to effectively manage data access.

An enterprise company looking for their next project management solution should carefully consider how the tools provide administrative authority over access to projects, the number of available user seats, and granular access to capabilities and tasks. Companies should carefully plan how they roll out a new project management software.

The project manager responsible should get the support of major stakeholders—from C-level executives to end-users of the project team. Project managers should include a schedule that allocates the time to learn how to use the software before taking a major project. That way, each and every project will be set up properly. For less fully-featured options, you may look through our Top 10 Task Management Software article to help you find the right option for your needs.

Tags: faq monday. Jose is a subject matter expert and member of the writing team for Project-Management. He has written hundreds of articles including project management software reviews, books reviews, training site reviews, and general articles related to the project management industry.

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The table of content shows all of the topics in an organized way. However, I think some chapters are short, and therefore they should include more content.

For example, Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less. This chapter can be considered as a summary. There is a lack of clarification regarding the structure of the text after this chapter. Agile project management is addressed with only the Scrum framework in Chapter 4. One important advantage of this OER is that it provides PowerPoint presentation files and audio files for each chapter. The content looks accurate. However, some parts need more explanation with exercises and case studies.

The book was published in There are three updates in and However, they are mostly related to the formatting, not the content.

The sixth edition was published in , and the seventh edition will be released in August Besides, in the meantime, new and emerging technologies changed the corporate and social environment with new opportunities, and the COVID pandemic disrupted the understanding of risk evaluation and mitigation strategies.

The content cannot be considered obsolete, but updates are required throughout the chapters. The text is well-written, and it can be understood without ambiguity. The text was structured for modularity with 19 chapters and sections inside each chapter. Therefore, it can be easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections although some chapters such as Chapter 19 cannot be considered a chapter, but a short conclusion.

The chapter titles emphasize planning. Actually, planning is the most important part for a project manager. However, in project management, project monitoring and control, as well as execution implementation , should be highlighted separately beside the planning. Therefore, it can create a perception that undermines the importance of other phases and process groups. Although chapter titles are available in the Table of Content, sections of chapters are not provided. The quality of the images is good in general.

However, several figures such as Figure 1. I did not find any grammatical errors. However, this issue should be addressed by an expert in this field. In parallel with the global nature of project management discipline and diverse teams, the book provides examples of the implementation of projects in other cultures. I found this book very helpful and included it in my two summer courses as a supplementary resource.

This text is a comprehensive overview of the basic functions and processes of project management. It is not an in-depth study in any one area of project management but does a great job of covering the end to end process for a survey or basics course.

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less. I like this text for the coverage of project management topics for a basic understanding of project methodology. Because it is a basics book, it does not cover agile methods sufficiently or address non-standard approaches to project management that could make it more relevant for today's project environments. I really like this book for it's easy to understand language and straightforward layout.

Students seem to be able to navigate and understand this book and are able to follow the direction that references the textbook. This book is very consistent throughout with nicely structured chapters that are easy to digest in a single sitting. This text has equally weighted chapters that are named appropriately and easy to understand.

Within the chapters, there are section headers that make it easy to follow the content progression. I use this book because it is so well organized.

The chapters are clear and follow standard project management practice. They are structured by topic so it is easy to assign chapters that align to the content of the course. This is my go-to book for basic project management course needs. It is easy to read, understand, and use and I love the basic coverage of project management practice that it provides.

This would not be a text for any specific project management topics that need more depth but it is a great basics book for those just starting out in project management. I highly recommend this text. This text is perfect for a beginner's level course in Project Management.

The text includes all the standard body of knowledge components making up the traditional framework of project management. As the text is organized according to this traditional framework, it is readily adaptable to updates of current examples and processes. The text is consistent in its use of terminology true to the body of knowledge of project management. The text contains 16 chapters which readily fits the format of most college-level courses of weeks of study.

The text follows the traditional methodology of study of the phases of project management and remains true to the body of knowledge required. The examples used in this text for explanation of the difficult subject of precedence planning and diagramming are that of planning a wedding, making this a highly valuable text for the hospitality industry and specifically meeting and event project management. This textbook covers many topics in the area but could include more such as "Communications Management" and The textbook is almost up to date but there are rooms for improvement such as numerical examples and case studies.

Using more interested real-word examples id recommended The textbook lacks adequate context for many technical terminologies and concepts specifically quantitative methods such as CPM and PERT.

Many project management techniques are not discussed and explained in details and major improvement in this category clarity is required Terminology and framework are almost consistence but minor reorganizing in topics using the order of the project management areas according to the standards and guidelines is suggested More breakdown in chapters is suggested specially in chapters 10 to These chapters require developed structure using different level to make the concept and content clear and easy to understand As mentioned in "Consistency", using the order of the project management areas according to the standards and guidelines in order to apply minor reorganizing could be effective More graphical presentation and visualization techniques are required.

Many areas of project management could benefit table, figures, and charts to present the context in a clear fashion This book is an excellent high level overview perfect for both business majors and engineers who are learning the ropes for staging a project. This is a standard overview. I would have liked to see a bit more in depth on the techniques for planning but it is laid out in a similar way to how industry tackles problems. The book was written in an approachable non-technical fashion, with minimal use of jargon.

Additionally lighthearted graphics increase the engagement. The table formatting is a bit jarring at times Colors, styles and fonts which can be distracting. The chapters are about the right length for a student to read before class, these would go well with a comprehensive case study.

There is a bit of a jump toward the end of this book From project development to implementation is a bit glossed in my opinion , and I would have loved to see some implementation case study, but otherwise clear. While the book does play some service to other cultures, I think a little more expansion on how regions can effect deliverable items as well as expectations is a major player.

This won't be an issue to students or to the book, but I would add it as a consideration. Overall this is a great primer on project management. I plan to use this book with Senior mechanical engineers to drive context on project planning. Table of Contents should provide short description of content for each Chapter.