Project Management Tools

This book is devoted to presenting models that have been applied in project management. There are a variety of project domains. We discuss engineering/construction projects, software development projects, massive projects to include governmental undertakings, and pharmaceutical product development. Chapter 1 gives an overview of projects, and discusses the difficulties in completing projects on time, within budget, and at designed functionality. While the successful completion of a project is a challenge, there are some things that can be done to improve the probability of a project’s success. The book reviews a number of project management concepts. These include developing organizational ability to work on projects, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Sponsor expectations can be based on better information if a good job of project development, estimation and selection is conducted, as discussed in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. Project planning tools involving the critical path method are covered in Chapter 7. Tools to evaluate project risk are covered in Chapter 8. The critical chain method is covered in Chapter 9. Chapter 10 discusses means to rush projects when circumstances demand, to include project crashing as well as Agile and SCRUM approaches used in software engineering projects. Chapter 11 covers project implementation and control, including assessment of delay responsibility.

David L. Olson is the James & H.K. Stuart Professor and Chancellor’s Professor at the University of Nebraska. He has published research in over 200 refereed journal articles, primarily on the topic of multiple objective decision-making, information technology, supply chain risk management, and data mining. He teaches in the management information systems, management science, and operations management areas. He has authored over 50 books, to include Decision Aids for Selection Problems, Introduction to Information Systems Project Management, Managerial Issues of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems, Supply Chain Risk Management, and Supply Chain Information Technology. Additionally, he has co-authored the books Introduction to Business Data Mining, Enterprise Risk Management, Advanced Data Mining Techniques, Enterprise Information Systems, Enterprise Risk.