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Book Description

A hands-on guide for creating a winning engineering project

Engineering Project Management is a practical, step-by-step guide to project management for engineers. The author – a successful, long-time practicing engineering project manager – describes the techniques and strategies for creating a successful engineering project. The book introduces engineering projects and their management, and then proceeds stage-by-stage through the engineering life-cycle project, from requirements, implementation, to phase-out. The book offers information for understanding the needs of the end user of a product and other stakeholders associated with a project, and is full of techniques based on real, hands-on management of engineering projects.

The book starts by explaining how we perform the actual engineering on projects; the techniques for project management contained in the rest of the book use those engineering methods to create superior management techniques. Every topic – from developing a work-breakdown structure and an effective project plan, to creating credible predictions for schedules and costs, through monitoring the progress of your engineering project – is infused with actual engineering techniques, thereby vastly increasing the effectivity and credibility of those management techniques.

The book also teaches you how to draw the right conclusions from numeric data and calculations, avoiding the mistakes that often cause managers to make incorrect decisions. The book also provides valuable insight about what the author calls the social aspects of engineering project management: aligning and motivating people, interacting successfully with your stakeholders, and many other important people-oriented topics. The book ends with a section on ethics in engineering.

This important book:

  • Offers a hands-on guide for developing and implementing a project management plan
  • Includes background information, strategies, and techniques on project management designed for engineers
  • Takes an easy-to-understand, step-by-step approach to project management
  • Contains ideas for launching a project, managing large amount of software, and tips for ending a project

Structured to support both undergraduate and graduate courses in engineering project management, Engineering Project Management is an essential guide for managing a successful project from the idea phase to the completion of the project.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Engineering Project Management
  3. About the Author
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. About the Companion Website
  6. Introduction
    1. Concept of the Book
  7. 1 The Role and the Challenge
    1. 1.1 Introduction
    2. 1.2 The Project
    3. 1.3 The Project Manager
    4. 1.4 Engineering Processes Can Help You
    5. 1.5 The Engineering Project Manager Mind‐Set
    6. 1.6 Next
    7. 1.7 About Facilitated Lab Sessions and Practical Exercises
    8. 1.8 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  8. 2 Performing Engineering on Projects (Part I)
    1. 2.1 The Systems Method
    2. 2.2 Requirements
    3. 2.3 Design
    4. 2.4 Interaction of the Requirements and Design Processes with Project Management Processes
    5. 2.5 Your Role in All of This
    6. 2.6 Next
    7. 2.7 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  9. 3 Performing Engineering on Projects (Part II)
    1. 3.1 The Remaining Stages of the Project Life‐Cycle
    2. 3.2 Next
    3. 3.3 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  10. 4 Understanding Your Users and Your Other Stakeholders
    1. 4.1 The Four Steps to Understanding Your Users and Your Other Stakeholders
    2. 4.2 Case Study About the Value of Using the Customer's Coordinate System of Value: Role‐Based Processing
    3. 4.3 Special Topic: Designing the User Experience
    4. 4.4 Summary: Understanding Your Users and Your Other Stakeholders
    5. 4.5 Next
    6. 4.6 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  11. 5 How Do Engineering Projects Get Created?
    1. 5.1 Engineering Projects are Created in Response to a Need, or a Vision
    2. 5.2 How to Win
    3. 5.3 Your Role in All of This
    4. 5.4 Summary: How to Win
    5. 5.5 Next
    6. 5.6 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  12. 6 Organizing and Planning
    1. 6.1 The Work‐Breakdown Structure
    2. 6.2 The Statement of Work
    3. 6.3 The Organization Chart
    4. 6.4 The Project Plan
    5. 6.5 Your Role in All of This
    6. 6.6 Summary: Organizing and Planning
    7. 6.7 Next
    8. 6.8 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  13. 7 Creating Credible Predictions for Schedule and Cost: the Activity Network
    1. 7.1 Setting the Stage
    2. 7.2 Estimating the Schedule For Your Project
    3. 7.3 Estimating the Cost of Your Project
    4. 7.4 Injecting Realism Into Your Estimates
    5. 7.5 Cost vs. Price
    6. 7.6 Your Role in All of This
    7. 7.7 The Intersection With Engineering
    8. 7.8 Next
    9. 7.9 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  14. 8 Drawing Valid Conclusions From Numbers
    1. 8.1 In Engineering, We Must Make Measurements
    2. 8.2 The Data and/or the Conclusions are Often Wrong
    3. 8.3 What Engineering Project Managers Need to Measure
    4. 8.4 Implications for the Design and Management Processes
    5. 8.5 Your Role in All of This
    6. 8.6 Summary: Drawing Valid Conclusions From Numbers
    7. 8.7 Next
    8. 8.8 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  15. 9 Risk and Opportunity Management
    1. 9.1 Things Can Go Wrong With Our Project: How Do We Cope?
    2. 9.2 The Steps of Risk Management
    3. 9.3 Two Special Types of Risks
    4. 9.4 Lessons Learned From Risk Management
    5. 9.5 Your Role in All of This
    6. 9.6 Summary: Risk and Opportunity Management
    7. 9.7 Next
    8. 9.8 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  16. 10 Monitoring the Progress of Your Project (Part I)
    1. 10.1 Monitoring Progress Via Updated Predictions to Schedule and Cost
    2. 10.2 Making the Updated Predictions
    3. 10.3 Using the Updated Predictions
    4. 10.4 Financial Measures About Which Your Company Will Care
    5. 10.5 Your Role in All of This
    6. 10.6 Summary: Monitoring the Progress of your Project (Part I)
    7. 10.7 Next
    8. 10.8 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  17. 11 Monitoring the Progress of Your Project (Part II)
    1. 11.1 How the Manager of an Engineering Project Ought to Allocate His/Her Time
    2. 11.2 A Big Claim on Our Time: The Periodic Management Rhythm
    3. 11.3 The Steps of the Periodic Management Rhythm
    4. 11.4 The Social Benefits of the Periodic Management Rhythm
    5. 11.5 Your Role in All of This
    6. 11.6 Summary: Monitoring the Progress of Your Project (Part II)
    7. 11.7 Next
    8. 11.8 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  18. 12 Four Special Topics
    1. 12.1 Launching Your Project
    2. 12.2 Systems and Projects With Large Amounts of Software
    3. 12.3 The Agile Software Development Methodology
    4. 12.4 Ending Your Project
    5. 12.5 Your Role in All of This
    6. 12.6 Next
    7. 12.7 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  19. 13 The Social Aspects of Engineering Project Management
    1. 13.1 Dealing With People, Becoming a Leader
    2. 13.2 Alignment
    3. 13.3 The Sine Qua Non of Leadership
    4. 13.4 Motivating Your Team
    5. 13.5 Recognizing and Resolving Conflict
    6. 13.6 Siegel's Mechanics of Project Management
    7. 13.7 Dealing With Special People
    8. 13.8 Your Career as an Engineer
    9. 13.9 Change on Your Project
    10. 13.10 Coping With Career Change
    11. 13.11 Getting Ahead
    12. 13.12 Two Special Topics
    13. 13.13 Summary: Social Aspects of Engineering Project Management
    14. 13.14 Next
    15. 13.15 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
  20. 14 Achieving Quality
    1. 14.1 Defining the Term Quality
    2. 14.2 One Motivation for Quality: A Good Reputation
    3. 14.3 Quality Initiatives
    4. 14.4 Processes for Engineering and for Project Management
    5. 14.5 Procurement and Subcontracting
    6. 14.6 The Effects of Quality
    7. 14.7 The Bill of Materials
    8. 14.8 Your Role in All of This
    9. 14.9 Next
    10. 14.10 This Week's Facilitated Lab Session
    11. Appendix: What Distributions Actually Look Like in the Real World of Engineering Projects
  21. 15 Applying Our Ideas in the Real World, Ethics in Engineering
    1. 15.1 Applying Our Ideas in the Real World
    2. 15.2 Ethics in Engineering
    3. 15.3 Thank You
  22. Index
  23. End User License Agreement
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