Who Should Use This Book

The original target audience for EPM was the practicing project manager. However, as I discovered, many of the second and third edition sales were to university and college faculty. I certainly want to encourage their use of my book, so with each edition I further expanded the target market to include both practicing project managers and faculty. I added discussion questions to each chapter, and to assist in lecture preparation, I put copies of all figures and tables on the website. EPM6e takes it to the next level with much more collateral content for the instructor.

Practicing Professionals

This book adapts very well to whatever your current knowledge of or experience with project management might be:

• If you are unfamiliar with project management, you can learn the basics by simply reading and reflecting.
• If you wish to advance to the next level, I offer a wealth of practice opportunities through the case exercises.
• If you are more experienced, I offer several advanced topics, including TPM, APM, and xPM in Part II and a number of advanced topics in Parts III and IV.

In all cases, the best way to read the book is front to back. If you are an experienced project manager, feel free to skip around and read the sections as a refresher course.

The seasoned professional project manager will find value in the book as well. I have gathered a number of tools and techniques that appeared in the first edition of this book. The Joint Project Planning session, the use of sticky notes and whiteboards for building the project network, the completeness criteria for generating the Work Breakdown Structure, the use of work packages for professional staff development, and milestone trend charts are a few of the more noteworthy and original contributions.

Undergraduate, Graduate, and Adjunct Faculty

A significant adopter of EPM1e through EPM5e has been the education market. EPM6e offers even more to that market than all previous editions. The addition of complete PowerPoint slide files for each chapter was added in EPM5e and is further expanded in EPM6e. The slides contain all of the content that should be in the class lectures. Faculty can add to, delete, or modify these files to suit their specific purpose and style for each lecture. I have also included a PowerPoint file of exercises. These are designed as individual, team, or class exercises.

Corporate Trainers

EPM6e also has the corporate trainer's needs in mind. In addition to the materials available to the faculty for their credit courses, I will make available several venues for offering EPM6e. These range from 3-day programs to 13- and 24-session programs. Contact me at [email protected] with a statement of your specific needs.