Acknowledgments
I am most grateful to my wife, Silvia; my children—Antje, Daniel, Sandrine, and Tizian; and my grandchildren, Amelie and Helena, for their patience with me when I was busy with this book and could not give them the time and attention that they deserved from me.
My special thanks also go to Dr. Ginger Levin, who believed in me right from the start and was a highly critical reviewer during the time of writing, as well as to John Wyzalek (my Editor at CRC Press), who shared his support and trust in me. I would also like to thank the production staff at DerryField Publishing Services—Theron Shreve, Marje Pollack, Mary Lemons, and Susan Culligan.
In addition, I am thankful to the many experts whom I’ve had the honor to meet in person, and whose thoughts and beliefs helped shape mine, including James R. Snyder, one of the founders of PMI; William R. Duncan, primary author of the original PMBOK® Guide 1996 and the trainer for my PMP preparations; Patrick Weaver, who is one of the few experts I’ve met so far who shares my interest in the history of project management; and Cornelius Fichtner, who, during a day trip to San Diego with me, took the time to discuss the most basic concepts of this book and who inspired me to realize it. Thanks also go to Deanna Landers, Robert Monkhouse, and Kris Troukens who, together with other idealistic friends and colleagues, founded Project Managers Without Borders and opened the profession to a new degree of altruism, benevolence, and magnanimity.
I should also not forget to express my gratitude to Professor Jean Lipman-Blumen, who taught me the secrets of Connective Leadership. In the community of her followers, she is considered the rock star in leadership research, and I am one of these followers. She has a central place in this book and in my heart.
Several book authors were also influential in helping me develop the situational understanding of project management and of the dynamics of success and failure, including Aaron J. Shenhar, Dov Dvir, Eryn Meyer, Harold Kerzner, Jerry B. Harvey, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Oliver Hart, Philip Rosenzweig, Frederic Vester, Hannah Arendt, Peter F. Drucker, and many more.
Two sections of this book are based on research for which I received immense support from Bernd Müller-Dautenheimer, Boris Reichenbächer, Gaby König, Herbert Gonder, Jan Christian Westheide, Jürgen Sturany, Martin Keil, Michael Krekeler, Michael Dickmann, Patrick Schmid, Peter Corbat, Ralf Friedrich, Regina Wolf-Berleb, Sigrid Schubert, Stephan Koß, Uwe Vigenschow, and Werner Waldner. Without the help from these project management experts, I would not have been able to develop the knowledge for the development of SitPM—Situational Project Management—and of this book.
I am especially thankful to Robert K. Wysocki. The first English book that I read on project management was his Effective Project Management, first published in 1995, and it is a great honor to have him write the Foreword to my book.
I would further wish to express my gratitude to the Board of the PMI Munich Chamber and the over 70 other volunteers, who often had to do their work without the support of the President, and who have done a great and professional job. The same is true for the over 42,000 members of my learning group, “I want to be a PMP®”, in the social network LinkedIn, where experts were prepared to respond to questions of learners when I was not available.
My last “Thank you” goes to the customers and students I have worked with over a period of more than two decades in the professional training business in industry and to a lesser degree in academia. They believed in me, but also challenged my understanding with often tough questions. They helped me question and validate the models and practices that were the contents of my seminars and evaluate them against their individual realities of day-by-day project management. They helped me understand better what the dynamics of success and failure in essence are: an ever new mixture of situational intelligence, luck, and merit.
Munich, 6 November 2015
Oliver F. Lehmann, M.Sc., PMP®, CLI-CA
Project Management Trainer