This handbook is based on HRD Press’ bestselling publication The Project Manager’s Partner: A Step-by-Step Guide to Project Management. Like its predecessor, this handbook builds upon The Project Management Institute’s PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), seeking to provide specific how-todo-it tips for achieving many of PMBOK’s recommended best practices.
,Compared to the Project Manager’s Partner this handbook provides substantially less project management (PM) theory and background information.* Instead, it is designed as a quick reference guide for the busy manager and includes all the Partner’s time-tested PM worksheets and guidelines. In addition, the author has drawn on his recent experiences implementing the Partner in training and consulting engagements to create more than a dozen powerful new PM tools which are published here for the first time. These include:
• Worksheet: My Unique Project Life Cycle
• Worksheet: The Project Charter
• Worksheet: Project Scope Statement
• Worksheet: Estimating Duration of Activities and Resources Required
• Worksheet: Project Communications Planner
• Worksheet: Risk Assessment & Response Analyzer
• Guidelines: Keeping Things Moving—A “To-Do” List and Tools to Help You Control and Close Out Your Project
• Worksheet: Project Deliverables Status Analyzer
• Worksheet: Variance Analyzer
• Guidelines: Handling Scope Change
• Worksheet: Project Scope Change Order
• Worksheet: Project Issue Tracker
• Worksheet: The Project Status Report
• Worksheet: Sample Project Sign-off Form
• Guidelines: When to Kill the Project
We hope you enjoy this handbook and that you find it to be a valuable tool for planning and managing your projects.
This handbook is divided into three major sections. Each major section corresponds to one of the “big picture” chores project managers face when setting up and managing a project.
Part I: Your Deliverables, Phases, and Project Life Cycle
This part of the handbook will help you complete your first big chore: Figuring out your project life cycle—in particular, figuring out how your project’s major deliverables (results) will determine your appropriate project phases and how these phases may be grouped together to make up the life cycle of your project. This section presents a generic project life cycle, as well as a tool and suggestions that will help you develop your own customized project life cycle.
Part II: Your Essential Project Actions
This part of the handbook will help you complete your second big chore: Figuring out which actions you need to take to complete your project. In other words, given the phases and life cycle you identified in Part I, what actions must you take to get the project done effectively? This section provides a list of project management best practices from which you may select those most applicable to your project.
Part III: Your Project Management Action Tools
This part of the handbook will help you complete your third big chore: Figuring out what specific steps to take to accomplish our essential project management actions. This is the heart of the handbook. It contains tools in the form of worksheets, guidelines, and checklists to help guide you through each of the actions you identified as important in Part II. While you won’t need to use every tool for every project, you are likely to find that these tools contain valuable solutions to many of your typical project problems.
The table below will help you figure out where to begin.
| If… | Then… |
| You are a new project manager working on your first project … | Work through Parts I and II, then refer to appropriate sections of Part III, as needed |
| You are a first-time project manager working in an organization that has clearly prescribed for you your project’s deliverables, phases, and project life cycles … | Skim through Part I and try to relate your organization’s phases and life cycle to those presented in the text. Then work through Part II and appropriate sections of Part III. |
| You are an experienced project manager who is clear about your project’s deliverables, phases, and appropriate life cycle … | Skip Part I. Skim through Part II and continue to appropriate sections of Part III. |
| You have a lot of experience managing projects, but would like to review some | Skim through all sections of the handbook and challenge yourself by trying to apply any |