Foreword

The forward progress of organisations has always depended heavily on the management of projects. New plants, new products, new organisations, new methods, new ventures – all required dedicated teams working to strict timetables and separate budgets. But today there’s a vital difference. The project management mode has broadened and evolved to the point where managers may spend as much time in interdisciplinary, cross-functional, interdepartmental project teams as they do in their normal posts.

Many factors have contributed to this unstoppable development – among them the increased complexity of all businesses, the closer inter-relationships within organisations and with customers and suppliers outside, and the mounting pressure for speed. The latter demands synchronous working. Organisations can no longer afford to play pass-the-parcel, with each department or function waiting for the others to finish. There simply isn’t enough time to waste.

That pressure demands not only speed but effective delivery, on time, on specification and on budget. That will not happen by accident – and Robert Buttrick’s book, based on his extensive corporate experience, is an invaluable, lucid and practical guide to a crucial area of management which has been crying out for the treatment it receives in these pages. Unlike management in general, project management is self-contained and dedicated to clearly defined ends. The organisations and the managers who best master the methods and maxims in this book will not only achieve their specific objectives, they will win the whole game.

Robert Heller