Overview

There is often a deep disconnect between the project team's goals and those of the organization. Senior management wants profitable projects, but is only able to quantify its wishes in terms of the traditional project management elements: schedule and cost. To operate smoothly, the entire organization must be driven by the single goal of project profitability. Total Project Control presents valuable enhancements to the traditional project management approach, introducing new metrics and techniques for assessing the performance and profitability of projects. Demonstrating how to maximize the business value of a project, this book discusses new profitability-based data metrics, such as expected monetary value (EMV), expected project profit (EPP), Devaux's Index of Project Performance (DIPP), critical path drag, drag cost, and the cost of leveling with unresolved bottlenecks (CLUB). The impact of implementing these metrics can be far reaching. Not only will good management decisions, at both the project and executive levels, be supported by quantitative data, but bad decisions will become harder to justify. This book shows how to compute and use the new metrics to rightsize staffing levels for projects, programs, and organizations. It also explains what every project manager needs to know about earned value tracking: its uses, abuses, value, distortions, and potential fixes. The book then extends these metrics into techniques for indexing, tracking, progressing, and improving the business value of projects. See What's New in the Second Edition: * Includes new diagrams and new ways of computing critical path drag in complex networks * Introduces DIPP Performance Index tracking * Offers new exercises in how to compute critical path drag and drag cost and use them to maximize project value * Focuses on topics senior management needs to be assured the project team is using to maximize project profitability

Full Product Details

Author:   Stephen A. Devaux
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ebooks
Imprint:   CRC Press
Edition:   2nd Revised edition
ISBN:  

9781498706780

ISBN 10:   1498706789
Pages:   310
Publication Date:   25 March 2015
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Electronic book text
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction About the author The Nature of a Project The definition of a project The multiproject portfolio The tracking DIPP: Setting the baseline for expected project profitability Tracking EMV and the DIPP at the portfolio level Conclusion References An Overview of TPC Planning The benefits of project planning The purpose of a project plan A-I-M F-I-R-E Corollary and paradox Empirical evidence for the value of planning when facing uncertainty How and what to plan Scope/cost/schedule integration Planning and tracking the DIPP TPC at the organizational level Reference Overview of Planning the Work Quantifying the project triangle Estimating the minimum value/cost of time Optimizing the DIPP at the micro level Using TPC on the MegaMan project Conclusion Planning the Scope The scope document Appendix A: Assumptions The fused memo Developing the Work Breakdown Structure The OBS and the WBS Functional versus product WBS Breaking down the WBS Coding the WBS The detail-level activities Six guidelines for developing the WBS Two rules of thumb for the level of detail The WBS as the tool for managing scope change The value breakdown structure The value of computing value Estimating and accuracy Scheduling I: The Critical Path Method (CPM) History of the critical path method Using CPM Duration estimates Management reserve, contingency, and padding The impact of padding Estimating padding Working to the DIPP The impact of multitasking Quantifying the impact of multitasking Precedence Ancestors and descendants CPM logic diagrams with parallel activities The forward and backward passes Formula for the forward pass Formula for the backward pass Total float Free float Scheduling constraints Using CPM to optimize the schedule Critical path drag Computing drag Using drag Using drag to recover a schedule Computing an activity's true cost Scheduling II: The Precedence Diagram Method (PDM) FS, SS, FF, and SF Lag and lead Two more ways to shorten the project The new product project with PDM Computing drag in a PDM network diagram Was PDM really an advancement? A quick method of computing drag in SS relationships Generating the CPM schedule for the MegaMan project Using drag to optimize the PDM schedule The doubled resource estimated duration (DRED) The reverse critical path anomaly Summary of the benefits of CPM Other methods of scheduling projects The Gantt chart Backward scheduling The program evaluation and review technique (PERT) Monte Carlo risk simulations Activity-Based Resource Assignments Activity-based resource assignments (ABRA) Assigning the resources to the MegaMan project Project management work and costs Total budget and starting DIPP Analyzing and implementing the DRED Making the scheduling decisions TPC value scheduling Summary Resource Scheduling and Leveling Resource leveling of the critical path Resource leveling on the critical path Time-limited versus resource-limited resource leveling The CLUB (cost of leveling with unresolved bottlenecks) Resource schedule drag Resource availability drag (RAD) The formula for computing RAD The value of RAD The resource-leveled schedule for the MegaMan project Rightsizing a project-driven organization HR and the CLUBs Multiproject resource scheduling Tracking and Controlling the Project Reporting progress The planned DIPP baseline Variances in the actual DIPP The DIPP performance index (DPI) Working to maximize the DPI Conclusion Glossary Appendix Index

Reviews

Stephen Devaux puts forth a manifesto for how project management can drive profits when projects are managed and measured as investments. Not only is Total Project Control a practitioner's guide, it is also an executive's overview of how to view projects and invest wisely for returns to the bottom line. The benefit of how Devaux lays out the text is that a project manager can use it a quick resource for any phase of the project without having to read it cover to cover. The first edition of Total Project Control was a breakthrough of insights into effective project management. The second edition crystalizes the concept of how projects must be considered an investment, not just a set of tasks to delivering a product or service. - Edward R. Equi, Senior Research Scientist at MIT This book provides a lot of food for thought on improving the decision making process which drives business value from projects. Not just from an academic standpoint, but with tools that can be implemented by the project team. I find it to be a valuable contribution to advancing the state of the art in project management. - Bernard Ertl This is a very unique and interesting textbook for PM practitioners. The author proposes several new metrics such as DIPP, drag, drag cost, DRED, DPI and so on. They were developed through real world experiences and needs. Explanations on building WBS and calculating CPM are also very useful and practical. The author's view; the project: is an investment will lead the readers to awareness of project values. This is very important, since the ultimate objective of project management is to maximize the project value. - Tomoichi Sato, JGC Corporation

Author Information

Bajan-born Steve Devaux is a project management theorist, consultant, and academic. He developed TPC, an ROI-based approach to project planning and analysis, as well as such new techniques as critical path drag and the value breakdown structure (VBS). He founded Analytic Project Management in 1992 and has consulted to industries ranging from software to aerospace. He has an M. Sc. in project management from Northeastern University and has taught graduate courses at Brandeis University, Suffolk University, and University of West Indies at Barbados.

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