Author Description

Follow three project managers as they apply the 44 best project practices in different organizations. See how they adapt them to each organization and projects of differing sizes and scales. Chris Pimbock is a new project manager who works for a small rapidly growing startup. Their continuing growth, however, is slowed by customer service problems. Staff and resources are severely limited. Chris has to design a project to fix the problem without busting the budget. He needs to work with marketing people who are nearly hysterical over losing clients because of the customer service problems. They need better systems, more efficient facilities and streamlined operations. Projects are fairly new to the company and the sponsors, affected managers and the professional staff don't know the role they should play. Management also has a problem in setting priorities and sticking to them.Terrie Evans has her PMP and 5 years of experience in a medium-sized Midwest public corporation. Her company is also suffering from customer service problems that are causing customers to leave for smaller more agile competitors. Marketing blames Operations and fingers are pointed in many other directions so blame avoidance is a major issue. There is also significant money involved. Terri is already getting project change requests to add items cut from last year's budget plus other "goodies". Additionally, everyone's favorite vendors are wrestling for advantage in the upcoming competitive bidding. If that wasn't enough, Terrie also has problems building her team. Departments are hedging on committing to lend resources to the project. Worse many of the team members see themselves as representing the interests of their "home" departments rather than doing actual project work.Preston McCarthy is a senior project manager (engagement manager) for an international consulting firm. He's managing a strategic project to improve customer service for a client's global operations. His team is composed of