Project Pain Reliever: A Just-In-Time Handbook for Anyone Managing Projects - Hardcover

As CEO of gantthead.com, I have spent more than a decade observing project managers asking project-critical questions of one another. The questions are never: "Could you list and describe the process areas covered by the PMBOK® Guide?" or "What is a good process for managing issues?" The questions always describe more of a feeling than anything matching up with a best practice solution. Project managers bring up problems such as:

• My sponsor wants more than I can deliver. 
  
• The schedule is totally unrealistic. 
  
• We do not have the resources we need. 
  
• The team is frustrated with "rework" based on changing requirements. * My team will not listen to me.
  
• My team does not understand what we are doing.
  

With those and other questions in mind, Project Pain Reliever is a compilation of common questions and problems, coupled with solid solutions described by an expert. This reference was built to address a large number of problems directly without making you read through significant amounts of text to find solutions. My goal was to make this book as "plug and play" as possible.
How To Use This Book
The Table of Contents is organized by problem, so users can look there, find the problem, read through the solution, and apply it. While looking for the problem you need to solve now, you might see other problems that apply to your project. Hopefully, as you browse through the contents, guided by your specific needs, you will see that this is a book filled with solutions.
Benefits of This Book
Accidental project managers should find this book eye-opening, as it provides an easy way to connect their problems with the time-proven methods typically used to resolve them. Although much of project management is IT-focused, these are problems that are universal across all business functions and industries where people lead projects.
Project managers can effectively use this book to improve personal performance, and, by extension, the performance of their projects and organization. Every project manager has daily struggles relating project management-dogma to everyday work. They often lose sight of common solutions and end up feeling like they are between a rock and a hard place. Hopefully, these quick solutions will help projects get "unstuck."
Project sponsors, portfolio managers, and executives may also find this handbook very useful. Each chapter can be viewed as a quick and easy mentoring tool to fix problems that project managers bring to you every day. Using this handbook could help to improve project results within the organization.
Dave Garrett, Editor
Table of Contents:PART A: LEADERSHIP--THE ART OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Chapter1: Focusing Your Efforts
1.1: Whom do I have to please? 
1.2: How do I define "success" on this project?
1.3: Different people want different things at different times.
1.4: I'm technically on track, but not accomplishing what people wanted. 
1.5: I feel like I need to start over.
1.6: I feel all alone. Where can I turn for advice?
1.7: Management just changed the goals. How do I reset the direction?
1.8: I'm having trouble making decisions. 
1.9: Sponsors won't decide what they want.
1.10: What my sponsor wants doesn't make sense. 
1.11: What makes my project important? 

Chapter 2: Motivating People
2.1: I feel like I'm the only one who cares. 
2.2: Team members aren't excited about their work.
2.3: Team members question whether the project is worth doing. 
2.4: People feel like they don't get credit for the work they do.
2.5: My team doesn't believe in their ability to execute. 
2.6: My team doesn't believe in the plan or schedule.
2.7: My team doesn't believe in me as a manager.

Chapter 3: Effectively Communicating
3.1: How do I gain my team's trust?
3.2: I don't understand what my stakeholders want.
3.3: My team members misunderstand or will not follow my directions.
3.4: What should my relationships with my team look like?
3.5: What should my relationship with my sponsor look like?
3.6: People say they don't know what is going on.
3.7: I can't get people to see my point of view. 
3.8: Someone on my team has an answer, but I can't get it out of them.
3.9: How do I deliver bad news? 
3.10: I can't get management to resolve an issue or dispute. 
3.11: My boss won't listen to me. 
3.12: I can't get the team to talk to each other effectively. 

Chapter 4: Navigating People Challenges
4.1: The office politics are killing me. 
4.2: My sponsor doesn't trust me or give me the authority I need.
4.3: My team members pad their estimates.
4.4: Some team members lack the skills they need. 
4.5: Other projects keep stealing my resources. 
4.6: My team isn't really a team. 
4.7: My team spends more time arguing than working. 
4.8: There is too much finger pointing.
4.9: People around me have hidden agendas.
4.10: I do too much work to manage anything. 

PART B: MANAGEMENT--THE SCIENCE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Chapter 5: Dealing With Constraints, Assumptions, and Scope
5.1: We took on too much.
5.2: Everything has changed. I need to reset goals and expectations.
5.3: We don't have the resources we need.
5.4: We're fine, but over budget. 
5.5: We're fine, but short on time.
5.6: We can get everything done on time and under budget, but not very well. 
5.7: My project's end point is a moving target.
5.8: Part of my project has no end to it. 
5.9: The requirements keep changing. 

Chapter 6: Building and Delivering on Requirements
6.1: My sponsor told me what to do, but there's not enough detail.
6.2: We ended up with the wrong design.
6.3: We have the wrong technology for the job. 
6.4: The design meets the requirements, but does not satisfy the project's goal.
6.5: Beyond being done, how do I measure quality?
6.6: The team is frustrated with rework based on changing requirements.
6.7: Our specifications are unclear.
6.8: We spend too much time on documentation.
6.9: Sponsors complain that documentation and training are insufficient.

Chapter 7: Planning
7.1: I don't understand why we need to plan so much.
7.2: How do I break down a project into smaller parts?
7.3: Everything is "top priority."
7.4: Someone must have done this before. Where do I find more info? 
7.5: I have no idea how to estimate how long this will take.
7.6: The project management software is not helping me.
7.7: My schedule is totally unrealistic. 
7.8: It's hard for me to tell what is important (the critical path).
7.9: I made some wrong assumptions. 
7.10: The company's project management process doesn't work for me. 
7.11: Everything is urgent, and I'm behind.
7.12: Oops, I forgot a chunk of work that needs to be done.
7.13: We have no Plan B. 
7.14: Whenever I propose a project schedule, I am asked to compress it.

Chapter 8: Managing People Day to Day
8.1: Meetings are a waste of time.
8.2: Vendors are not delivering. 
8.3: People ignore my emails. 
8.4: I may not have the right team. 
8.5: I am not sure how much process is enough. 
8.6: I do not know enough technical stuff to manage.
8.7: There are too many issues to handle in a timely fashion.
8.8: How much status is enough?
8.9: I don't know how to test to ensure things will work.
8.10: I can't work well with people at a distance.
8.11: I don't know how to balance my project and team needs!

Chapter 9: Managing Risks
9.1: I didn't realize what could happen if this project fails.
9.2: Problems keep popping up that I did not expect.
9.3: The importance of my project changed.
9.4: My project is too dependent on a few key people.
9.5: Some of this project is beyond my control.
9.6: Costs are much higher than we thought.
9.7: I don't know if a real risk is an "issue."
9.8: How do I know what might be a problem in the future?
9.9: Should we end this project early?
9.10: There's been a crisis, beyond the scope of my project!

Index

Dave Garrett is president and CEO of gantthead.com, the largest online community of project managers in the world. Garrett is a project manager dedicated to creating value for the project management community and to the continued growth of its media networks (gantthead.com, projectsatwork.com, and others), which now reach over 500,000 managers worldwide. His strategic, management, and technical expertise has enabled him to guide the gantthead team in the development and refinement of resources that are unmatched in the project management industry.
Chapter contributors to Project Pain Reliever include:

• Gina Abudi
• Panagiotis Agrapidis
• Imad Alsadeq
• David Arias
• Harlan Bridges
• Alex S. Brown
• Peter Carothers
• Luis Antonio Crespo
• Craig Curran-Morton
• Mike Donoghue
• Ed Evarts
• Cicero Ferreira
• Andrew Filev
• Cornelius Fitchner
• Michael B. Flint
• Elizabeth Harrin
• Andy Jordan
• Ty Kiisel
• Paul S. Lukas
• Jerry Manas
• Alexander Matthey
• Stephen Maye
• Josh Nankivel
• Mark Price Perry
• Aaron Porter, MBA, PMP
• Dave Prior
• Jennifer Russell
• Fran Samaras
• Alec Satin
• Aaron Smith
• Ian Stewart
• Peter Taylor
• J. Chris White
• Jennifer Whitt
• Michael Wood