Product Description

Project Management strikes a balance between the technical and human aspects of managing projects. It is suitable for a course in project management and for professionals who seek a project management handbook. This text addresses the major questions and issues the authors have encountered while teaching and consulting with practicing project managers in domestic and foreign countries. The text is very contemporary and up-to-date. This application-oriented text provides a road map for managing any type of project--for example, information technology, R & D, engineering design, construction, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing. The text helps the reader discover the strategic role of projects in contemporary organizations, how projects are prioritized, what tools and techniques can be used to plan and schedule projects, what organization and managerial styles will improve chances of project success, how project managers orchestrate the complex network of relationships, factors that contribute to the development of a high performing project team, the project system which will help gain some measure of control, how project managers prepare for a new international project in a foreign culture, and finally how senior management can develop a supportive organizational culture for implementing projects.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #330679 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 574 pages

About the Author
Professor Emeritus

Erik W. Larson is professor of project management in the department of management, marketing, and international business at the College of Business, Oregon State University. He teaches executive, graduate, and undergraduate courses on project management, organizational behavior, and leadership. His research and consulting activities focus on project management. He has published numerous articles on matrix management, product development, and project partnering. He has been a member of the Portland, Oregon, chapter of the Project Management Institute since 1984. In 1995 he worked as a Fullbright scholar with faculty at the Krakow Academy of Economics on modernizing Polish business education. In 2005 he was a visiting professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. He received a B.A. in psychology from Claremont McKenna College and a Ph.D. in management from State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a certified project management professional (PMP).

Customer Reviews

Project management? More like project futility!
The author is too eager to impress you with his knowledge and ability to build confusing and complex sentences. I've found I need to read a chapter several times to get anything out of it. Even after several readings, taking notes, I'm not sure what is going on. The book provides allot of chaff with very few "Deliverables".

Unless you are already an experienced project manager looking for a new angle this one is better left on the shelf.

Too bad there isn't a zero star rating, this book really deserves it...

Caution
This book does not include SimProject in case you need it for your class. It took a week of calls to McGraw-Hill to track down a copy, which ended up costing me 50$ after shipping.

Other then simproject its the same exact book as in the campus book stores and for significantly cheaper.

Good introductory book, but impractical
This wordy book is more heavy on management than on project management because the business professors are understandably not trained in project-specific disciplines. Hence, there is inadequate coverage of how projects are actually managed, particularly costing and key contractual issues. Even on their own terrain, the business relations are mostly asserted without solid research backing (e.g. section on culture, where certain cultures are asserted to be pro-projects, but the causal links are missing). If you are looking to teach students basic PM processes, this book is worth a look as the explanation is clear. But if you are a practitioner, learn from your discipline-specific masters. So I have to knock off 2 stars for inadequate coverage, and impracticality.