This book attempts to reflect the project reality as closely as possible, covering the ISO 21500:2012 standard that has just been introduced and the benefits from the best contributions worldwide and also providing the concise yet powerful tool box. It shall be easy to use and intuitively supportive of project managers. So far, evidence indicates that these targets are successfully met. One of its key recognitions, and in consequence a distinctive feature of this book, is the impact that the project manager‘s personality has on the fate of the project. The project manager's successful self-management in work & life and in leadership processes should be considered as important in any endeavor as all other project management processes, covered by the new standards and guidelines.
The Workshops on Autonomous Systems emanated from a gathering with the doctoral students of just three chairs at Fernuniversität in Hagen, which we organise twice per year for a number of years now. Their purpose is to discuss on-going research and to create a community spirit. Furthermore, they serve as a means of structuring the students' research processes. The workshop has grown and matured in several respects. The doctoral students presenting their work do not come from a single university anymore, but from three. Besides them and their supervisors, also other scientists became interested in the event and contribute to its programme. Following the model of Advanced Study Institutes, they are available on the premises for relaxed, informal discussions outside the formal sessions. Finally, with the co-sponsorship of Gesellschaft für Informatik, the German Computer Society, and this surprisingly comprehensive volume of contributions published by Springer-Verlag the workshop turned into a visible scientific event.
In recent years, organizational project management (OPM) has emerged as a field focused on how project, program and portfolio management practices strategically help firms realize organizational goals. There is a compelling need to address the totality of project-related work at the organizational level, providing a view of organizations as a network of projects to be coordinated among themselves, integrated by the more permanent organization, and to move away from a focus on individual projects. This comprehensive volume provides views from a wide range of international scholars researching OPM at a cross-disciplinary level. It covers concepts, theories and practices from disciplines allied to management, such as strategic management, organization sciences and behavioural science. It will be a valuable read for scholars and practitioners alike, who are looking to enrich their understanding of OPM and further investigate this new phenomenon.
This volume contains all papers presented at the Eighth European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research. 169 draft papers were submitted for evaluation. In the process of careful refereeing, 33 papers were rejected and the remaining authors were invited to submit final papers. Out of these, 119 were accepted for presentation at the conference and publication in this volume. These papers were prepared by 173 scientists, authors and co-authors, from 22 European and non-European countries, with different cultural, social, and economic structures. Everybody tried hard to make this conference and its proceedings a true representation of state-of-the-art research worldwide: The members of the Programme Committee and the Chairmen of the Symposia were selected among the ~internationally leading scientists. Great care was taken not to make this conference a "European" or even "Austrian" one. We are happy and proud to hear that these "European Meetings" (the name is a purely traditional one) are recognized as the internationally leading conferences in cybernetics and systems research. Important scientists from allover the world carefully prepare their papers, containing their most recent research findings, and then enjoy the discussions with their co 11 eagues.
“The Metis of Projects” addresses veteran project manager Ben Berndt’s unease with the use of established (project) management frameworks given their general inefficacy. Despite the use of these frameworks, it is estimated that some 30% of projects still fail because they deliver too late, cost more than expected and/or lack quality. Often, projects and their environments are too complex to be controlled by rather linear frameworks. Where most practitioners define complexity as "complicated," most academics define complexity (more correctly) as interrelatedness. In recent years, the academic community has developed several "level-of-complexity frameworks;" however, these frameworks are not commonly known to practitioners and are therefore not regularly used. And, when examined further, these frameworks appear to be merely environmental scans, used to assess the level of complexity in the project management environment. But projects also carry inherent complexity; they are socially complex, and it is this social complexity that—paradoxically—needs management. Combined with personality assessments, social network theory is used here to glean a better understanding of the social complexity in a project. Berndt believes that, following Hugo Letiche and Michael Lissack's emergent coherence concept, managers should steer clear of frameworks in order to come to grips with the complex, and so he introduces whole systems methodologies, in which group understanding is used to continually set a next step. Berndt concludes his study by describing his multi-view, multi-tool participative project management style, which he thinks best aligns with (managing) the complex.
A historical study of Chile's twin experiments with cybernetics and socialism, and what they tell us about the relationship of technology and politics. In Cybernetic Revolutionaries, Eden Medina tells the history of two intersecting utopian visions, one political and one technological. The first was Chile's experiment with peaceful socialist change under Salvador Allende; the second was the simultaneous attempt to build a computer system that would manage Chile's economy. Neither vision was fully realized—Allende's government ended with a violent military coup; the system, known as Project Cybersyn, was never completely implemented—but they hold lessons for today about the relationship between technology and politics. Drawing on extensive archival material and interviews, Medina examines the cybernetic system envisioned by the Chilean government—which was to feature holistic system design, decentralized management, human-computer interaction, a national telex network, near real-time control of the growing industrial sector, and modeling the behavior of dynamic systems. She also describes, and documents with photographs, the network's Star Trek-like operations room, which featured swivel chairs with armrest control panels, a wall of screens displaying data, and flashing red lights to indicate economic emergencies. Studying project Cybersyn today helps us understand not only the technological ambitions of a government in the midst of political change but also the limitations of the Chilean revolution. This history further shows how human attempts to combine the political and the technological with the goal of creating a more just society can open new technological, intellectual, and political possibilities. Technologies, Medina writes, are historical texts; when we read them we are reading history.
Study of operational research in management - includes sections on decision making and control, simulation, automation and the outcome for industry and government.
This book enhances learning about complex project management principles and practices through the introduction and discussion of a portfolio of tools presented as an evolving toolbox. Throughout the book, industry practitioners examine the toolsets that are part of the toolbox to develop a broader understanding of complex project management challenges and the available tools to address them. This approach establishes a dynamic, structured platform for a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the modern, rapidly changing, multifaceted business environment to teach the next generation of project managers to successfully cope with the ever increasing complexity of the 21st century.
