Quantitative Methods for the Project Manager is for professional project managers who need to know how to make everyday use of numerical analysis. It combines theory and practices and is designed to be easily applied.
This book is the first of its kind focusing on Application of Operations Research Techniques (Mathematics) in Project Management. It will be of immense help for Project Management Professionals in any industry verticals including Info technology program managers, engineering and construction managers and various operations' managers. This book includes real industry examples and methods on how to use Operations Research (OR) techniques to help project management decision making. It will be a guide in the implementation of OR in project management. It includes 'Algorithms for various OR techniques'. It also includes Code in C++ for important OR models. The book deals with project management numerical illustrations on the use of various copyrighted software applications like Microsoft Math, SAP, SPSS, Matlab (Mathworks Inc.), Microsoft Project, Primavera, OpenPlan, C++. Most importantly, it provides an insight into building of interfaces between Enterprise Applications/business data warehouse to analytical applications like Matlab. Another important topic in this book is Metrics for Project Management and Progress Analysis (Earned Value Analysis) Methods. This is invaluable to monitor projects also serving as inputs for your project management balanced score cards and strategic program management and cost control. Besides various Statistical Methods and Operations Research Techniques, the book has a compilation of various Project Management Topics viz. Software Engineering Institute's Estimation Methods, various Claims Formulae with examples, Project Managerial Economics and Project Accounting & Controlling Methods. About the Author Retty Velayoudam holds a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering and a Master's Degree in Management. He was a PMI(c) (USA) Certified (2000-2003) Project Management Professional. He is a SAP (Germany) Certified Project System Solution Consultant. He is a Sr. SAP PS Consultant working in USA with 13 years of SAP PS (Project System) Consulting Experience. He has rich experience in Project Management Concepts, practices and in a wide range of Software Tools used for managing large multi-million complex projects in the Oil and Gas, Hi-Tech, IT industry, Engineering, Services, Manufacturing, US Public Sector, etc. He has experience in Enterprise level Project Management Information Systems.
Thoroughly revised and updated for Excel®, this second edition of Quantitative Methods in Health Care Management offers a comprehensive introduction to quantitative methods and techniques for the student or new administrator. Its broad range of practical methods and analysis spans operational, tactical, and strategic decisions. Users will find techniques for forecasting, decision-making, facility location, facility layout, reengineering, staffing, scheduling, productivity, resource allocation, supply chain and inventory management, quality control, project management, queuing models for capacity, and simulation. The book's step-by-step approach, use of Excel, and downloadable Excel templates make the text highly practical. Praise for the Second Edition "The second edition of Dr. Ozcan's textbook is comprehensive and well-written with useful illustrative examples that give students and health care professionals a perfect toolkit for quantitative decision making in health care on the road for the twenty-first century. The text helps to explain the complex health care management problems and offer support for decision makers in this field." Marion Rauner, associate professor, School of Business, Economics, and Statistics, University of Vienna. "Quantitative Methods in Health Care Administration, Second Edition covers a broad set of necessary and important topics. It is a valuable text that is easy to teach and learn from." David Belson, professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California.
Design Methods and Practices for Research of Project Management is the most comprehensive guide on how to do research of and in project management. Project management as a discipline has experienced near-exponential growth in its application across the business and not-for-profit sectors. This second edition of the authoritative reference book offers a substantial update on the first edition with over 60% new content and so provides both practitioner and student researchers with a fully up-to-date and complete guide to research practice on project management. In Design Methods and Practices for Research of Project Management, Beverly Pasian and Rodney Turner have brought together 27 original chapters from many of the leading international thinkers in project management research. The collection looks at each step in the research stages, including research strategy, management, methodology (quantitative and qualitative), techniques as well as how to share and publish research findings. The chapters offer an international perspective with examples from a wide range of project management applications; engineering, construction, mega-projects, high-risk environments and social transformation. Each chapter includes tips and exercises for the research student, as well as a complete set of further references. The book is the go-to text for practitioners undertaking research in companies, and also doctoral and masters students and their supervisors who are involved in research projects in and for universities.
Project management (PM), traditionally employed to implement projects, has developed into Organizational Project Management, as organizations are increasingly using projects to deliver strategies. The emergence of program and portfolio management has also contributed to this move. PM researchers need to become more innovative in their research approaches. They need to connect with the broader currents of social science in relevant fields, such as organization theory. Outside the specific field, there is a great deal that can usefully be imported, transformed, and translated so that it is fit for project management research purposes. More trans-disciplinary, translational, and transformational approaches for conducting project-related research are required, and this book goes a long way to providing foundations for them. The book encompasses reflections on fundamental questions underlying any research, such as the type of knowledge sought, as well as the epistemological and ontological assumptions. It broadens research methods and theory perspectives, drawing on contemporary approaches, such as action research, soft systems methodology, activity theory, actor-network theory, and other approaches adopted in related scientific and technological areas that are only recently being adopted. To achieve this, the book's editors have necessarily been eclectically interdisciplinary in their contributor list. They have included contemporary research methods and designs from areas allied to project research - such as organization science, organizational studies, sociology, behavioral science, and biology - providing innovative invitations to research design and methodological choice. Overall, this book makes a significant contribution to the maturation and development of project management research as a specialty in the broader social sciences, one that is a less-reliant handmaiden or under-laborer to purely technical issues, but which appreciates that any material construction is always a social construction as well, one that implies episteme and phronesis, knowledge and wisdom, as well as techne or technique. Project managers may not realize it, but the most important aspects of what they manage are the meanings, interpretations, and politics of projects, and not merely the technical aspects. (Series: Advances in Organization Studies - Vol. 29) [Subject: Project Management, Business Administration, Organizational Studies]
The contributors to Best Practices in Quantitative Methods envision quantitative methods in the 21st century, identify the best practices, and, where possible, demonstrate the superiority of their recommendations empirically. Editor Jason W. Osborne designed this book with the goal of providing readers with the most effective, evidence-based, modern quantitative methods and quantitative data analysis across the social and behavioral sciences. The text is divided into five main sections covering select best practices in Measurement, Research Design, Basics of Data Analysis, Quantitative Methods, and Advanced Quantitative Methods. Each chapter contains a current and expansive review of the literature, a case for best practices in terms of method, outcomes, inferences, etc., and broad-ranging examples along with any empirical evidence to show why certain techniques are better. Key Features: Describes important implicit knowledge to readers: The chapters in this volume explain the important details of seemingly mundane aspects of quantitative research, making them accessible to readers and demonstrating why it is important to pay attention to these details. Compares and contrasts analytic techniques: The book examines instances where there are multiple options for doing things, and make recommendations as to what is the "best" choice—or choices, as what is best often depends on the circumstances. Offers new procedures to update and explicate traditional techniques: The featured scholars present and explain new options for data analysis, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the new procedures in depth, describing how to perform them, and demonstrating their use. Intended Audience: Representing the vanguard of research methods for the 21st century, this book is an invaluable resource for graduate students and researchers who want a comprehensive, authoritative resource for practical and sound advice from leading experts in quantitative methods.
Projects are inherently risky, since they involve some level of uncertainty, doing something new in the target environment, but the percentage of projects seen as a success is still disappointingly low, especially for IT projects. The ‘Iron Triangle’ of time/cost/quality suggests that all three aspects are equal, but with quantitative methods for monitoring project performance, the focus is primarily on managing cost and time. This book seeks to redress the balance, explaining the rationale and benefits of focusing more on quality (fitness for purpose and conformance to requirements) before detailing a range of tools and techniques to support rebalancing the management of projects, programmes and portfolios. It shows how managing project quality actively can reduce costs through minimising wastage, and reduce delays through avoiding rework, leading to improved project success rates and customer satisfaction.
This book covers three fundamental problems at the interface of multi-project management and human resource management: the selection of projects, the composition of small project teams, and workload leveling. Matthias Walter proposes optimization models and solution methods for these problems, assuming multi-skilled workers with heterogeneous skill levels. For the first time, the author presents exact and heuristic methods that support managers to form small teams. Additionally, he outlines a new skill chaining strategy that increases workforce flexibility.
This book provides information about the key areas needed for a successful project. It includes software skills, developing research objectives, writing proposals, literature reviews, getting ethics approval, seeking funding, managing a project, communicating research findings, and writing reports. There is also a chapter on working as an independent researcher. The book includes numerous examples, checklists, and practical exercises designed to assist the learning of research skills and the completion of crucial project tasks. It covers procedures needed for conducting projects electronically and accessing information from the Internet.