Project Management for Practice: A Guide and Toolbox for Successful Projects

222 Pages·2022·3.444 MB·English

by  Daud Alam, Uwe Gühl

Daud Alam
Uwe Gühl
Project
Management for
Practice
A Guide and Toolbox for Successful Projects
Project Management for Practice
Daud Alam · Uwe Gühl
Project Management for
Practice
A Guide and Toolbox for Successful
Projects
Daud Alam Uwe Gühl
EDV-Beratung Alam Stuttgart, Germany
Sindelfingen, Germany
ISBN 978-3-662-65158-2 ISBN 978-3-662-65159-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65159-9
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does
not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective
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The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
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published maps and institutional affiliations.
Responsible Editor: Petra Steinmueller
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer
Nature.
The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
This book is dedicated to Nafisa Alam, Micha A.,
our families and our friendship.
Foreword
This is an excellent book for everyone who wants to find out more about project manage-
ment.
Written using the authors’ wide-ranging experiences solving real-life problems and
their many years training students and lecturing, this book is a well-structured approach,
complete with practical steps to facilitate all project management tasks. Each chapter
starts with a set of learning objectives and ends with a summary of the relevant findings.
In between, you find descriptions of sample problems taken from the automotive and IT
sectors as well as content illustrating typical project phases, advice on strategies, practice
examples, document templates, and checklists to work through and many well-illustrated
solutions and practical tips.
As well as providing an introductory theory on project management, the book also
offers the tools readers need to bring their own projects to a successful conclusion.
Although an introductory text, more experienced project management practitioners can
also benefit from the interesting content, templates, and checklists which will help them
to implement their project practices in even more successful ways.
The second edition is even more valuable by considering agile aspects and change
management. Additional tasks help to achieve a better understanding.
I highly recommend this interesting and neatly constructed book to all beginners who
are looking for their first introductory book on project management.
June 2020 Arnon Rungsawang
Associate Prof. in Computer Engineering
Kasetsart University
Bangkok, Thailand
vii
viii Foreword
Project management is nothing new. Someone might even come up with the idea of ask-
ing whether the world needs another book on project management. In my opinion, the
answer is: Yes, however.
Due to the constantly increasing competition and the simultaneously shorter and
shorter product cycles, projects in the economy have been changing significantly for
some time. The resources (time, money and capacity) available are being reduced even
further, the project participants and stakeholders are distributed across different regions
of the world and the desired goal is to be achieved as safely as never before.
For this reason, it is even more important than ever to know exactly what the result of
the project should be and how to measure it. There is a need for a clear structure in pro-
ject phases as well as the definition of milestones by which the project and its progress
can be monitored. The monitoring, often referred to as controlling, must keep the really
relevant aspects in mind. However, the effort for controlling and the associated report-
ing to budget responsible persons or customers must not exceed that of the professional
project processing. Efficiency is one reason for this, the motivation of the processors the
other, almost even more important one.
The goal-oriented monitoring of project progress sometimes leads to the realization
that the chosen path was not quite optimal. Further action, possibly even milestones that
have been set, must at least be called into question, often needing to be completely rede-
fined. Therefore, an open approach to failures or mistakes is a key factor for the success
of a project. Acknowledging this situation allows for steps to be taken to analyze the
cause and replan the project.
Project management today not only requires the ability to always flexibly adapt the
project to current conditions, but much more has to be taken into account for successful
goal achievement and all of this has to be done in a shorter time.
This book has structured the topic of project management well and thus made it prac-
tice-oriented. It offers the project manager a flexible support to successfully meet the
ever-increasing demands.
June 2020 Dr. Gritt Ahrens
Director of Quality Management
Daimler Buses
Neu-Ulm
Preface
Every day we have projects to do in our professional and private lives. Our work
includes not only project management but also the transfer of the corresponding knowl-
edge. This took place at various project management training courses and lectures, e.g.
at the Stuttgart Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Hochschule Pforzheim, Hochs-
chule Albstadt-Sigmaringen and at Kasetsart University in Bangkok and Sriracha, Thai-
land. Here, both on the part of the participants and on our part as lecturers, there was a
demand for a book with a practical reference that could serve as a toolbox for project
management.
The aim of this book is not only to introduce the topic theoretically, but also to give
the reader the necessary tools for use in practice. The most important terms and phases
of project management are explained in compliance with standards. Subsequently, this
book deals with cross-project cross-cutting issues and specific content with regard to the
project phases. Agile aspects are considered in a separate chapter. Tips and hints, exam-
ples, templates and checklists as well as tasks and solutions from project practice in the
automotive and IT sector supplement the content. This should give you a good and quick
access to the topic of project management and help you to successfully complete your
project. This book is designed for the following target groups:
• Curious people who want to acquire first knowledge about and understanding of the
topic of project management.
• Students (Bachelor and Master).
• Participants in a project management training who are looking for training materials.
• Project management interested people who want to prepare themselves optimally for
their first project.
ix
x Preface
• Project management experts who want to learn additional aspects as well as templates
and checklists for even more successful projects.
The following offers you this book:
• Practical relevance
• This book combines many years of experience in projects with the relevant theories of
project management. This should make it easier for you to implement what you have
learned theoretically in practice. In addition to extensive explanations of the relevant
topics of project management, you will receive practical support in the form of exam-
ples, templates and checklists.
• Method examples
• This book describes methods that you can use in the different phases, depending on
the conditions in your project.
• Goals and results
• The beginning of a chapter lists the specific learning objectives. At the end of a chap-
ter, corresponding findings are summarized.
• Tasks and solutions
• Practice exercises can be used to test the understanding of the content of a chapter.
• Templates
We would like to thank our families first and foremost, who made this book possible
with their support. For the great help in reviewing the automatically generated transla-
tion we would like to thank Terry Lyons, adjunct professor of the Queensland Univer-
sity of Technology, Australia, very much. He significantly improved the quality of this
book and made sure that the content can be conveyed better. We would especially like to
thank Prof. Dr. Christian Kücherer for his very intensive involvement with this work and
his excellent suggestions and explanations. Thank you very much for your support, your
review and constructive criticism to Nadia Alam (IT Rollout Manager, Strategic project
and schedule management R&D, Mercedes-Benz AG, Germany), Diana Alam (Head of
office, IHK Reutlingen, Germany), Marina Alam (Production Engineer, Master’s degree,
Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen, Germany), Pia von Berlepsch (Manager
Product Development, Miles & More GmbH), Arno Bohnet, Martin Börger (entrusted
with tasks relating to cyber and IT security and administrative digitization at the Hessian
Ministry of the Interior), Martin Carr, Murat Ercan (Senior Project Manager, Architecture
& Construction Management, Hugo Boss AG), Klaus Franz (Quality Assurance Manager,
dictaJetQC GmbH, Wiesbaden), Doris Helzle, Frank Jörder (Director GJC Gnädinger
und Jörder Consulting GmbH), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Guido Kramann (Brandenburg University
of Applied Sciences, Germany), Nicole Merkel-Hilf, Dagmar Michels, Ebba Rauch, Dr.
Sophie L. Otterbach (University of Hohenheim, Germany) and Sabine Willmann.
Stuttgart Sindelfingen Daud Alam
August 2020 Uwe Gühl
Contents
1 Introduction ..................................................... 1
1.1 Definitions ................................................. 1
1.2 Successful Projects ........................................... 3
1.3 Project Management Process Models ............................ 5
1.4 Structure of the Book ......................................... 7
1.5 Summary .................................................. 8
1.6 Problems .................................................. 8
References ....................................................... 8
2 Cross-Sectional Themes ........................................... 11
2.1 Requirements ............................................... 11
2.1.1 The Goal of Requirements Engineering ................... 11
2.1.2 Projects and Requirements ............................. 12
2.1.3 Capturing Requirements ............................... 12
2.1.4 Managing Requirements ............................... 15
2.2 Change Management ......................................... 15
2.2.1 Goals of Change Management ........................... 16
2.2.2 Causes of Change .................................... 17
2.2.3 Scope of Change Management .......................... 17
2.2.4 Change Management and Agility ........................ 19
2.3 Project Culture .............................................. 19
2.3.1 Goals of the Project Culture ............................ 19
2.3.2 Outward Effect of a Project ............................. 20
2.3.3 Inwards Effect of a Project ............................. 21
2.3.4 Decision Culture ..................................... 22
2.3.5 Learning in the Project ................................. 23
2.3.6 International Projects .................................. 24
2.3.7 Projects During the COVID-19 Pandemic .................. 25
2.3.8 Failure ............................................. 26
2.3.9 Checklist ........................................... 27
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