Scrappy Project Management

Why learn project management the hard way?

Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management, Second Edition will have you managing projects in no time! Here’s a small sample of what you’ll learn: 

• Key concepts and fundamentals behind best-practice project management techniques
• The mindset and skill set of effective project managers
• Project techniques that work in any industry, with any tools
• The common elements of successful projects
• Lessons from failed projects
• The value and importance of project leadership versus project management
• How to manage growing project trends and tough project types that first-time project managers are likely to encounter
• How to make better use of Microsoft Project
• How to respond when project reality does not match textbook scenarios
• Expert insight on key project management concepts and topics

 You’ve just been handed your department's biggest project. Absolute Beginner's Guide to Project Management will show you exactly where to start—and walk you step by step through your entire project! Expert project manager Gregory Horine shows you exactly what works and what doesn’t, drawing on the field’s proven best practices. Understand your role as a project manager...gain the skills and discover the personal qualities of great project managers...learn how to organize, estimate, and schedule projects effectively...manage deliverables, issues, changes, risks, quality, vendors, communications, and expectations...make the most of technology...manage virtual teams...avoid the problems that trip up new project managers! This new edition jumpstarts your project management expertise even faster, with all-new insights on Microsoft Project, challenging project situations and intriguing project management topics of the day.

Establish processes that ensure the success of your project managers - and increase the profitability of your products and services

With The Handbook of Program Management, you'll obtain the skills to incorporate new technology and people into your processes while delivering improved products and services that continually outpace your competition.In light of the Project Management Institute's new certification program for program managers, (PgMPSM) it's crucial that you have the understanding and processes necessary to deliver projects on schedule, within target costs, and that meet customer expectations.

Program and project management authority Dr. James Brown helps you create the necessary culture that will ensure the success of your project managers and teams by providing the “must have” insights you would only get from a trusted mentor, including:

• The price of delayed decision-making
• How calculated failure can drive organizational change
• Why your best people often make the biggest mistakes
• What the customer really needs to know (and not know)
• The essence of successful execution

For any professional responsible for coordinating projects among different departments, across executive levels, or with technical complexity, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management offers comprehensive instruction on how to deliver on time and on budget. Get the step-by-step advice you need to find the right sponsor, clarify objectives, and set realistic schedules and budget projections. This Fourth Edition of the 200,000-copy bestseller now covers critical new topics including: software and IT projects, agile techniques, and project selection.

Perfect for beginners or experienced managers needing to bring their systems up to date, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management allows readers to extract maximum information in minimum time.

• The most comprehensive introduction to project management, updated to reflect changes in the business environment over the past few years
• Full of downloadable forms and spreadsheets to help you implement the techniques in the book
• Offers updated advice on getting the most from Microsoft Project

For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. In Pathfinders, Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world.

All scientists have stood on the shoulders of giants. But most historical accounts today suggest that the achievements of the ancient Greeks were not matched until the European Renaissance in the 16th century, a 1,000-year period dismissed as the Dark Ages. In the ninth-century, however, the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Abu Ja'far Abdullah al-Ma'mun, created the greatest centre of learning the world had ever seen, known as Bayt al-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. The scientists and philosophers he brought together sparked a period of extraordinary discovery, in every field imaginable, launching a golden age of Arabic science.

Few of these scientists, however, are now known in the western world. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a polymath who outshines everyone in history except Leonardo da Vinci? The Syrian astronomer Ibn al-Shatir, whose manuscripts would inspire Copernicus's heliocentric model of the solar system? Or the 13th-century Andalucian physician Ibn al-Nafees, who correctly described blood circulation 400 years before William Harvey? Iraqi Ibn al-Haytham who practised the modern scientific method 700 years before Bacon and Descartes, and founded the field of modern optics before Newton? Or even ninth-century zoologist al-Jahith, who developed a theory of natural selection a thousand years before Darwin?

The West needs to see the Islamic world through new eyes and the Islamic world, in turn, to take pride in its extraordinarily rich heritage. Anyone who reads this book will understand why.