Project Management for Mere Mortals

Foreword by Kim Heldman, PMP xv Preface xvii Acknowledgments xxv About the Author xxvii Chapter 1 Setting the Project Management Context 1 Chapter 2 You've Been Assigned a Project! 19 Chapter 3 How Big Is This Project? 53 Chapter 4 Laying Out the Work 99 Chapter 5 The Art of Estimating 131 Chapter 6 Quality--How Good Does It Have to Be? 169 Chapter 7 Communication--What Do You Think About My Project? 207 Chapter 8 Risk--What Should You Worry About? 257 Chapter 9 Creating the Schedule 291 Chapter 10 Budgeting--How Much? 331 Chapter 11 The Rhythm of Project Execution 369 Chapter 12 Keeping the Project on Track 397 Chapter 13 Controlling Changes 421 Chapter 14 Success!--Closing the Project 441 Answers to the Review Questions 457 Glossary 471 Bibliography 477 Index 479

Claudia M. Baca, PMP, PMI OPM3(R), Certified Assessor and Consultant, has been active in the project management industry since 1984 and has project management experience in the information technology, telecommunications, and e-commerce industries. During her long and varied career, Claudia has managed multiple mission-critical projects for companies as varied as a major telecommunications company to an Internet start-up company. She most recently was the vice president of Consulting Services for a nationally known project management consulting firm. Currently, Claudia is an independent consultant focusing on project management consulting and training. She lectures for the Project Management Institute's Denver chapter, as well as teaches for Colorado State University and Denver's Front Range Community College. Claudia was a member of the leadership team that produced the standard for Project Management Maturity,OPM3, and is currently working on the second edition of that standard. She has a Master's Certificate in Program Management from Denver University and earned her PMP in 1995. Claudia is also an experienced writer and technical editor. She coauthored the paper "Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3)", presented at the PMI Global Congress Europe in 2003. She coauthored the paper "The Past, the Present and the Future of OPM3," presented at the PMI Global Congress North America, 2004, and also coauthored "OPM3--The Path to Organizational Achievement of Strategic Business Improvement," presented at the PMI North American Congress in October 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition, she is the technical editor of the PMP Project Management Professional Study Guideand the IT Project + Study Guide, and is the coauthor of PMP Project Management Professional Workbook, all published by Sybex. In 2005, Claudia published the Project Management Spotlight on Change Managementin March and the PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide Deluxe Editionin