There is often a deep disconnect between the project team's goals and those of the organization. Senior management wants "profitable" projects, but is only able to quantify its wishes in terms of the traditional project management elements: schedule and cost. To operate smoothly, the entire organization must be driven by the single goal of project profitability. Total Project Control presents valuable enhancements to the traditional project management approach, introducing new metrics and techniques for assessing the performance and profitability of projects.

Demonstrating how to maximize the business value of a project, this book discusses new profitability-based data metrics, such as expected monetary value (EMV), expected project profit (EPP), Devaux's Index of Project Performance (DIPP), critical path drag, drag cost, and the cost of leveling with unresolved bottlenecks (CLUB). The impact of implementing these metrics can be far reaching. Not only will good management decisions, at both the project and executive levels, be supported by quantitative data, but bad decisions will become harder to justify.

This book shows how to compute and use the new metrics to rightsize staffing levels for projects, programs, and organizations. It also explains what every project manager needs to know about earned value tracking: its uses, abuses, value, distortions, and potential fixes. The book then extends these metrics into techniques for indexing, tracking, progressing, and improving the business value of projects.

See What's New in the Second Edition:

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• Includes new diagrams and new ways of computing critical path drag in complex networks
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• Introduces DIPP Performance Index tracking
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• Offers new exercises in how to compute critical path drag and drag cost and use them to maximize project value
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• Focuses on topics senior management needs to be assured the project team is using to maximize project profitability
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About the Author

Bajan-born Steve Devaux is a project management theorist, consultant, and academic. He developed TPC, an ROI-based approach to project planning and analysis, as well as such new techniques as critical path drag and the value breakdown structure (VBS). He founded Analytic Project Management in 1992 and has consulted to industries ranging from software to aerospace. He has an M. Sc. in project management from Northeastern University and has taught graduate courses at Brandeis University, Suffolk University, and University of West Indies at Barbados.

Reviews

"Stephen Devaux puts forth a manifesto for how project management can drive profits when projects are managed and measured as investments. Not only is Total Project Control a practitioner's guide, it is also an executive's overview of how to view projects and invest wisely for returns to the bottom line. The benefit of how Devaux lays out the text is that a project manager can use it a quick resource for any phase of the project without having to read it cover to cover. The first edition of Total Project Control was a breakthrough of insights into effective project management. The second edition crystalizes the concept of how projects must be considered an investment, not just a set of tasks to delivering a product or service."
- Edward R. Equi, Senior Research Scientist at MIT

"This book provides a lot of food for thought on improving the decision making process which drives business value from projects. Not just from an academic standpoint, but with tools that can be implemented by the project team. I find it to be a valuable contribution to advancing the state of the art in project management."
- Bernard Ertl

"This is a very unique and interesting textbook for PM practitioners. The author proposes several new metrics such as DIPP, drag, drag cost, DRED, DPI and so on. They were developed through real world experiences and needs. Explanations on building WBS and calculating CPM are also very useful and practical. The author's view; "the project: is an investment" will lead the readers to awareness of project values. This is very important, since the ultimate objective of project management is to maximize the project value."
- Tomoichi Sato, JGC Corporation

Book Information
ISBN 9780367783549
Author Stephen A. Devaux
Format Paperback
Page Count 312
Imprint CRC Press
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g