The Single-Minded Project: Ensuring the Pace of Progress

Author:   Martin Price
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Edition:   New edition
ISBN:  

9781472429964


Pages:   220
Publication Date:   11 September 2014
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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The Single-Minded Project: Ensuring the Pace of Progress


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Overview

The behaviour of people and their organisation are the primary drivers of a project’s pace of progress. Methodology, tools and techniques are vital but subordinate to human endeavour; if only because their selection, deployment and application entirely depend on the abilities of the project players and their organisation. Performance ultimately rests on human and organisational behaviour: expressed by the players’ experience, professional ability, resolve, dialogue and collaboration. Fresh approaches and methods help practitioners to address this reality productively. This book is written under nine headings: collaboration; able people; strength; connections; rigour; pace; persistence; adaptation; and maturity. The Single-Minded Project offers a new and convincing appreciation of project management that will harness players and their organisation. It recognises that at its heart, the management and leadership of a project regime relies on the choices, behaviours and decisions of its players and the organisation’s freedom of action. It addresses the urgency of the project (the need for swiftness), coupled with the kind and degree of diligence (the need for rigour in the choice and management of method): referring to its Pace of Progress. The success of a project very much depends on the pace at which it is conducted to then deliver value. Projects find themselves in territory where methodology, tools and techniques are of little help. The Single-Minded Project fills that gap and more.

Full Product Details

Author:   Martin Price
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Edition:   New edition
Weight:   0.612kg
ISBN:  

9781472429964


ISBN 10:   1472429966
Pages:   220
Publication Date:   11 September 2014
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Reviews

'If ever a book were written better equipped to stimulate you to think about your thinking when it comes to projects, programmes and the changes they bring; I have yet to find it. Martin puts forward not only a collection of ideas that reach out and grab your attention, but also a number of subtle suggestions which sow the seeds of change in your attitude. This is one of those rare books which you will love to own and cherish more.' Paul Hodgkins, Executive Director, Paul Hodgkins Project Consultancy 'Martin Price's insights into what drives a project - its pace of progress - makes a compelling case for the importance of resilience, persistence, adaptation and other behaviours whose influences over project outcomes often go unrecognized, or are ignored in focusing on more formal processes and methodology. The Single Minded Project shows how those behaviours can be harnessed to achieve the results that organizations seek from their projects.' Ian Whittingham, ProjectManagement.com 'Martin's fresh perspective to project management, a discipline still viewed as systemic and process driven, is based on an organizational paradigm of people first. Through history, projects have been used to transform difficult situations. Martin discusses why the human aspects are so important in projects and the project player's role in delivering change in adversity, introducing innovation, adapting and driving pace and performance. This is a must read.' Mark Kozak-Holland, Lessons-from-History 'It is refreshing to find a book on project management devoted entirely to how people work together and the impact this has on the success (or otherwise) of the endeavour at hand. Organisation structures and politics, individual capabilities and personalities are examined in the context of project delivery to provide a thought provoking read. Recommended.' Nicola Wadham, Programme Director, FTSE 50 Company 'In The Single Minded Project, Martin Price has identified an aspect of project management that has been neglected by the professional bodies, courses, and other authors. He has identified and discussed the need for real collaboration, and he has provided guidance on how this can be achieved. Much of the published literature treats project team members as mechanistic resources, to be obtained, trained to perform, assigned to work to which they are suited, and terminated when the work is complete. Stakeholders are treated merely as sources and sinks for information. This book recognises the essential human component of team members and stakeholders. How can they work together as a single mind, to plan, to deliver, to respond to change, to deliver value? This book points out the difference between a culture where team members and stakeholders respond to adequate information and one where they engage in successful delivery .' John Greenwood, Regional Risk Management Lead, Fortune 500 Global IT Services Company 'Martin Price's book The Single-Minded Project: Ensuring the Pace of Progress presents a new perspective on project management. An innovative and unique approach, which not only introduces new terms, better emphasizing particular characteristics embedded within those concepts, but what's more important offers a project success prescription that is entirely complementary to the existing methodologies. ... Martin Price's insights into what drives a project - its pace of progress - makes a compelling case for the importance of resilience, persistence, adaptation and other behaviours whose influence over project outcomes often go unrecognized, or are ignored in focusing on more formal processes and methodology. The Single-Minded Project shows how those behaviours can be harnessed to achieve the results that organizations seek from their projects. ... The Single-Minded Project offers a new look at project management, from human and organisational perspectives... This is a consistent prescription for success, which step by step reveals how to deal with the socio-political complexity, the most difficult complexity to be managed and very rarely described in project management literature. The Single-Minded Project is a must for everyone interested in project success.' Malgorzata Kusyk, PMP, Project Management Institute Poland Chapter President 'This book works at many levels. Its author, Martin Price, is passionate about projects as a vehicle to drive planned change in organisations. He's frustrated that in an environment where the demand for skilled project managers and expectations of project sponsors and customers are soaring, recurrent tales of project failures are undermining confidence that projects can deliver. He challenges us to remember that a project's success is ultimately determined by the choices, decisions and behaviours of those involved in its delivery. He keeps us focussed on addressing the areas that crave attention: from the behaviour of individuals to the behaviour of the organisation. And he provides many ideas about how to do this. This book is much more than a handbook about the people side of project management. It provides a compelling vision, grounded in the cut and thrust of real life, of how projects can be different. Never prescriptive, it works as a call to arms and as a guide to delivering your projects single-mindedly.' Carole Osterweil, Programme Manager - Transformation and Change


'If ever a book were written better equipped to stimulate you to think about your thinking when it comes to projects, programmes and the changes they bring; I have yet to find it. Martin puts forward not only a collection of ideas that reach out and grab your attention, but also a number of subtle suggestions which sow the seeds of change in your attitude. This is one of those rare books which you will love to own and cherish more.' Paul Hodgkins, Executive Director, Paul Hodgkins Project Consultancy 'Martin Price's insights into what drives a project - its pace of progress - makes a compelling case for the importance of resilience, persistence, adaptation and other behaviours whose influences over project outcomes often go unrecognized, or are ignored in focusing on more formal processes and methodology. The Single Minded Project shows how those behaviours can be harnessed to achieve the results that organizations seek from their projects.' Ian Whittingham, ProjectManagement.com 'Martin's fresh perspective to project management, a discipline still viewed as systemic and process driven, is based on an organizational paradigm of people first. Through history, projects have been used to transform difficult situations. Martin discusses why the human aspects are so important in projects and the project player's role in delivering change in adversity, introducing innovation, adapting and driving pace and performance. This is a must read.' Mark Kozak-Holland, Lessons-from-History 'It is refreshing to find a book on project management devoted entirely to how people work together and the impact this has on the success (or otherwise) of the endeavour at hand. Organisation structures and politics, individual capabilities and personalities are examined in the context of project delivery to provide a thought provoking read. Recommended.' Nicola Wadham, Programme Director, FTSE 50 Company 'In The Single Minded Project, Martin Price has identified


Author Information

Martin Price is widely known as a speaker and writer and for his fresh ideas on human and organisational behaviour; so crucial to the success of project management. He was Director of Professional Development for PMI’s UK Chapter and for six years hosted PMI’s monthly UK Chapter meetings in London. Martin worked as an electrical engineer before spending 15 years as a personnel manager and change management consultant with PA Consulting Group. There he enabled and supported the transformation of large and small businesses. He is MD of EngagementWorks, a consultancy supporting organisations in their quest for developing high performing project organisations.

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