PAUL C. DINSMORE, PMP is an international authority on project management and organizational change. He has been honored with PMI’s Distinguished Contributions Award, and is a Fellow of the Institute.

JEANNETTE CABANIS-BREWIN, editor-in-chief for Project Management Solutions, Inc., and principal of WordSource, LLC, has written about project management for over fifteen years. In 2007, PMI honored her with a Distinguished Contributions Award.

When the lunar module Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility at 13 hours, 19 minutes, 39.9 seconds Eastern Standard Time on July 20, 1969, the event was hailed as one of history’s major milestones. It was also one of the most fascinating and significant spin-offs of the U.S. space program and was the development of flexible yet precise organizational structures, forms, and tools that allowed people to work together to reach challenging goals. Out of that grew the modern concept of project management.

Since the Apollo days, project management, applicable both to individual endeavors and to a series of projects called programs, has been applied to many new fields of activity. With the trend toward accelerated change, the scope of project management has expanded from construction projects and aerospace to encompass organizational change, R&D projects, high-tech product development, banking and finance, nonprofit services, environmental remediation—in fact, just about every field of human endeavor.

When it first appeared in 1993, the handbook was a major contribution to the field, pulling together expert practitioners to share their advice on topics such as designing adequate organizational structures, generating and maintain teamwork, and managing the project life cycle. The second edition, released in 2005, was designed to complement and supplement the PMBOK[r]Guide, Third Edition,and to provide supporting materials for those preparing to take the certification exam or working to maintain their certification. We have retained this feature, updating the chapters in Section One to the new standard, the PMBOK[r]Guide, Fourth Edition.

As in the second edition, we have retained many of the original authors, keeping those chapters that stand as classics in the field. However, with the pace of change, we have also eliminated a few chapters that had become dated in order to include new developments in the discipline. As a brief overview, the third edition changes comprise:

--One hundred percent of the chapters have had editorial
revisions.

--Sixty percent of the chapters have been updated by the authors.

--Four chapters have been deleted, either because they were no longer relevant or
because we chose to replace them to improve coverage of the topic.

--Two chapters are by new authors, replacing chapters on the same topics (Chapter 31, “Six Sigma and Project Management” and Chapter 10, “Project Cost Management in Practice”).

--Three chapters are on new topics by new authors (Chapter 33, “Social Media Tools,” Chapter 21, “Projects; The Engine of Strategy Execution,” and Chapter 38, “Rescue Mission: Project Management in the Helping Professions.”

--And, of course, it is all, to the best of our knowledge, in line with the fourth edition of the PMBOK[r]Guide.

How to Use This Book

Students who are taking introductory courses in project management as part of a degree in another field (for example, engineering, information technology, business administration, manufacturing or production management, construction management, and so on), or who are studying for degrees in the field of project management, will find the book invaluable. As a complementary and supplementary text, the handbook does not contain materials already published in the PMBOK[r] Guide,but it is designed to help those studying project management understand and integrate the materials contained in that standard, as well as project management concepts and issues that currently are not included in the PMBOK[r]Guide.

The book targets a broad audience, including not only the traditional project management faithfuls, but also professionals involved in organizational development, research, product development, and other associated fields. The book provides a ready reference for anyone involved in project tasks, including upper management executives, project sponsors, project managers, functional managers, and team members. It addresses those working in any of the major program- and project-oriented industries, such as defense, construction, architecture, engineering, product development, systems development, R&D, education, and community development. Whether you are preparing for advancement in the project management field through certification or by completing university courses in the field, this handbook will be a valuable reference. For those using the book in a classroom setting, discussion questions provided at the end of each chapter help students and peers initiate fruitful discussions about concepts, problems, and ideas in their chosen field.

Excerpted from The AMA Handbook of Project Management, 3rd edition. Copyright © 2011 by Amacom Books. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission.

All rights reserved. http://www.amacombooks.org.