Leading and Managing Innovation

The primary cause of many project failures is that responsible executives, because of their lack of knowledge in project management, fail to demand that their managers and staff properly utilize the well-proven best practices, processes, systems, and tools that are now available in this field. This book remedies this situation by providing executives at all levels with the understanding and knowledge needed to best take advantage of the power of effective project management and thereby lead and manage innovations within their enterprise.

In Leading and Managing Innovation: What Every Executive Team Must Know about Project, Program, and Portfolio Management, Second Edition, the authors present concise descriptions of

• The key concepts underlying project and program management
• The important characteristics of projects and programs
• How projects and programs are best governed and managed
• How to determine if the desired benefits have actually been achieved

The book presents a list of 31 reasonable demands that executives can and must place on their staff members to ensure excellence in the way their programs and projects are created, selected for funding, planned, and executed. Placing these demands communicates to the entire enterprise that top management understands what it takes to achieve the best performance possible and fully supports the continuous improvement needed to ensure continued success.

Leading and Managing Innovation explains how to measure the project management maturity level of an enterprise, benchmark against competitors, and identify where project management improvements are required. It discusses the many ways that an enterprise can derive substantial success and competitive advantage from increasing its project management maturity level.

A helpful quick reference summary of all of the book’s key information is included in the final chapter. Armed with this information, you will be well-qualified to give excellent direction to your managers and staff to ensure that your vital capability in the field of project management―and how you manage innovation―is equal to or better than that of your competitors.

Russell Archibald is a globally recognized author, consultant, and lecturer on project management with a career spanning more than 65 years. He has broad international experience in engineering, operations, program and project management as Management Consultant (Archibald Associates, Booz-Allen-Hamilton, CPM Systems, Inc.), Corporate Executive (Bendix, ITT), and Military/Aerospace leader (USAF Senior Pilot, Hughes Aircraft, Aerojet-General.) He has consulted to a wide variety of large and small organizations in many industries worldwide. Russ is a Fellow and Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) (member No. 6, one of the five original members) and an Honorary Fellow of the Association of Project Management (APM) in the UK. He holds Bachelor of Science (University of Missouri, 1948) and Master of Science (University of Texas, Austin, 1956) degrees in Mechanical Engineering. As a pioneer in the field, Russ received an honorary PhD in strategy, program, and project management from the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Lille (ESC-Lille), France, in 2005, and earned the Jim O’Brien Lifetime Achievement Award from the PMI College of Scheduling in 2006.Shane Archibald has 20 years of experience in the development and implementation of advanced, integrated project management processes and systems on large, complex projects and programs in several industries and governmental agencies. Most recently, he implemented the first phase of Project Controls applications and procedures for a large, international, heavy equipment design-manufacture-installation corporation, including advanced planning, scheduling, cost management, contract management, change management, and risk management processes.