The Business Savvy Project Manager: Indispensable Knowledge and Skills for Success

by Gary R. Heerkens

Book Overview

Valuable business skills from a leading project management expert

To make the leap from average to superior, you must develop the skills to manage each project like a small business. The Business-Savvy Project Manager thoroughly explains key concepts, principles, and tools for project managers to provide organizations with superior return-oninvestment and top performance. From portfolio management and strategic alignment to...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 007144307X
• ISBN13: 9780071443074
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

One of the best books on real project management I have seen

I believe Gary, in his book, "The Business Savvy Project Manager" has captured the very essence of what it means to be a project manager far better than PMI or any other organization claiming to represent project managers. I use Gary's book as a text and as the basis for much of what I teach to my clients and students. Dr. Paul D. Giammalvo, CDT, PMP, CCE, MScPM Jakarta, Indonesia"

Best practical guide in project management and business analysis

I'm a project management 'bookaholic' as I buy a few dozen project management books every year. However, I just briefly skim most of them or read a fw chapters and they soon end up in the storage room. Only few books remain on my desk for any long period. 'The Business Savvy Project Manager' is the one of them. And there is a reason for this. This is not an ordinary project management book, which in most cases are very similar to each other. 'The Business Savvy Project Manager' is probably the best practical guide I have read for managing organizational business on all levels: starting at projects and reaching the enterprise level. What I especially like about 'The Business Savvy Project Manager' is the strong focus on portfolio management and project economics. While, the book on only describes the basics of discounted cash flow methodology, it provides practical guidelines for modeling project cash flows. Economic analysis and financial metrics are the foundations of successful project management and the book explains how to enable these approaches for your project. Another important area of project management, which is very close to my heart, is project decision analysis and risk management. The author explains sensitivity analysis, Monte Carlo simulations, decision tree analysis, and other risk and decision analysis methods that enable project managers to make better choices. How many times do senior managers ask us to write a business case and how many times so we wondering if we are doing it right? The Savvy Project Manager includes clear guidelines for preparing a project business case. Finally, I'm a strong believer that project management is not only about soft skills, although it is very important. Project management implies strong understanding of economics, decision and risk analysis, metrics and quantitative analysis, and portfolio management. 'The Business Savvy Project Manager' will teach you how to apply these in an easy to grasp format. Lev Virine, author of Project Decisions: The Art and Science