Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook

The one primer you need to launch, lead, and sponsor successful projects

We're now living in the project economy. The number of projects initiated in all sectors has skyrocketed, and project management skills have become essential for every leader and manager. Still, project failure rates remain extremely high. Why? Leaders oversee too many projects and have too little visibility into them. Project managers struggle to translate their hands-on, technical knowledge up to senior management. The result? Worthy projects are starved of time and resources and fail to deliver benefits, while too much investment goes into the wrong projects. To compete in the project economy, you need to close this gap. The HBR Project Management Handbook shows you how.

In this comprehensive guide, project management expert Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez presents a new and simple framework that will increase any project's likelihood of success. Packed with case studies from many industries worldwide, it will teach you how to manage your organization's projects, strategic programs, and agile initiatives more effectively and push the best ones ahead to completion. Timeless yet forward-looking, this book will help you win in the project-driven world.

• Introduction: Welcome to the Project Economy
  • From a world driven by efficiency to a world driven by change
  • The rise of the Project Economy
  • The path to becoming a project leader
  • The first project management book for everyone
• Part 1: Project Fundamentals for Everybody
  1. Projects Everywhere
     From a World Driven by Efficiency to a World Driven by Change
     • Operations run the organization, but projects change the organization
     • The proliferation of projects in organizations
     • Projects after the pandemic
  2. What Is a Project?
     From Product Launches to Digital Transformations to Megaprojects
     • Definitions
     • Classification of projects
     • Examples of common projects
  3. What Project Management Is Now
     And Why It Needed to Be Reinvented
     • The reinvention of project management
     • Pushing the reinvention further
• Part 2: The Project Canvas
  4. Introduction to the Project Canvas
     One Tool for Any Project: Traditional, Agile, or Hybrid
     • Simple, universal, and proven
     • Outline of the canvas parts
  5. The Foundation
     Purpose, Investment, Benefits
     • Purpose: Why are we doing the project?
     • Investment: How much will the project cost?
     • Benefits: What benefits and value will the project generate?
  6. The People
     Sponsorship, Resources, Stakeholders
     • Sponsorship: Who will be accountable for the project?
     • Resources: Who will manage the project, and which skills are needed to deliver the project?
     • Stakeholders: Who will benefit from and be affected by the project?
  7. The Creation
     Deliverables, Plan, Change
     • Deliverables: What will the project produce, build, or deliver?
     • Plan: How and when will the work be carried out?
     • Change: How will we engage stakeholders and manage the risks?
  8. Putting the Project Canvas into Practice
     Adopting the Canvas in Your Organization
     • How to use the Project Canvas
     • Writing the Project Canvas block by block
     • Case studies of the Project Canvas in action
     • Applying the Project Canvas to agile initiatives
     • Tips for introducing the Project Canvas in your organization
     • Example of an organization implementing the Project Canvas
• Part 3: Individual and Organizational Project Competencies
  9. Project Leadership
     Competencies for Effective Project Management and Sponsorship
     • The growing need for effective project leaders
     • Project leadership qualities and competencies
  10. Selecting and Prioritizing Projects
      Managing Your Project Portfolio
      • Why prioritization helps
      • Benefits of managing a portfolio
      • The hierarchy of purpose: A better way to prioritize
  11. The Agile and Project-Driven Organization
      Building the Structure and Culture Needed for Project Success
      • How some Chinese companies embody organizational agility
      • Benefits of a lean, agile, and project-driven structure
      • Obstacles to becoming an agile and project-driven organization
• Part 4: A Better Future through Projects
  12. Project Managing a Better Future
      Tomorrow's Innovations and Disruptions in Project Management
  • Crisis management is project management
  • Diversity (and diversity of thinking) and project success
  • The role of technology
  • The sustainability revolution
  • Conclusion: The Project Manifesto
  • Ready to succeed with your projects
• Appendix: The Benefits Card

Well, I can say that I don't agree with everything the author has to say, but as I agree with close to 99.98 percent, I must admit that this is an excellent book.

Should be mandatory reading, not only for any Project or Program manager, but also all senior managers and aspiring change managers as well.