Painless Project Management: A Step-by-Step Guide for Planning, Executing and Managing Projects

A simple system for managing even the most complex projects

Project management can be a real pain, but doing it right can mean the difference between a business that soars and one that sinks. Painless Project Management makes it simple by cutting through the jargon, formulas, and needless complexity with an easy, step-based approach for managing virtually any project, big or small, from beginning to end.

Veteran project managers McGhee and McAliney present a comprehensive guide to effective project management, complete with real stories and case studies from actual project managers. The authors reveal how the complexity of project management is not in the process itself, but in the people and organizational relationships that must also be managed. They boil down the basics of project management so you can design a simple, effective plan for any project and follow it through to a successful completion.

Once you do that, they show you how to handle the people and issues that make project management such a challenge, including:

• Communicating project plans to colleagues and top management
• Delegating, organizing, and coordinating duties
• Tracking and reporting on project status
• Managing resources, budgets, and timelines
• Changing tacks and goals on the fly
• Dealing with project disruptions

About the Authors

Pamela McGhee, PMP, President and owner of McGhee Enterprises, a project management and IT consulting firm, has consulted with thousands of project managers at Fortune 500 companies. She is a long-standing faculty member at the American Management Association, where she conducts project management and IT seminars. Ms. McGhee is also an adjunct instructor at Baruch College in New York, where she teaches basic and advanced project management.

Peter McAliney, PMP, CMC, is President of Chenery and Company, Inc., which specializes in strategy implementation and project management. He has worked with such corporations as Coca-Cola and GM, as well as with several academic institutions. He is currently developing online project management education programs and assists organizations with cross-cultural communications challenges on virtual team projects.