Description
1-page written summary of key points learned from chapter 9 in your own words
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Engineering Project Management
Engineering Project Management
Neil G. Siegel
The IBM Professor of Engineering Management
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, US
This edition first published 2019
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by
law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/
permissions.
The right of Neil G. Siegel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
Registered Offices
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
Editorial Office
The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products visit us at
www.wiley.com.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. Some content that
appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty
While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations
or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim
all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular
purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional
statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a
citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the
information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This
work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice
and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where
appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared
between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any
loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or
other damages.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Siegel, Neil G., author.
Title: Engineering Project Management / professor Neil G. Siegel, Ph.D., the
IBM Professor of Engineering Management, University of Southern
California, LosAngeles, US.
Description: Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2019] |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2019016035 (print) | LCCN 2019018487 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119525783 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781119525790 (ePub) | ISBN 9781119525769
(hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Engineering–Management. | Project management.
Classification: LCC TA190 (ebook) | LCC TA190 .S586 2019 (print) | DDC
620.0068/8–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016035
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © Westend61/Getty Images
Set in 10/12pt WarnockPro by SPi Global, Chennai, India
Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
To my wife, Robyn.
vii
Contents
About the Author xv
Acknowledgments xvii
About the Companion Website xix
Introduction xxi
1
1.1
1.1.1
1.1.2
1.2
1.2.1
1.2.2
1.2.3
1.2.4
1.2.5
1.3
1.3.1
1.3.2
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8
1.8.1
1.8.2
2
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.2
2.3
2.3.1
2.3.2
The Role and the Challenge 1
Introduction 1
Why Do We Care About Engineering Project Management? 2
The Opportunity For You 5
The Project 5
Where Do Projects Come From? 8
Customers 8
Attributes of Projects 8
The Project Life‐Cycle 9
Goals of the Project/Factors in Tension With Each Other 9
The Project Manager 12
The Role 12
You as the Manager of an Engineering Project 15
Engineering Processes Can Help You 18
The Engineering Project Manager Mind‐Set 20
Next 22
About Facilitated Lab Sessions and Practical Exercises 22
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 23
Exemplars 23
Points for Discussion 25
Performing Engineering on Projects (Part I) 29
The Systems Method 29
Motivation and Description 29
Life‐Cycle Shapes 37
Progress Through the Stages 43
Requirements 47
Design 55
The Design and its Process 55
The Design Hierarchy is Not the Same as the Requirements Hierarchy 64
viii
Contents
2.3.3
2.3.4
2.3.5
2.3.6
2.3.7
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
3
3.1
3.1.1
3.1.2
3.1.3
3.1.4
3.1.4.1
3.1.4.2
3.1.4.3
3.1.5
3.1.6
3.1.7
3.1.7.1
3.1.7.2
3.1.7.3
3.2
3.3
4
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
5
5.1
5.2
5.2.1
5.2.2
5.3
Modeling 64
Design Patterns 66
Do the Hard Parts First 67
Designs and Your Team 68
Summary: Design 69
Interaction of the Requirements and Design Processes with Project
Management Processes 69
Your Role in All of This 72
Next 75
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 75
Performing Engineering on Projects (Part II) 77
The Remaining Stages of the Project Life‐Cycle 77
Implementation 77
Integration 77
Testing – Verification and Validation 81
Testing – Planning, Procedures, Test Levels, Other Hints About Testing 85
Unscripted Use of the System 88
Realistic Operating Conditions 88
Off‐Nominal Operating Conditions 89
Production 90
Deployment: Use in Actual Mission Operations 92
Non‐project Life‐Cycle Stages 93
Logistics 93
Phase‐Out and Disposal 97
Summary for the Post‐Deployment Stages 98
Next 98
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 98
Understanding Your Users and Your Other Stakeholders 99
The Four Steps to Understanding Your Users and Your Other
Stakeholders 99
Case Study About the Value of Using the Customer’s Coordinate System
of Value: Role‐Based Processing 110
Special Topic: Designing the User Experience 113
Summary: Understanding Your Users and Your Other
Stakeholders 118
Next 119
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 119
How Do Engineering Projects Get Created? 121
Engineering Projects are Created in Response to a Need, or a Vision 121
How to Win 124
Approach #1: The Heilmeier Questions 130
Approach #2: Neil’s Approach: Achieve Positive Competitive
Differentiation 131
Your Role in All of This 143
Contents
5.4
5.5
5.6
Summary: How to Win 144
Next 144
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session
6
Organizing and Planning 147
The Work‐Breakdown Structure 147
The Statement of Work 154
The Organization Chart 157
The Project Plan 162
Your Role in All of This 167
Summary: Organizing and Planning 168
Next 168
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 168
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8
7
144
Creating Credible Predictions for Schedule and Cost: the Activity
Network 171
7.1
7.2
7.2.1
7.2.2
7.2.3
7.2.4
7.2.5
7.3
7.4
7.4.1
7.4.2
7.4.3
7.4.4
7.5
7.6
7.7
7.8
7.9
Setting the Stage 171
Estimating the Schedule For Your Project 174
Step 1: Define the Tasks 174
Step 2: Identify the Interdependencies Between Tasks 175
Step 3: Estimate, in a Statistical Fashion, the Duration of Each Task 177
Step 4: Fixed Dates vs. Derived Dates 179
Examples 180
Estimating the Cost of Your Project 181
Injecting Realism Into Your Estimates 183
The S‐Curve 183
Another Aspect of Realism in Schedules: Margin and Slack 184
Calibrate Against Top‐Down Estimation Methods 185
Resource Leveling 187
Cost vs. Price 188
Your Role in All of This 189
The Intersection With Engineering 190
Next 191
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 191
8
Drawing Valid Conclusions From Numbers 193
In Engineering, We Must Make Measurements 193
The Data and/or the Conclusions are Often Wrong 194
The Fallacy of the Silent Evidence 199
Logical Flaws in the Organization of System Testing 201
The Problem of Scale 205
Signal and Noise 207
A Special Type of Measurement: The Test 210
The Decision Tree: A Method That Properly Accounts For Conditional
Probabilities 211
What Engineering Project Managers Need to Measure 214
Implications for the Design and Management Processes 215
8.1
8.2
8.2.1
8.2.2
8.2.3
8.2.4
8.2.5
8.2.6
8.3
8.4
ix
x
Contents
8.4.1
8.4.2
8.4.3
8.4.4
8.4.5
8.4.6
8.4.7
8.4.8
8.4.9
8.4.10
8.4.11
8.4.12
8.5
8.6
8.7
8.8
We Need Measurements in Order to Create Good Designs 215
Projects Provide an Opportunity for Time Series 215
Interpreting the Data 215
How Projects Fail 216
Avoid “Explaining Away” the Data 217
Keep a Tally of Predictions 217
Social Aspects of Measurement 218
Non‐linear Effects 219
Sensitivity Analysis 221
Keep it Simple 221
Modeling 222
Ground Your Estimates and Predictions in the Past 222
Your Role in All of This 223
Summary: Drawing Valid Conclusions From Numbers 224
Next 224
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 224
9
Risk and Opportunity Management 225
Things Can Go Wrong With Our Project: How Do We Cope? 225
The Steps of Risk Management 229
Step a: Identify the Potential Risks and Opportunities 229
Step b: Identify the Symptoms 231
Step c: Select the Item to be Measured, and the Measurement Methods 232
Step d: Score Each Risk for Both Likelihood and Impact 232
Step e: Create Mitigation and Exploitation Plans 235
Step f: Create Triggers and Timing Requirements for Those Mitigation
Plans 237
Step g: Create a Method to Aggregate All Risk Assessments Into a Periodic
Overall Project Impact Prediction 238
Step h: Create and Use Some Sort of Periodic “Management Rhythm,”
Wherein You Periodically Make Decisions About Risk Mitigation
and Opportunity Exploitation Actions, Based on the Periodic
Assessment 239
Step i: When Risks Actually Occur (Transition from Risks to Issues), Perform
a Root‐Cause Analysis 240
Two Special Types of Risks 241
The Low‐Likelihood, High‐Impact Event 241
The Risks That We Have Not Yet Identified 243
Lessons Learned From Risk Management 245
Your Role in All of This 246
Summary: Risk and Opportunity Management 246
Next 246
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 246
9.1
9.2
9.2.1
9.2.2
9.2.3
9.2.4
9.2.5
9.2.6
9.2.7
9.2.8
9.2.9
9.3
9.3.1
9.3.2
9.4
9.5
9.6
9.7
9.8
10
10.1
Monitoring the Progress of Your Project (Part I) 249
Monitoring Progress Via Updated Predictions to Schedule and Cost 249
Contents
10.2
10.2.1
10.2.2
10.2.3
10.2.4
10.2.5
10.3
10.3.1
10.3.2
10.3.3
10.4
10.4.1
10.4.2
10.4.3
10.4.4
10.5
10.6
10.7
10.8
Making the Updated Predictions 251
Creating the Updated Prediction for the Schedule 252
Preview: Variance Analysis 255
Creating the Updated Prediction for the Cost 255
Taking Earned Value 255
The Rolling Wave 257
Using the Updated Predictions 258
Calculating the Schedule and Cost Variances 258
Time Variance 262
Variance Analysis 263
Financial Measures About Which Your Company Will Care 263
Sales 264
Profit 264
Cash Flow 265
Day‐Sales Receivables 265
Your Role in All of This 265
Summary: Monitoring the Progress of your Project (Part I) 266
Next 267
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 267
11
Monitoring the Progress of Your Project (Part II) 269
How the Manager of an Engineering Project Ought to Allocate His/Her
Time 269
A Big Claim on Our Time: The Periodic Management Rhythm 270
Sequence and Interaction of Steps 274
The Steps of the Periodic Management Rhythm 274
Updating the Predictions of Operational and Technical Performance 274
Updating the Predictions for the Schedule 276
Updating the Predictions for the Cost 278
Updating the Risk Assessment and Initiating Risk Mitigation 278
The Monthly Calendar 279
The Accounting Calendar 280
Management Reserve Funding 280
The Social Benefits of the Periodic Management Rhythm 282
Your Role in All of This 283
Summary: Monitoring the Progress of Your Project (Part II) 284
Next 284
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 284
11.1
11.2
11.2.1
11.3
11.3.1
11.3.2
11.3.3
11.3.4
11.3.5
11.3.6
11.3.7
11.4
11.5
11.6
11.7
11.8
12
12.1
12.1.1
12.1.2
12.1.3
12.1.4
12.2
Four Special Topics 285
Launching Your Project 285
The Project Start‐Up Process 285
The Earned‐Value Baseline: A Special Project Start‐Up Task 291
Preparing to Operate at a Large Scale 292
Summary for Starting a Project 293
Systems and Projects With Large Amounts of Software 294
xi
xii
Contents
12.2.1
12.2.2
12.2.2.1
12.2.3
12.3
12.4
12.5
12.6
12.7
The Benefits 294
The Problems 294
Scale 295
Lessons Learned for the Project Manager About Software 296
The Agile Software Development Methodology 299
Ending Your Project 302
Your Role in All of This 303
Next 305
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 305
13
The Social Aspects of Engineering Project Management 307
Dealing With People, Becoming a Leader 308
Alignment 308
The Sine Qua Non of Leadership 311
Motivating Your Team 312
Recognizing and Resolving Conflict 316
Siegel’s Mechanics of Project Management 323
Dealing With Special People 325
Your Management 325
Your Customers 327
The Human Resources Department – An Important Partner 327
Your Career as an Engineer 329
Change on Your Project 333
Coping With Career Change 334
Foundational Knowledge 335
Lifelong Learning 335
On‐the‐Job Learning 335
Know and Grow 336
Summary: How to Cope With Career Change 337
Examples of Mid‐career Changes I Have Known 337
Getting Ahead 338
Preparing Yourself for Leadership 338
Getting Ahead: Understanding Your Boss 338
Enablers 341
Leadership vs. Management 341
Disablers and Pitfalls: How to Fail at Getting Ahead 341
Summary: Getting Ahead 342
Two Special Topics 343
Special Topic 1: Projects Whose Work is Geographically Distributed Across
More Than One Work Site 343
Special Topic 2: Projects That Include Teams Located in Multiple
Countries 344
Summary: Social Aspects of Engineering Project Management 345
Next 346
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 346
13.1
13.2
13.3
13.4
13.5
13.6
13.7
13.7.1
13.7.2
13.7.3
13.8
13.9
13.10
13.10.1
13.10.2
13.10.3
13.10.4
13.10.5
13.10.6
13.11
13.11.1
13.11.2
13.11.3
13.11.4
13.11.5
13.11.6
13.12
13.12.1
13.12.2
13.13
13.14
13.15
Contents
14
14.1
14.2
14.2.1
14.3
14.3.1
14.3.1.1
14.3.1.2
14.3.1.3
14.3.2
14.3.3
14.4
14.5
14.5.1
14.6
14.7
14.8
14.9
14.10
14.A
15
15.1
15.2
15.2.1
15.2.1.1
15.2.1.2
15.2.1.3
15.2.1.4
15.2.1.5
15.2.1.6
15.2.2
15.2.3
15.3
Achieving Quality 347
Defining the Term Quality 347
One Motivation for Quality: A Good Reputation 347
Quality Control and Audits 348
Quality Initiatives 348
6‐Sigma 349
Defect Rates 352
Justified Variation 354
Defects in Assembly 354
ISO‐9000 355
Capability Maturity Model 355
Processes for Engineering and for Project Management 356
Procurement and Subcontracting 357
Vendor Partnerships 358
The Effects of Quality 359
The Bill of Materials 360
Your Role in All of This 360
Next 361
This Week’s Facilitated Lab Session 361
Appendix: What Distributions Actually Look Like in the Real World
of Engineering Projects 361
Applying Our Ideas in the Real World, Ethics in Engineering 365
Applying Our Ideas in the Real World 365
Ethics in Engineering 367
When Does Bad Engineering Become Bad Ethics? 368
How Do Engineers Get Into Situations of Ethical Lapse? 368
Characteristics of Modern Engineered Systems that Create the Risk
of Ethical Lapse 369
Complexity and Scale Introduce Non‐linearities 369
Reliability and Availability are Under‐emphasized 370
Treating Operator‐Induced Failures as Being Outside Our Design
Responsibilities 370
Ignoring the Potential That Our Systems Will Be Used in Ways Other
Than We Intended 371
Corrective Actions 372
Conclusions About Ethics in Engineering 374
Thank You 375
Index 377
xiii
xv
About the Author
Neil Siegel spent many years successfully managing engineering projects, big and small.
He managed successful projects in aerospace and defense, civil government (at the
federal, state, and city level), health‐care, the steel industry, the energy industry, higher
education, the entertainment industry, and others. His inventions are also widely used
in the consumer electronics industry.
He has won many honors and awards for his work as a manager of engineering projects, including election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the U.S. National
Academy of Inventors, the IEEE Simon Ramo Medal for Systems Engineering, and
many others. In addition to these personal awards, projects that he led have received
honors and awards, such as the inaugural Crosstalk Award for the best‐managed
software project across the entire U.S. Government.
He earned a Ph.D. in systems engineering at the University of Southern California,
where his advisor was the noted computer scientist and systems engineering
Barry Boehm.
He retired after 18 years as a vice‐president of the Northrop Grumman Corporation
at the end of 2015, and now teaches systems engineering and engineering project management at the University of Southern California.
More information is available at https://neilsiegel.usc.edu.
xvii
Acknowledgments
I started working on actual engineering projects in 1976, and did so full time until the
end of 2015, building systems for customers in aerospace and defense, but also civil
government (at the federal, state, and city level), health‐care, the steel industry, the
energy industry, higher education, entertainment, and others. My inventions are widely
used in the consumer electronics industry (I sometimes say “used in a billion devices
worldwide,” but a rigorous count is beyond my means). I also had the opportunity to
build such systems for customers in several countries outside of the United States, to
travel extensively in those countries, and even to live overseas for a couple of years on
such an assignment. I draw upon those experiences in writing this book.
Over that period of time when I worked on these engineering projects, I benefited
from many people, a few of whom I will name herein.
First, I want to recognize the many people who taught me how to be the manager of
an engineering project. I will let Peter Karacsony, Dr. Joe Mason, and Jack Distaso represent the large number of people who helped me along this wonderful (but demanding) life path.
Next, my many customers, most of whom truly believed in being effective partners in
the difficult enterprise of building complex engineered systems. LTG (ret) William
Campbell will represent this group of great people.
My childhood friend Dr. Mitch Allen is an archeologist who spent much of his professional career as an academic editor and publisher. When I conceived the idea of writing
this book, Mitch (despite being retired from the publishing business) taught me everything that I needed to know in order to write a book proposal, and actually found me
acquisition editors by name to whom I could submit my proposal.
I also wish to thank my collaborators at Wiley, my publisher: Eric Willner and his staff.
I wish to thank my former company, TRW/Northrop Grumman (TRW was acquired
by Northrop Grumman in 2002). In addition to offering me an amazing career – with
the opportunity truly to save lives, improve the defense of the United States and our
allies, aid humanity, and enjoy continuous intellectual stimulation – they kindly allowed
me to create a set of teaching and research materials that drew upon data and lessons
learned from real projects, and allowed me to release that information about those real
engineering project experiences to my students and the public. This book could not
exist in this form without my ability to tell those stories.
xviii
Acknowledgments
Two real engineering projects were key learning experiences during my career, and
are the source of some of the lessons learned and stories described herein:
The Forward‐Area Air Defense Command‐Control‐and‐Intelligence System. Peter
Karacsony was the manager of this project; I was the chief engineer.
●● Force XXI Battle Command Brigade‐and‐Below (also known as the Blue‐Force
Tracker, the Appliqué, or the Digitized Battlefield). I was the project manager; Jack
Distaso was my direct supervisor during this time. LTC (ret) William Campbell was
the senior customer (called in Army nomenclature the program executive officer) for
this project, and for many more projects that I had the opportunity to build for the US
Army, as well.
●●
I was always blessed with an amazing team of engineers and other professionals when
I set out to manage an engineering project; several are named at appropriate places
within the stories told in this book. I owe a great deal to those colleagues at TRW and
Northrop Grumman, and to those colleagues at various other companies who worked
with me as subcontractors on these great projects.
I used an early draft of the book with my undergraduate engineering students at the
University of Southern California, and am grateful for the feedback that they provided.
Some of them were willing to be recognized by name, and so I would like to acknowledge (in alphabetical order) Terry Lam, Aaron Lew, Seema Snitkovsky, Sara Stevens,
Kathleen Sullivan, and Tal Volk.
Lastly (but always first) my wife, Dr. Robyn Friend, who – in addition to everything
else – was always the first to read every chapter, and provided useful and thoughtful
feedback.
xix
About the Companion Website
This book is accompanied by a companion website:
www.wiley.com/go/siegel/engineering_project_management
The website includes:
Briefing charts for lectures
Reviews in advance of examinations
●● Solution manuals
●●
●●
Scan this QR code to visit the companion website.
xxi
Introduction
I spent many years as a practicing engineer, including many assignments as the manager
of engineering projects. The projects that I managed ranged from very small to very
large; as I got older and more experienced, the projects that I led tended to get larger
and more complex. Our teams were in general successful in delivering systems and
products that our customers found useful, and at times constituted revolutionary
improvements over previous capabilities. I have been credited with saving lives, money,
and time, all on a large scale.
As I progressed from project to project, I drew certain conclusions about managing
such engineering projects, and developed my own techniques and methods. I took
courses offered by my company in project management, and read books on the subject.
I found a significant difference between what I experienced as a project manager, and
what the books had to say. What I did as a project manager, what I spent my time doing
and worrying about, seemed very different from what the books said.
I also, learned through my reading and research, that the overall track record of success in engineering projects is not very good. A shockingly large portion of the engineering projects that are started turn into failures.
Recently, I elected to retire from full‐time work as a practicing engineer and engineering project manager, and took an appointment at a university as a full‐time professor of
engineering in a department of systems engineering. Systems engineering is my love
and my passion, and I wanted to create courses that taught systems engineering my way,
and to continue my researches into how to do systems engineering better than we do
it now.
After I had a good start in creating my systems engineering courses, the university
asked me to teach a course in engineering project management. It had never occurred
to me to want to teach that; I was completely focused on systems engineering. Of
course, systems engineering and engineering project management are, in my mind,
very closely related. When I was the manager of an engineering project, I employed
what I characterized as the “systems engineering mindset” in order to plan and manage the project.
I discovered that I had quite a lot to say about engineering project management, and
enjoyed teaching the course quite a bit. The students seemed to find my approach –
grounded in actual experience as an engineering project manager, and full of examples
from actual projects – both informative and enjoyable.
And, of course, I had to select a textbook for my engineering project management
course. I purchased and read several of them. They were all as I remembered them: they
xxii
Introduction
talked a lot about stuff that I didn’t actually do, and said nothing about many things that
I had found were vital. After I had taught the course a couple of times, I realized that
perhaps there was room in the world for a textbook that would describe my approach to
engineering project management, one that would teach the activities that I found myself
actually spending time on and worrying about when I was the manager of large, complex engineering projects. This book is the result.
Concept of the Book
The book is “sized” for a one‐semester course, but could easily be adapted to either one
or two quarters of instruction.
The book is intended to serve both upper‐division undergraduates (e.g. juniors and
seniors) and students who are just starting graduate studies. I use essentially the same
course materials for both of these student audiences; the graduate students will get
additional readings and a lot more homework (in ways which I will describe within
the text).
Engineering is all about achieving practical results, and in that spirit of hands‐on,
practical results, my class does not consist entirely of lectures. For most of the weeks
within the course, I use at least one class session for what I call a “facilitated lab session.”
During these facilitated lab sessions, I take only a short amount of time to explain a
technique, and then provide the students with a problem which they work on (in teams)
during the class session. They are allowed to consult with each other, to look at their
class notes and books, to ask me questions, to show me their in‐progress work, and get
feedback on the spot. What I find is that they seldom actually finish the work during this
class session (and therefore they still have to do that work as homework), but by the end
of each facilitated lab session, they understand the method properly, and are able to do
the problem correctly.
So the course – and therefore this book – is laid out as two parallel, week‐by‐week
tracks: one a progressive set of lectures, and one a progressive set of practical techniques and team exercises. As the students’ knowledge and practical techniques are
built up and mastered, this leads to a set of gradable course materials, and an integrated
set of learning (via a combination of reading, lectures, hands‐on facilitated sessions,
individual homework assignments, and team homework assignments) for each student.
I supplement these gradable materials with a mid‐term and a final examination, in order
to develop grades for each student.
At the ends of the chapters that correspond to the weeks which have these facilitated
lab sessions, therefore, there will be a subsection that addresses the topic, technique,
and assignment for that week’s lab session.
Many of the artifacts created by the students could be viewed as sections of a project
plan. The graduate students get assigned to create more elements of a project plan than
the undergraduates, commensurate with their extra year or two of previous instruction,
and most especially the fact that a large portion of engineering graduate students who
are taking a course in engineering project management have a few years of actual work
experience. That experience is likely to have been focused in just a couple of small teams
buried within large projects at their companies, but they are at least aware of the larger
Introduction
world of project management, and are motivated to want to learn quickly about that
larger world.
The organization of the book is described in the following table:
Chapter/
week
Lecture
1
2
The role and the challenge. What is engineering project
management? Why do we teach engineering project
management? Do engineering projects matter to society? Do
projects matter to business? What is a “project?” What is an
“engineering project?” What is a “project manager?” In this
chapter, we discuss all of these questions and also provide
you basic information about the role of engineering project
manager and the opportunity that this role represents for
you.
Performing engineering on projects (part I). How do we
do engineering on projects? Engineering projects are
different from other projects, so learning to be an effective
manager of an engineering project starts by understanding
how we do engineering on projects. We accomplish this
engineering through the engineering life‐cycle. In this
chapter, I summarize key aspects of how we do the initial
stages of the engineering life‐cycle, which are called
“requirements analysis” and “design.”
In‐class facilitated
workshop
Team exercise: the value
of engineering projects
to society
This week is all lectures
3
This week is all lectures
Performing engineering on projects (part II). In this
chapter, I continue our summary of the key aspects of how
we do engineering on projects, covering the remaining stages
of the engineering life‐cycle, from “implementation” all the
way through to “phase‐out and disposal.”
4
Understanding your users and your other stakeholders.
We have two coordinate systems of value and engineering
the user experience. Engineering projects often create
products and/or services that never existed before. Under
these circumstances, it is easy to lose sight of what aspects of
the new item are essential, and which are less so. We solve
this dilemma by rigorous and continuous focus on our
eventual users and customers. What are they trying to
accomplish? How do they do it now? What are the shortfalls?
What are their needs and desires? At the same time, our
degrees of engineering freedom are usually entirely within
the technical domain: choices about materials, parts,
algorithms, mechanical structures, and so forth. In this
chapter, you will learn how to understand your users, how to
relate that understanding of your user to the engineering
choices that are your degrees of design freedom. We then
extend this focus on our users to all the “stakeholders” of our
project. We end the chapter with a discussion of how to use
good engineering and good management to achieve a
compelling and effective experience for your users and your
customers when they operate your system, through what we
call the user experience.
Team exercise: the
customer’s coordinate
system of value, the
engineer’s coordinate
system of value, relating
them, use of operational
performance measures
(OPMs) and technical
performance measures
(TPMs)
(Continued)
xxiii
xxiv
Introduction
Chapter/
week
Lecture
In‐class facilitated
workshop
5
Team exercise: proposals,
How do engineering projects get created. Creating
winning proposals. When we get our first job, we are likely to the Heilmeier questions,
win themes
be assigned to work on an existing engineering project; we
are not troubled by the question of how this engineering
project came into existence. Who created it? Why? How is it
being paid for? How did it come to pass that it is our
company that is doing the work? But as we progress in our
careers, we come to realize that these aspects matter a lot. In
fact, understanding them, so that you can help your company
win new projects, is an important path for you to achieve
attractive assignments and career success. In this chapter, I
will therefore teach you the basics about winning engineering
projects for your company, which centers around something
called the “proposal.”
6
Organizing and planning. Congratulations! You have been
named the manager of our new engineering project. What do
you do next? You decompose the work entailed in
performing the project into smaller pieces, using a hierarchy.
When this is done in a particular fashion, it is called a
work‐breakdown structure. Projects all over the world are
managed using a work‐breakdown structure. In this chapter,
I both teach you the basics of creating and using a work‐
breakdown structure and show you how to do it effectively
within the specific context of engineering projects. Then, we
move on to discuss the organizational structure of your
project, and finally, I show you how to use your work‐
breakdown structure as the basis to create a complete project
plan for your engineering project.
Team exercises: the
work‐breakdown
structure and its essential
components
7
Creating credible predictions for schedule and cost. In
Chapters 2 and 3, I provided you with insight about some of
the key factors regarding how we do engineering on projects.
We will now use that knowledge as I start discussing the
processes that we use for performing actual project
management on our engineering project. In this chapter, I
focus on the activity network, which allows us to make
credible predictions regarding the
