The No-Nonsense Guide to Project Management

This book provides a no-nonsense guide to project management which will enable library and information professionals to lead or take part in a wide range of projects, from large-scale multi-organisation complex projects through to relatively simple local ones.

Barbara Allan has fully revised and updated her classic 2004 title Project Management to incorporate considerable developments during the past decade, including: the development and wide-scale acceptance of formal project management methodologies; the use of social media to communicate and disseminate information about projects; and the large shift in the types of project library and information workers may be involved in.

The text is supported by practical case studies drawn from a wide range of LIS organisations at local, regional, national, and international levels. These examples provide an insight into good practice for the practitioner, from an individual working in a voluntary organisation on an extremely limited budget, to someone involved in an international project.

Content covered includes:

• An introduction to project management, project workers, and the library and information profession
• Different approaches to project management, the project cycle, the people side of projects, and management of change
• Discussion of project methodologies, project management software, open source software, collaborative working software, and use of social media
• Project initiation, communication, analysis, and project briefs
• Developing project infrastructure, scheduling, working out the finances, and carrying out a detailed risk analysis
• Implementation, monitoring and reporting, and identifying potential problems
• Current approaches to funding, bidding and tendering, and taking part in audits
• Working in partnerships, in diverse and virtual teams, and managing change

If you are an LIS professional involved in project work of any kind, whether on a managerial, practical, academic, or research level, this is an invaluable resource for you.