Introduction

This book represents an excellent opportunity for understanding project management in its new form for professionals, undergraduate and post-graduate students, and people willing to prepare the Project Management Professional (PMI-PMP®) exam. The distinctive feature of this book consists in the approach, very pragmatic and rich in practical examples. In particular, there are several “myth” and “bad idea” boxes where common problematic scenarios that a project manager can find in its everyday working life are discussed and solved according to the book’s contents. In addition, the book includes several original explanations of some business phenomena, such as the “Leadership of the nun”, “The gardener project manager”, “The hamster”, “the change-order dragon” and others. Last but not least, it explores several concepts that aren’t included into most of project management books, such as Sustainability in triple bottom line, Management for Stakeholders and social network analysis, and an extensive part on complexity. The last part of the book is dedicated to concepts that are not properly part of project management, but are relevant for a project manager to be aware of in order to be able to interface with colleagues and partners belonging to these contiguous business worlds.