Todd's first book delivers twenty-five years of project rescue experience. Unlike other books on the subject, Rescue the Problem Project focuses on the process to rescue the project. This is the critical few weeks that transform a failing project to a successful project. Other processes blindly layer processes on top of a project without finding the cause of the failure. Rescue the Problem Project focuses on root cause analysis to determine the source of problems and solve them once and for all.

The book starts by discussing the biggest hurdle in rescuing a project—realization that there is a problem—and proceeds through detailed discussion of the four-step process to recover them—audit, analysis, negotiate, and execute. In addition, it includes a complete discussion of four key processes to prevent failure.

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Modern projects are all about one group of people delivering benefits to others, so it's no surprise that the human element is fundamental to project management. The Gower Handbook of People in Project Management is a complete guide to the human dimensions involved in projects. The book is a unique and rich compilation of over 60 chapters about project management roles and the people who sponsor, manage, deliver, work in or are otherwise important to project success.

The Handbook is 63 chapters written by 50 different authors (Todd Williams, President of eCameron, contributing Chapter Two: Successes and Failures of People in Projects) giving the reading breadth of views from numerous experts in the world of project management.

These authors discuss the:

Few will disagree that sponsorship is critical to project success, yet how many times to you hear, “Our project sponsor is not engaged!” Our research shows that 80% of all PMs will tell you that engagement is the primary issue they face with the executive sponsor. Even more serious, when discussing the topic with executives, a very large majority will say that consistent, high-quality sponsorship is the number-one problem they see in executing initiatives successfully. 

The dearth of corporate leadership is stifling. Daily executives struggle with this reality. The challenge is creating the best learning environment for employees to debate situational leadership challenges. Too many times they are learning on-the-job and making costly mistakes leaving collateral damage in the workplace. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an environment where people could test their reactions to situations that have actually arisen and debate the appropriate resolution in a safe environment?

Amazon #1 Bestseller in Business and Technical Project Management!

Back from the brink... the first fail-safe recovery plan for turning around troubled projects and keeping the problems from reoccurring.

When budgets are dwindling, deadlines passing, and tempers flaring, the usual response is to browbeat the project team and point fingers of blame. Not helpful. For these situations, what is needed is an objective process for accurately assessing what is wrong and a clear plan of action for fixing the problem.

In Rescue the Problem Project, Todd Williams, President of eCameron, describes how projects go wrong and what to do to fix them. It focuses first on people, then process, and finally technology. By doing this it helps you find the root cause of the failure and helps you prevent it from happening again.

The Challenge:

You are running a project that is supposed to improve the organization to leap out in front of the competition, yet you have had little formal training on what that means. Project managers need lessons in how world class business runs to drive projects to make that happen.

Built to Last, Collins' first book and defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study:

The project sponsor is critical to project success, yet it is a role that is often assigned to a member of the organization with little knowledge or training in project management practices. This creates challenges not only for the sponsor but for the project manager. The organization suffers too if key members of the project team are not fully utilized, as valuable resources are wasted. In Strategies for Project Sponsorship, the authors address this challenge from all three vantage points that of the project manager, the project sponsor, and the organization. Based on their practical experience and solid research, they offer practical methods that project manager s can use to optimize the participation of the sponsor. They also offer clear and straightforward guidance for project sponsors on how to properly execute their duties and contribute to project success. Executives will gain valuable perspective on the organization s projects and key players. From defining the roles and responsibilities of the project sponsor to suggesting specific practices that maximize the working relationship between the sponsor and project manager, this book is the ultimate guide. Examples from real-world sponsor experiences, as well as tips, techniques, and tools, enhance its applicability and practicality. This book should be given to every newly assigned project sponsor, read and referred to by every project manager, and on the desk of every organizational executive as a reference.

Projects build capabilities to meet corporate goals. If you are a CEO, you need to make sure your employees and vendors know what those goals are and how they fit in to the plan. If you are a project manager, you need to know the bounds of you project. If you are anywhere in between, you need to understand how all the pieces fit together and keep it all aligned.

This is a non-project management book that discusses how to achieve results in the execution of a plan. The four disciplines are great change management tools that get results and keep people focused. Where it is valuable to a project manager is in its education on how to keep people focused on a goal. It can you used to help your team on short term progress or on driving your project's customer to focus on what they need to achieve success. If you plan to make the move from project management to any other operational mode--even to the PMO--this book gives a number of good tools.

One of the primary tasks of a project manager is to negotiate—negotiate scope, negotiate for resources, negotiate for money, negotiate end dates, etc.—there is almost nothing that a project manager has as a give. Even in your personal life, negotiation skills are essential for dealing with everything from your kids' bedtime, to the price of your next car. Understanding the art and science of negotiation is critical. This book, especially in conjunction with one of our classes, is a great way to get you down the road to improving you negotiation skills. Don't be fooled though, negotiation takes practice.