Practical Project Management for Agile Nonprofits: Approaches and Templates to Help You Manage with Limited Resources

by Karen R.J. White, Pamela Puleo (Introduction)

Practical Project Management for Agile Nonprofits introduces the reader to the basic concepts of project management. It provides dozens of approaches and templates to help nonprofit managers quickly implement practices to help them manage their limited resources, both financial and volunteer. The book emphasizes using appropriate project management practices, those that are not burdensome but rather agile in their approach. In keeping with this theme, the book explores how social media can be used to assist in the management of time-sensitive projects.

Readers will learn how to apply just enough project management to:

• Be an active leader and a superior project manager
• Respond with agility to change and the unexpected
• Focus your efforts on what truly matters
• Recruit and engage a new generation of volunteers
• Build a framework that ensures project success
• Keep all stakeholders involved with the project satisfied

The book also addresses nonprofit governance and shows how project portfolio management can be used to assist in communicating with boards of directors and other governing entities when crucial resource decisions need to be made. Development office managers can easily implement portfolio management to facilitate the assignment of volunteers and to visually portray project activities to stakeholders.

Finally, real-world case studies on project planning, portfolio management, and volunteer-managed projects will demonstrate how others have achieved project success.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Karen R.J. White, PMP, PMI Fellow, is the founder of Applied Agility, an organization focused on helping nonprofits achieve success with their strategic objectives. She has managed numerous projects for small and large nonprofits, ranging in diversity from the Girl Scouts to healthcare centers to international museums to universities.

Karen was formerly a senior consultant and director with PM Solutions, where she assisted many Fortune 500 firms in implementing project management best practices. She has served as a board director for the Project Management Institute as well as Chair of the PMI Educational Foundation. In 2009 she was named a PMI Fellow.

Karen is recognized internationally for her leadership in the profession and as a thought leader in the practice of agile project management. She is the author of Agile Project Management: A Mandate for the 21st Century (Center for Business Practices, 2009) and contributed to The AMA Handbook of Project Management (AMACOM, 2010) and Project Management Maturity Model (Auerbach Publications, 2006). Karen holds an MS in Information Systems from Northeastern University.
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Reviews

[Kirsten · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dry. Oh so dry.

[Francisco Becerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very succint yet comprehensive guide to project management, focused on non-profits. Either if you work with one or ont, this book is a great guide to keep focused, to communicate, to manage risks, and to use simple yet effective management strategies.

[Written Melodies · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5/5 stars

It's very seldom that I abandon a book; however, after the first 60 pages, I could not continue. It felt like a chore to read. The writing was dry and repetitive. There were a few tidbits of useful information scattered throughout the text such as the project wall, volunteer database, project objectives mnemonic device, and the steps to managing projects.