Acknowledgments

As this book goes to print, I am reliving my career in fast forward. My early career was with Unisys. I often say that you don’t really know how good a company is until you leave it. Unisys was one of those great companies. I must acknowledge my first manager at Unisys, Russ Bonacci. As IT Director, Russ enabled me to reach out beyond our IT departmental responsibilities to seek training and experience beyond that which would help his group accomplish its goals. Russ truly enabled me to fly, into quality management, software capability improvement using the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model, and even the model for performance excellence, the Baldrige National Quality Program. I have leveraged these broad competencies, knowledge, and experiences throughout the rest of my career. This experience taught me that excellence is acquired through continually assessing current capabilities and striving to raise the bar.

Contributors to this book are many, and some of them don’t even know it. My colleagues at Management Concepts, John Kinser, Don Wessels, and Merleen Hilley, were kind enough to review and comment on the very first iteration of this book, which was in the form of a white paper. My engineering colleagues at the CIA, who must remain nameless, provided valuable insights into the world of complex engineering projects. My former manager, Cleve Pillifant, was not only inspirational but quite supportive in the birth of this volume. My partner in crime, Teidi Tucker, always props me up and offers words of encouragement.

In addition, many thought leaders in the field of complex project management have greatly influenced me; most of them are widely quoted in this book. First and foremost is Doug DeCarlo, author of extreme Project Management: Using Leadership, Principles, and Tools to Deliver Value in the Face of Volatility. Doug has made a lasting contribution to our ability to deliver value through projects in the face of uncertainty and volatility. Dr. Gerald Mulenburg offered words of encouragement and contributed to sections of the book describing complexity theory as it applies to projects. Michael Au-coin presented a revolutionary approach to looking at projects in Right-Brain Project Management: A Complementary Approach, as did Aaron J. Shenhar and Dov Dvir in their groundbreaking work, Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach to Successful Growth and Innovation.

I would like to acknowledge the work of the editors, Myra Strauss and Lena Johnson, who polished the manuscript with great talent and consideration. In addition, Myra has been an extraordinary source of encouragement and support throughout. Management Concepts in general is a remarkable place to work—supportive, leading edge, and above all, concerned about its people. This I must attribute to our leader, Tom Dungan, and his leadership team.