Practical and Effective Management Techniques for the Successful Project Managers

Program Overview:

As organizational managers, it is important to build a climate that supports effective project management practices: accurate and useful estimates, accelerated delivery, project partnerships, and emphasis on quality, alternatives analysis, and two-way communication. You can further support that climate with consistent methods and improved tools for project estimating and project management.

This workshop builds upon the current edition of the PMBOK® Guide and uses additional resources to guide managers on multiple projects. It will equally help participants understand the steps needed to improve their organization’s project management.

For Whom:

This program is designed for managers and senior executives who are managing or leading one or more projects, project team members, leaders, and those who need a practical project management tool kit. Those preparing for PMP certification will find this course helpful.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this program, participants will learn;

■ How to diagnose the uniqueness of every project

■ How to establish clear and realistic objectives for project management

■ Break complex projects into bite-size pieces

■ How to motivate your project team to achieve the result

■ Evaluate resources such as skills, abilities, and commitment of personnel associated with project tasks

■ How to implement monitoring and control systems

■ How to deal effectively with changes to the project plan

Course Outline:

Day 1: Introduction, Definition, and Context of Project Management

■ Project management vs. General Management

■ The Project Management Institute (PMI) BOK

■ The Project Management Processes

■ Integrating Project with the organization

Project Management Life Cycle

■ The Project Life Cycle

o Phases

o Characteristics

o Life cycle trends

■ Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling, and Closing

Day 2: Project Selection, Initiation, and Team Formation

■ Project Selection Questions

■ Selection models

■ Business and Project requirements

■ Building a Project Team

o Identifying, documenting, and assigning roles, responsibilities & reporting relationships

o Team charter development

■ Project Scope Planning & Work breakdown

■ Establishing boundaries & writing objectives

o Business product

o Project objectives

■ Creating a scope document

■ Definition and purpose of work breakdown structure (WBS)

■ Alternate format of the WBS

Day 3: Successful Task Sequencing

■ Definition of task dependency

■ Types of procedure relationships

■ Fast-tracking – overlapping phases

■ Task diagraming techniques

Project Estimating

■ What are we estimating?

■ Work effort and duration

■ 5 Estimating techniques

o PERT BETA formula

o SWAG or PFA

o Narrow band Delphi

o Group exercises and lessons learned

o Object-based formula

■ Estimating compensators

■ Estimating tips and traps

Day 4: Critical Path Analysis

■ How do we use critical path analysis in managing projects?

■ Demonstration of a critical path calculation

■ Early start and late start scheduling using software

■ Crashing the schedule

Resource Planning and Budgeting

■ Identify required skill sets

■ Identify resource capability

■ Using a skills inventory matrix

■ Negotiate for and allocate resources

■ Verify effort and duration estimates

Day 5: Project Risk & Quality Management

■ Risk and the project life cycles

■ Risk identification, quantification,

response development & control

■ Strategic vs. operational risk

■ Quality concepts

■ Conformance vs. non-conformance

Project Monitoring, Control & Evaluation

■ PM Control interfaces

■ Monitoring time, cost, scope & quality

■ Meeting management

Leadership Skills in Action

■ Leadership vs. Management

■ Motivational strategies

■ Authority and power to act

■ Conflict management and resolution

■ Negotiation and communication strategies

Training Methodology

Lectures, discussions, exercises, and case studies will be used to reinforce these teaching/learning methods.