It is not possible to present a complete treatment of project management in the span of 3-hours. It is however, possible to focus in on those most important aspects of project management that are critical to the success of any project. Without basic tools, it is not possible to effectively manage a project to the pre-determined end-date without turmoil and chaos.
We have distilled the key aspects of project management into three one-hour virtual seminar segments that will logically move participants from the beginning of the project management process to the end – from initiating the project to closing the project.
This seminar will address those project management critical tasks within each project phase that must be performed flawlessly for effective project execution to occur and will provide the foundation and direction for future study of the subject.
The seminar is designed to build a working understanding of the subject and for a quick start-up for those unanticipated project management assignments. XF2689
Session 1: Project Management – An Overview
Project Management – An Overview
- What is a project?
- What is project management?
- The project manager’s role
- What is effective project management?
- The five stages of a project
- The triple constraint, collaboration and flexibility
- Project management pitfalls
- Determine and specify the business need
- Identify the project expectations, resources, and budgets – project scope statement/project charter
- Determine your project audience, i.e. project stakeholders, initiator, and champion(s)
- How to work and interact with your audience
- Determine/craft project objectives
- What are the project’s constraints?
Session 2: Specifying the project work to be done and establish the project’s timing and resource requirements
Specifying the project work to be done and establish the project’s timing and resource requirements
- Develop the work breakdown structure
- Naming key tasks
- Making assumptions
- Special project situations
- Long-term project planning
- Displaying the work breakdown structure
- Categorizing project work
- What to document
- Purpose and function of the network diagram
- Reading and interpreting a network diagram
- Creating the network diagram
- Develop the initial schedule
- Determine activity durations
- Gaming the schedule
- Determine team member skills that are needed
- Estimate the human resource requirement
- Meeting resource commitments
- Resolve resource overloads and conflicts
- Handling multiple projects
- Developing the budget
Session 3: Risk, the project team, project management and control
Risk, the project team, project management and control
- Risk factors and risks
- Identifying the risk factors
- Risk types
- Assessing and weighing risk
- Determine consequences
- Develop a risk mitigation strategy
- Develop your risk management plan
- Organizational structures for managing projects
- Define the key players and their roles
- Team member roles and responsibilities
- Assigning project tasks
- Authority versus responsibility
- The RACI Chart
- Developing team operational strategies and procedures
- Managing team activities
- Developing your team
- Managing team and individual team member performance
- Working cross-culturally
- Collaboration and flexibility – how are they executed and managed successfully
- Scope creep and how it is managed
- Tracking and reporting progress
- Work-effort tracking
- Managing the budget
- Communicating effectively – how to make it work
- When things go wrong – scheduling alternatives
What do you do? Here is a common scenario. You are three years out of college in your first engineering job. You are sitting in a meeting about the introduction of a new packaging line in your pharmaceutical plant. You are half listening to the presentation while thinking about some of the other work you need to complete on different matters. The installation will take a year to execute and will require the coordination with several functions inside and outside of the company.
Suddenly the Director of Engineering turns to you and says “Allison, this would be a great first opportunity for you to manage a very interesting project. Let’s meet tomorrow and discuss your initial plans for getting started.”
This is an all too common occurrence in today’s business environment.
Today more than ever before the job titles that we hold are not entirely reflective of the work that we do. Global teams and collaboration often place those in positions of team leadership that have the least foundation to manage all facets of complex projects. Project management requires specific knowledge of the key project facets that must be carefully managed. The interactions across divergent corporate functions, culture, language, and time zones all pose unique challenges to the new project manager.
Unfortunately, project management is not a subject given much attention in college and university these days. The answer? Get some training – some basic understandable project management training that will provide you with a solid foundation for managing that first project or to simply sharpen existing project management skills.
It is not just important to learn about project management – project management has its own body of knowledge – its own set of standards that all project managers follow called the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Any valuable training must teach/present the content comprising this Body of Knowledge.
