Project Management Foundations & Best Practices - Two-day Class
Successful projects are critical because they are how most organizations create new products, systems, or services. Yet too many projects fail because of poor project management. This course introduces students to the foundations of successful project management, especially in a technology environment. Students will learn key project management concepts, then immediately apply them in a hands-on team simulation.
This 16-hour course approaches project management from the standpoint of managing a single, stand-alone project that is small to medium in size. It takes students through the project life cycle in the same sequence they would face when managing a real project in the workplace. Topics include initiating a project, defining scope, planning a project, executing and controlling a project, and doing closeout. The course is compliant with the latest edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).
How You Will Benefit:
By the end of the two-day class, you will understand how to manage a project from beginning to successful completion. You will understand how to:
- Explain the role and value of project management.
- Recognize common causes of project success and failure.
- Balance competing priorities.
- Identify individual and team skills that affect the success of a project.
- Initiate a project using chartering and a project kickoff.
- Set stakeholder expectations early.
- Identify deliverables and requirements, and create plans for managing them.
- Perform the activities needed for a successful project planning phase.
- Break down deliverables into tasks and activities using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
- Identify dependencies between tasks and estimate the effort required to complete the tasks.
- Develop a schedule, resource plan, and budget that fit the project.
- Identify and manage risks.
- Plan for communication, quality, scope changes and procurement.
- Monitor project progress, steer a project during execution, and take corrective action.
- Increase team motivation and performance.
- Close out a project with requirements verification, acceptance and handoff.
- Complete a lessons learned review.
Course Outline:
Day 1
1. Overview of project management
- Why projects succeed and fail
- Does project management work?
- Project lifecycles
- Human factors
2. Initiating and defining a project
- Tune your approach
- How projects are selected
- Defining business reasons and deliverables for the project
- Chartering
- Managing stakeholders
- Developing a cost-benefit analysis for the project
- Constraints, assumptions and high level risks
- Roles and responsibilities
- Kicking off the project
3. Teams and people
- Characteristics of effective project leaders
- Forming project teams
- Organizational structures
4. Scope planning
- Costs of inadequate planning
- Seven questions of planning
- Requirements gathering
- Work breakdown structure
- Activity definition and sequencing
- Critical path
- Resource and duration estimating
- Advanced estimating and planning techniques
- Developing a realistic schedule
Day 2
5. Managing risks
- Identification
- Prioritization
- Assessment
- Taking action
6. Project management planning
- Making tradeoffs
- Getting resources
- Communications planning
- Defining roles and responsibilities
- Project management controls
- Quality planning
7. Executing and controlling
- Proactive cycle of project control
- Measuring progress
- Steering the project
- Resolving issues
- Team performance
- Information distribution
- Change control
- Quality assurance & control
8. Closeout
- Verification and acceptance
- Project handoff
- Lessons learned and team acknowledgements
- Final reporting and administrative closeout
- Finalizing documentation
9. Action planning
Who Should Attend:
Engineers, scientists, clinicians, researchers, administrators, continuous improvement specialists, quality assurance personnel, or other technical professionals who are responsible for product, process, or test development, improvement who must organize and manage small to medium-sized projects.
Prerequisites:
Previous experience in a project environment is helpful, but not required