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PM Practitioner
Course Description
Overview
If you already have some project experience, and would like to progress to managing projects, this course will give you all of the knowledge needed by a working project manager. It discusses in depth all of the key concepts and knowledge required by an entry-level practitioner. Upon completion, delegates should be equipped to take on their first project management role. It will also benefit more experienced project managers who need to strengthen their knowledge, and thereby enable their projects to become more effective and less prone to failure.
What You Will Learn from This Course:
- How to manage a typical project
- How a project exists within its context and how this affects the way you manage it
- How we ensure we do the right project and do the project right
- How to create realistic and workable plans
- How to control project execution
- How to lead and manage your team
- How to develop and get the best out of your team
- How to manage your project stakeholders
- What to do with risks and issues
- How to achieve scope, schedule and cost targets
- How to get appropriate project quality
Why Should You Attend this Course?
Managing a project is a difficult task. Not only do you promise to deliver to a fixed set of (often challenging) parameters such as cost, schedule and scope, you also have to lead your team, manage your stakeholders and also cope with the unknown and the unexpected. Those with a stake in the project often differ and have conflicting demands of you (and among themselves). During the course of the project, the goalposts will suddenly change, and you still have to deliver as you promised. This course will tell you how to balance all of these and still deliver.
If you have already gained project experience, either as part of a project team, helping to manage a [project or managing one yourself, this course will complete, hone and build on your existing skills sot that you can manage your projects more effectively and take on more ambitions assignments.
All of the required processes, techniques, skills and concepts are covered in this course, so that by completion, you will have all of the knowledge needed.
Technical skills such as risk, change, quality and scope management are investigated in detail and key methods and tools are examined.
Critical among the areas covered is the management of your team. Although technical skills are important, it is the “soft” skills that really make a difference in a project. Being able to motivate, support, lead and empower your team will give you a key edge. Coupled with the ability to communicate with work successfully with your stakeholders, these will greatly enhance your ability to achieve your project goals consistently.
Project managers and those who are looking to be project managers will benefit from this course. In addition, project team members and staff from other disciplines who attend this course will gain a deeper understanding of managing projects, thus helping them to interface more effectively with project teams and also perform better in their own role.
The course is full of practical techniques and examples, with the intention of turning knowledge into practical benefit and the worked examples, case studies and exercises are intended to make applying the knowledge gained much easier.
Finally, the instructor will include opportunities to discuss the real-world problems and issues and questions that are affecting delegates in their own projects and working lives, so that improvements and solutions can be implemented as soon as delegates return to their desks.
Often, helpful advice can be gained from the experience of other delegates, and the course setting provides opportunities to do this.
Who Should Attend This Course?
- Project Managers
- Aspiring Project Managers
- Project Controls Staff
- Project Management Office Staff
- Project Team Members
- Project Sponsors
- Senior Management
- Project Engineers
- Staff who interface with project teams
Outcome of this Course
By the end of this intensive 5-day course, attendees will be able to:
- Understand how organisations and projects are structured
- Understand project life cycles
- Understand contexts and environments in which projects can be delivered
- Understand governance of project management and the use of structured methodologies
- Understand communication within project management
- Understand the principles of leadership and teamwork
- Understand planning for success
- Understand project scope management
- Understand schedule and resource management
- Understand project procurement
- Understand risk management and issue management
- Understand project quality management
Course Length
5 days
Course Content
An interactive mix of lecture, case studies, group discussion and activities will be used to illustrate and apply the methods, tools and techniques needed to manage projects. The following topics will be covered:
Structure of organisations and projects
- Distinguish between different types of organisational structure
- Responsibility Assignment Matrix
- Roles and responsibilities of project sponsor, project manager, team members, project steering group, users
- Relationship between project sponsor and manager
- Functions and benefits of project office
Project life cycle
- Project life cycle phases
- Difference between project life cycle and extended life cycle
- Sharing knowledge
- Benefits of conducting reviews
Project contexts and environments
- Project context, environmental factors
- Use of PESTLE, SWOT
- Difference between project and business as usual
- Characteristics of programme management
- Challenges of programme management
- Situations where portfolio management is used
- Distinguish between project management and portfolio and programme management
- Health safety and environmental legislation
Governance and structured methodologies
- Principles of governance of project management
- Methods and procedures to support governance
- Advantages of using structured methodologies
Communication
- Communication plan, barriers to communication
- Importance of effective communication
- Conflict management
- Negotiation
Leadership and teamwork
- Impact of leadership
- Situational leadership approach
- Creation and management of teams
Planning for success
- Business case, ownership, authorship
- Benefits management
- Information management
- Project management plan, authorship, approval
- Project management plan contents
- Estimating
- Earned value management
- Earned value calculations and interpret earned value data
- Stakeholder management
- Use of payback, internal rate of return and net present value
- Project reporting cycle
Scope management
- Product Breakdown Structure (PBS), Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
- Configuration management
- Requirements management
- Change control and links with configuration
Schedule and resource management
- Project scheduling
- Categories and types of resources
- Resource smoothing and leveling
- Financial and cost management
- Budget and cost control
Procurement
- Supplier relationships
- Contracts
- Supplier selection
Project risk management and issue management
- Risk management process
- Risk as threat and opportunity
- Benefits of risk management
- Distinguish between a risk and an issue
- Escalation
Project quality management
- Project quality management described
- Quality planning, assurance, control and continual improvement
Case Studies
- Presentation of real-life examples and case studies of how project management is used in a variety of projects
Practical Exercises
- Worked examples, where delegates participate in groups or teams to manage some fictitious but realistic project.
Summary And Next Steps
- Summary
- Things you can do next
- Reference Material