Project Management (A Comprehensive Guide)

The effective delivery of any new project, no matter what size, is dependent upon the efficient management of the variables involved. Whilst there are many project management methodologies in common use, the application of a particular methodology does not guarantee project success.

It is vital that all the people involved understand the most effective methods, principles, techniques and tools available to bring a project to a successful conclusion.

This comprehensive two-day course outlines the skills needed within an organisation to deliver successful projects. It draws upon industry best practice from a variety of market sectors to illustrate why some projects are successful and others flounder.

The course also explains the crucial role played by the Project Manager, in terms of leadership, motivation and maintaining the enthusiastic engagement of all stakeholders.

The learning experience is highly interactive and demonstrates the practical application of project management methodologies using illustrative case studies, examples and real-world scenarios.

What Will Be Covered?

The course addresses the critical areas of project management focus in order to ensure project success:

• Project management context
  • Defining a project and project management
  • Understanding project and product life cycles
  • Understanding the key tasks of project management to drive success
  • How to structure projects to succeed and the use of critical success factors
• Scoping
  • Capturing and managing customer and user needs, wants and aspirations to determine the scope of project requirements
  • How to plan to control project requirements
  • Agreeing the architecture of a solution
  • Managing scope change
  • Planning the route to project closure
• Work definition
  • Formulating a work breakdown structure
  • The importance of work breakdown structures in change management
  • Integrating changes into the project
• Scheduling
  • Activity definition and sequencing
  • Deliverables and milestones
  • Overview of scheduling methods
  • Evaluating how to, or how not to, shorten your project schedule
• Principles of project review and control
  • Review process and judging whether a review has been successful
  • Understanding the types and objectives of schedule reviews
  • The construction of a typical schedule review agenda
• Handling project risk
  • Risk concepts and the risk management process
• Leadership and motivation
  • Understanding why motivation matters and its impact on team roles and performance
  • Typical project manager leadership characteristics
• Reporting and conferring
  • The need for reporting and communication
  • Communications planning
  • Summary reporting for stakeholders
  • Why confer as well as report?

Key Benefits:

After attending this course delegates will be able to:

• Determine whether their projects are missing some critical success factors and prevent them from heading for failure
• Understand and utilise the six key tasks of project management
• Judge if their organisation is “project ready”
• Evaluate whether the scope of each of their projects is bounded
• Assess the various approaches used on their projects and compare them with industry best practice
• Evaluate the extent to which a project addresses and utilises motivating, reporting and conferring techniques