QA Certificate in Scheduling Best Practice

Effective project management skills are becoming increasingly important. Organisations need good project managers, at all levels, to successfully deliver the change projects that will enable the business to adapt, grow and achieve its strategic objectives.

This course provides an essential overview of the core principles behind the discipline of scheduling best practice required to deliver small-to-medium sized projects and an introduction to key documentation.

This course is suitable for managers, potential project managers, work-stream leaders or team members who wish to gain an insight into scheduling best practice.

This 1 day scheduling best practice certified course uses a mixture of presentation, discussion and hands-on exercises, addressing topics in a highly engaging, concise and pragmatic manner way. Let’s start the collaborative scheduling journey…

Prerequisites

While there are no formal prerequisites for this course, it is assumed that attendees will have a working knowledge of basic scheduling practices. This may be as a result of attending other project management related courses where scheduling is part of the course syllabus.

Pre-Course Reading

Delegates are not provided with any formal pre-reading before this course as such. It is recommended that candidates review the course workbook provided with the joining instructions or via the Mimeo link.

Delegates will learn how to

• Enhance understanding of requirements gathering and scope definition

• Understand techniques for defining and presenting the scope

• Enhance understanding of various estimating techniques, along with the advantages and disadvantages of these

• Enhance understanding of network development

• Conduct critical path analysis, interpreting the results

• Understand the characteristics of a robust schedule

• Understand the implications of applying constraints to the schedule

• Understand the use of different reporting formats

Outline

This highly interactive workshop uses a short case-study to enable delegates to gain confidence in the use of proven techniques in the areas listed below.

The course provides a solid foundation for further development of scheduling skills through self-reading, more advanced training and practical hands-on experience.

Planning

Learners are introduced to the basic concept of planning and scheduling with a brief discussion on the purpose and application of the PMP

Requirements Management

As in integral lead into defining the project scope, a review of this process provides the setting for effective scheduling.

Scope Management

The captured requirements form the basis of defining the scope for the project. Delegates will recap on the use of various breakdown structures resulting in the RAM and scope baseline.

Project Estimating

Various estimating techniques are investigated, along with discussion on typical estimating problems and how to enhance more effective estimating on the project.

Schedule Management

This module is the core of the content with a detailed investigation of network diagramming, logical relationships and critical path analysis. A solid understanding of the interpretation of the output from critical path analysis, taking into account the impact of constraints, calendars and methods of schedule optimisation.

Project Communications

This module considers appropriate reporting formats – Gantt Charts, Milestone charts, Drop-line Method, Line of balance charts – along with various approaches to progress reporting.

Project Closeout

This final module considers the requirements for controlled closeout from a scheduling perspective.

Certified Scheduling Best Practice exam

Each learner will have the opportunity to prepare for and then take the QA Scheduling Best Practice exam digitally.