Project Management Essentials

This essential training course is designed to present the basics of project management with a focus on understanding project management terms, project selection, planning, estimating, scheduling, and earned value management. If you are new to projects or been assigned to projects and need to understand how to manage the project, this is the training course for you. This training course will also cover the highlights of quality, risk and procurement. You will leave this training course with a full understanding of what project management is and how to manage a successful project.

This training course will feature:

• Review & understanding of common project management practices
• Hands on experience with the project charter, scope statement, & earned value management
• Appraisal of projects using project selection techniques, project chartering & gathering requirements
• Understand project management tools & procedures that can be implemented to improve or establish formal project management methodologies

By the end of this training course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the fundamentals of project management - the ability to initiate, plan & execute basic controls for a project
• Understand the techniques of project planning and how to deliver one
• Understand how to define project success using key performance indicators & quality metrics
• Identify risks and understanding the advantages of various types of contracts
• Understand how to control, manage and close a project to your customers satisfaction

This training course is suitable to a wide range of professionals but will greatly benefit:

• Those who are actually or potentially involved in projects
• Business professionals who currently work on projects or are occasionally assigned to work as project team members in any business work areas
• Those who directly contribute to projects. It is ideal for candidates who are intending to start managing projects soon, need to learn project management skills quickly, or need to know how to effectively select and manage projects

This training course will utilise a variety of proven adult learning techniques to ensure maximum understanding, comprehension and retention of the information presented. The course is highly interactive and is designed with briefings and a central project scenario as the driver for all course learning. Students will complete several elements of project work through assigned roles. Several work products will be created including a Scope statement, WBS, Risk Register, activity list, network diagram and earned value report. There will be open discussion and real world examples with the emphasis on learning by doing.

Day One: Project Management Basics, History, Benefits and Components

• Understanding what project management is
• Defining project and product life cycles
• Understanding Best Practice Project Management
• How to Initiate a Project: How to do it
• Managing the project selection process
• Writing SMART objectives and business cases

Practical Exercise: Creating SMART objectives

Project Exercise: Project Selection exercises

Day Two: Project Planning, Charters, Work Breakdown Structures and Scope Statements

• Developing the project documentation for senior management sign-offs
• Defining the project management
• Understand how to collect requirements
• Defining the full project scope
• Creating and analysing the project with Work Breakdown Structures

Practical Exercise: Writing the Project Charter

Practical Exercise: Gathering Requirements

Practical Exercise: Creating the Work Breakdown Structure

Practical Exercise: Writing the Scope Statement

Day Three: Creating and Managing the Project Schedule and Budget

• Understanding what a realistic schedule is
• Defining and managing dependencies
• How to estimate project durations and costs
• Creating and optimising the project schedule
• Presenting your schedule and resource constraints
• How to control the cost, schedule and resources

Practical Exercise: Network diagramming practice

Practical Exercise: Create, sequence activities and determine duration estimations

Practical Exercise: Complete analogous, parametric and three-point estimating

Day Four: Planning for Quality, HR, Communications, Risk and Procurement

• Defining and controlling project KPI’s / Metrics
• Presenting and defining the project resource plan
• Developing a communication plan
• Managing Virtual Teams
• Understanding and reviewing project risk
• Managing the project contract against project constraints

Practical Exercise: Create quality project metrics

Practical Exercise: Conduct a project meeting

Practical Exercise: Risk Management project exercise

Day Five: Working, Controlling and Closing the Project

• Using project software to track projects
• Dealing with project management problems
• Project case reviews and discussion
• Project Management leadership, communications and meetings best practices
• Closing the project including project administration, hand-offs, document updates, and lessons learned
• Lessons learned, why, when and what

Practical Exercise: Create end course lessons learned