Project Management Course
Example Of 3 Day Course
Project Management: People, Processes, and Technology Three-day Course
Day 1: Introduction to project management
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. – “Road map to effective project management processes”.
This is a group exercise designed to identify:
a. Current processes (“Where we are” – what processes are currently in place)
b. Objectives (“Where we want to be” – what needs to be achieved)
c. Road map (“How to get there” – steps necessary to established processes)
9:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. – Introduction to project management processes.
- The fundamentals behind project management.
- The project management triangle: scope, cost, and time.
- Psychological issues, related to project management. Heuristics and biases in project decision-making.
This session includes few examples how project management processes are implemented in different industries and organizations (oil and gas, manufacturing, construction, mining, IT, and pharmaceutical examples).
11:00 a.m. – noon. – Introduction to project decision-making.
How project decisions are made: assessing business situations, aligning project objectives, identifying tradeoffs, and identifying risks and uncertainties.
This session may include a small (5-10 minutes) exercise on project decision analysis: making decision related to particular project based on multiple objectives. The goal of this session is to understand what processes and techniques are available to improve your ability to make better project decisions
1:00 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. – Project Management as the art of estimation.
How project managers and teams estimate project duration:
- psychology of estimating;
- project schedules and project valuation models;
- schedule network analysis techniques;
- practical methods of estimating;
- gathering and processing information about cost and duration of the various activities.
The goal of this session is to learn various approaches to the estimation of project cost, duration, and evaluation resource requirements.
3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Project communication management.
How to acquire, develop, and manage project teams: communication planning, information distribution, performance reporting, and stakeholder management.
The goal of this session is establish better communication process between project stakeholders. The focus is made on performance reporting.
4:45 p.m. – Questions and discussions
Day 2: Processes
8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Overview of Project Management Processes.
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – how to use these processes properly and includes an introduction to project integration management.
9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Project scope management.
- Project scope planning, scope definition, creating a work breakdown structure.
- Exercise: WBS via brainstorming in the project team. Short overview of PMBOK’s procurement management processes: planning purchasing and acquisitions, planning contracting, contact administration. /li>
The goal of this session is to establish the process of defining project scope and learn about procurement management processes.
11:15 a.m. – noon. – Project time management.
- Resource estimation, resource leveling, schedule development, and schedule control.
- Skills and competency management.
The goal of this session is to establish the process of managing of resource: what resource will be allocated to what project, how to deal with unexpected issues, which required more resources.
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – Project cost and quality management.
- Cost estimation, cost budgeting and cost control.
- Project quality planning, assurance, and control. Introduction to earned value management.
The goal of this session is provide practical tips about effective cost management and cost control including managing project performance using earned value management.
2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. – Risk management.
- Qualitative risk analysis: risk identification, planning, and control.
- Fundamentals of quantitative risk and decision analysis: determining what is most important: sensitivity analysis and correlations, decision trees and value of new information, and Monte Carlo.
The goal of this session is learn about basic concepts around project risks: identification what may happen, analysis how it would affect the project, response what needs to be done if the event actually occurred.
4:10 p.m. – 4:20 p.m. – Exercise: risk identification and analysis.
4:30 p.m. – Questions and discussions
Day 3: Technology
8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. – Project Scheduling Tools: Overview of scheduling software.
- Microsoft Project scheduling features: Gantt Charts, network diagrams, resource charts, etc.
- Exercise: project scheduling and resource management with Microsoft Project.
The goal of this session in to understand how to use Microsoft Project and/or other software to create a project schedule and allocate resources.
9:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Adaptive management with Microsoft Project.
- Time, scope, and cost tracking and forecasting.
- Practical tips to project performance with Microsoft Project or/and other software.
The goal of this session is establish process integration actual data to the project schedules and updating forecast and resource allocation.
11:15 a.m. – noon. – Project collaboration tools and techniques.
- Microsoft Project collaboration tools, Microsoft Project Server.
- An introduction to project portfolio management.
- Executive dashboard: monitoring status of all projects within an organization.
The goal of this session is to establish easy-to-use processes to monitor activities of all projects in organization as well as making informed decisions based on this information.
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. – Project risk management with Microsoft Project and RiskyProject:
- Defining risks breakdown structure, performing analysis, interpretation results of analysis.
- Exercise: project risk management with RiskyProject.
The goal of this session is to learn practical tools how to incorporate uncertainties, such as risk events, to the project plans.
2:45 p.m. – 4:15.m. – Other project management tools and techniques.
- An overview of quality management processes: Six Sigma, Lean, and Critical Chain.
- Visualizations in project management. Issue management. Introduction to enterprise resource management.
The goal of this session is to provide an overview: what other tools and techniques are available for the purpose of improving organizational performance.