Workshop: Project Management Fundamentals

Duration: Three Days

Description: This workshop is a comprehensive introduction to project management best practices. The workshop presents proven project management techniques and tools that participants can use on all projects, regardless of size or business area. Participants practice using the tools to manage a case study project of their choice. At the conclusion of the workshop, they have experienced managing a project from inception though hand-off to the customer.

Audience: Project managers, project team leads, functional managers, and project core team members who want to understand the project management process and work together more effectively for successful project completion.

Workshop Topics:

1. Project Management Framework

1. What is a project?
2. What is project management?
3. Project and Product life cycles
4. Organizational strategies (functional, matrix, projectized)
5. Executive sponsor role
6. Project manager role

2. Initiating a Project

1. Establishing a clear business case
2. Core team roles and responsibilities
3. Identifying and involving key stakeholders
4. Defining the Project Objective and Triple Constraint trade-off
5. Creating a Project Charter
6. Creating a Communication Plan
7. Establishing scope change control and issue resolution processes

3. Planning the Project

1. Order of magnitude project estimation
2. Rolling wave planning
3. Creating the Work Breakdown Structure
4. Task estimating
5. Procurement planning
6. Quality planning
7. Initial scheduling using the Critical Path Method

4. Risk Management

1. Identifying and prioritizing key risks
2. Determining the risk response actions
3. Revising the project plan to include risk response triggers
4. Preparing for contingencies
5. Establishing an on-going risk management process

5. Creating the Project Baseline Plan

1. Resource loading and leveling
2. Speeding up the schedule
3. Negotiating a reasonable scope
4. Risk and management reserves
5. Establishing the project baseline
6. Effective use of project management software

6. Executing and Controlling the Project

1. Key project metrics
2. Earned value simplified
3. Collecting progress information
4. Effective team status meetings
5. Assessing project progress
6. Determining adaptive actions
7. Reporting on project progress to stakeholders
8. Key project management reviews

7. Closing Out the Project

1. Scope verification and customer acceptance
2. Ensuring an environment for effective product support
3. Closing out contracts
4. Issue log resolution
5. Collecting the lessons learned
6. Archiving the project file