Project Management

Module Overview

The project team is well on its way to supplanting the functional department as the key organisational unit of the modern workplace. Its great strength lies in the manner it draws together the diverse strands of multidisciplinary knowledge and endeavour to apply against a single well-defined goal.

But projects can be complex entities & their disciplined management necessitates a quite unique set of skills, analogous to that of the orchestra conductor, who must harmonise the diversity of inputs into a symphony somehow greater than the sum of its parts – & all this, on time, within budget & exceeding expectation.
This 2-day project management training course will ensure that you gain the knowledge and tools you need to meet these challenges – getting your projects started right and completed successfully every time.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand what is meant by a project & project management
• Identify the phases of a project’s life cycle
• Recognise what steps must be taken to complete projects on time and on budget
• Know simple techniques & tools for planning, tracking & risk-managing your project
• Have methods for keeping the project team focused and motivated
• Learn how to communicate with sponsors and stakeholders more effectively
• Identify problem team members and strategies for working with them

Programme Content

• Rationalise the theory & practice of projects in the context of today’s workplace
• Explore the five process groups and nine knowledge areas of project management
• Identify the stages of a project life cycle & what’s involved in each stage – conception, planning, execution and termination
• Understand the stages a project team typically goes through before really performing
• Gain exposure to the concept of work breakdown structure (WBS) in planning and monitoring your project – phases, activities, tasks, milestones, critical path, Gantt charts, etc
• Build dependencies between tasks to run an integrated schedule – & examine any resource constraints
• Consider the role and responsibilities of the project manager – & steering group
• Develop the budget plan, capturing all envisaged costs & cash flows
• Practice some risk management & scenario planning – using simple worksheets & tools
• Explore the upside, downside, worst case & best case consequences – and develop contingency plans to mitigate risk
• Examine how to make the most of project team meetings – balancing creativity and control
• Learn a menu of structured tools to force objective decision-making – Nominal Group Technique, The Delphi Method, Consensus Card, Paired Choice Matrix, Criteria Rating, etc.
• Learn the four keys to successful project communication – including a comprehensive study of all necessary project documentation.

This course is suited for
Senior Managers, Middle Managers & Team Leaders