Advanced Project Management

Advanced Project Management

Who Should Attend?

  • Project managers and Project Directors
  • Project team members wishing to move into project management roles
  • Other operational staff with a basic understanding of project management tools and techniques
  • Project planners
  • Senior line managers of project staff
  • Technical and engineering staff wishing to develop skills in managing projects

Course Objectives

  • To set up and manage projects effectively
  • To scope out the objectives and deliverables for a project
  • To create a Project Plan
  • To calculate the resources required for a project
  • To manage project teams effectively
  • To establish systems for monitoring and evaluating projects
  • To assess risk factors and develop contingency plans
  • To create a motivated project team

Course Contents: 

Role and Function of Project Management
  • Introduction to project management
  • Summary of the role and function
  • What is a ‘project’?
  • Aligning projects with the business strategy
  • The project roadmap, step by step
  • Key challenges for project managers

Planning and Scoping the Project
  • Scoping the work from the project brief
  • What are the deliverables?
  • Defining quality measures
  • What’s the schedule?
  • Identifying the resources needed – budget, people, equipment
  • Dependencies and assumptions
  • Planning the work

Project Initiation
  • Making the business case for the project
  • Addressing the right problem
  • Documenting the requirements
  • Project Governance
  • Establishing the project framework
  • Securing the resources
  • Critical success factors
  • Measuring success criteria

Building, Managing and Motivating the Project Team
  • Recruiting and developing the project manager
  • Other project team roles
  • Team creation process
  • Importance of role clarity
  • Resolving team conflict
  • Motivating team members

Project Implementation
  • ‘Working the Plan’
  • Working with Project Stakeholders and sponsors
  • Communications Planning and implementation
  • Project Monitoring and review methodology
  • Project Reporting
Managing Risk in Projects
  • Risk identification
  • Risk Prioritisation
  • Risk recording methods
  • Treatment of risk: mitigation, avoidance, transfer and acceptance
  • Risk tracking and reporting

Project Management Tools and Techniques
  • Project Software tools
  • Gantt charts
  • PERT charts
  • Critical Path Analysis
  • Managing slack
  • Time compression techniques

How and why do Projects Fail?
  • Examples of failed projects
  • What does ‘failure’ mean - Criteria for ‘success’
  • Common causes of project failure
  • Strategic reasons for failure
  • Skills deficiencies
  • Governance challenges
  • Planning and monitoring weaknesses

Project Closure and Review
  • Processes at project closure
  • Post Project Review
  • Measuring results and impact
  • Gathering data to assess the achievement
  • Learning and sharing lessons from project experiences