50220 - Principles of Project Management

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Understand how project management can increase your productivity, improve communication and cut development costs.
• Systematically apply the proven techniques of project management to define, plan and control a project.
• Create a project plan using standard project management techniques.
• Use the project plan to manage the team, customers, management and project sponsor.
• Understand the relationship between the science of project management and the art of leadership.

Module 1: Why Project Management?
Participants can recognise the need for project management and understand basic terminology.

Lab : Why Project Management?

After completing this module, students will be able to:
• Identify the work they are responsible for that can be classified as a project.
• Describe how managing projects differs from managing ongoing operations.
• Describe a project lifecycle, a product development lifecycle, the triple constraint.

Module 2: Project Definition
Participants know why and how to identify stakeholders and create a baseline expectation of project goals and constraints.

Lab : Project Definition

After completing this module, students will be able to:
• Define the term ‘stakeholder’ and know how to find stakeholders on their project.
• Analyze the communication needs of project stakeholders in order to build a communication plan.
• Understand the content and value of a Statement of Work.
• Understand the content and value of a Project Charter.

Module 3: Project Planning
This module explains a five-step process for creating a detailed action plan for a project.

Lab : Project Planning

After completing this module, students will be able to:
• Develop a work breakdown structure using best practice guidelines.
• Develop a network diagram using best practice guidelines.
• Describe the relationship between effort, duration, and resource level when estimating project tasks.
• Calculate a critical path and identify float within the schedule.
• Use milestones on a schedule to improve communication.
• Level resources on a project to establish an optimum resource plan.
• Describe the variables that increase estimating accuracy.
• Relate the five steps of planning to project management software.

Module 4: Project Control
This module explains how to kick off a project, monitor progress based on a project plan, to identify problems early and to take corrective action when necessary to keep a project on track.

Lab : Project Control

After completing this module, students will be able to:
• Describe the 9 components of a high performance team.
• Describe the change control process.
• Compare planned and actual costs to identify performance trends.
• Compare planned and actual schedule data to identify performance trends.
• Describe how to apply the project management techniques presented in the course to overcome common project problems.

Module 5: Project Leadership
This module explains how the science of project management – the processes and techniques that have been presented in this course – support the art of project leadership.  This module serves to summarize the key points of the course and summarize the value of the course.

Lab : Project Leadership

After completing this module, students will be able to:
• Summarise the value of project management to their organization, to their projects, and to themselves.
• Identify specific actions they can take as a result of attending this course that will improve their own contribution to their project.

Anyone associated with projects, from sponsors to team members, benefits from understanding the tools of project management.  Project managers and team leaders, managers with multiple projects, and team members with special assignments will get the greatest benefit from this course.  Anyone who needs to use project management software should attend this course prior to attending software training because it will provide a theoretical foundation for any project management software application.

There are no prerequisites for this course.