Program managers, senior management, and executives interested in understanding how project management can make their organization more effective at getting work done.

• The project life cycle
• The nine knowledge areas of the PMBOK®
• Basic project management terminology and concepts
• Your role and responsibility as a stakeholder
• Roles and responsibilities of the team
• Define project scope and setting expectations
• Build an effective project schedule
• The importance of a communication plan
• Risk management best practices
• Manage project change through formal change control processes

Hands-On Exercises

• Project Management Terminology
• Developing the WBS
• Network Diagramming and Critical Path

1. Project Management Framework

Explore the Project Management Institute (PMI's) framework for project management including the life cycle processes and knowledge areas, and identify core and facilitating processes. You will become familiar with the project management vocabulary during this section.

• The Project Management Institute
• What is a Project?
• Project Management Terminology

2. Initiating

Discover the importance of the business case to support the start of a new project, establish the project scope, analyze stakeholder needs, identify constraints and assumptions, and build a communication plan.

• Five Steps of Project Initiation
• The Project Charter
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Project Roles and Responsibilities and the RAM
• Sign-Off Process

3. Planning

Learn the seven steps of successful planning and practice developing a work breakdown structure, effective estimates, diagramming a project, and identifying the critical path. Identify, assess, quantify, and manage risks through mitigation strategies and contingency planning. In addition, discover the importance of formal change control processes and managing organizational change as part of the project life cycle.

• Overview of Communications Management
• Overview of Risk Management
• Overview of Change Management
• WBS Basics
• Scheduling Basics

4. Controlling and Closing

Explore the relationship between planning, execution, and control, and learn a structured approach to project control. Understand how to use earned value as a powerful tool for assessing and reporting current and predicted future conditions of the project.

• Project Controls
• Managing Expectations

5. Closing Processes

Investigate the best practices in conducting administrative closure on a project.

• Close Project Process
• Administrative Closure
• Contract Closure

6. Exercises

Work individually and on a team to write objectives, conduct stakeholder analysis, and develop a work breakdown structure and risk management plan for the case study project. Practice using estimating techniques, dependency analysis, and network diagramming. Consider various and competing expectations from stakeholders, including the customer, sponsor, and team, as you develop and present plans to address expectations in ways that benefit the project.