Project Planning and Management - Advanced Level

By the end of this training program, each participant will be able: 

1. To understand the difference between the responsibilities and authorities of the Project Manager and the Line Manager,
2. To acquire the relevant skills to manage conflicts during projects,
3. To practice how to develop project budget and realistic time schedule,
4. To learn how to define and assess Project Risks,
5. To better plan for project resources,
6. To understand concept of Earned Value Analysis and assessing the project monitoring indicators,
7. To become familiar with project planning & management application (MS Project).

Project Managers, Team Leaders, Project Team Members, Account Managers who work in projects or functional managers who work in project-based type of organization and contribute in company’s project tasks.

What is Project Planning & Management? 

• Definitions and PM key concepts
• Common failure factors of a project
• Potential benefits of PM
• Functional Manager Vs The Project Manager
• Project Manager Role, Responsibilities, and Authorities

The Project Manager Skills: 

• Leadership
• Communication Skills
• Project Conflict and Conflict Resolution Skills
• Power Styles
• Individual Assessment Test  - Power Perception Profile

The Pre-Project Planning Phase - Project Feasibility Study: 

• Project Estimating and Costing
• Distinguish between Feasibility Studies and Cost-Benefit Studies
• Indictors used to assess project feasibility.
• How to conduct a feasibility study? What do you need?
• Exercises – Project Feasibility Study

Identifying the Project: 

• Project Statement & SOW
• Project Charter
• Project Work Breakdown Structure – WBS
• Different Approaches to develop project WBS
• Exercise – Developing a WBS for a project

Developing Realistic Time Schedule: 

• Program Evaluation & Review Technique (PERT), and Critical Path Method (CPM)
• Activities Constraints, Milestones, and inter-dependencies
• The Network calculation and defining the Critical Path of the project
• Activities Total Float & Free Float and how to get use of them in managing projects
• Developing Project Bar / GANTT Chart, and Network Diagram
• Key points when estimating of time
• Practice on the Project Network Calculation

Risk Management: 

• Risk & Risk Management Process / Activities
• Utilizing tools for assessing risk – Cause-Effect Diagram, and Decision-Tree
• Handling Risk
• Contract Types that can be adapted to transfer risk to external party
• Group  / Individual Exercise  – using the Decision Tree in risk assessment

Project Organization: 

• Types of Project Organization Structure
• Functional Structure Vs. Matrix Structure
• Selecting the Project Staff
• Types of team members
• Assigning tasks to project staff – using the WBS, Responsibility Chart, and Personnel Availability Form

Managing Project Team: 

• How to select your project team members?
• Types of People
• Team Members Roles (Constructive Vs Destructive roles)
• Personality Type Model
• Individual Assessment Test  - Personal Preferences in Management (People Vs Tasks)

Resources In Project Planning & Budgeting:   

• Allocating resources - Resource Loading & Profiling
• Project cost components / accounts
• Techniques in managing resources, and refining the project plan
• Resource Leveling
• Resource Smoothing
• Project Crashing
• Project Cash Flow and the S-Curve
• Components of the completed project baseline plan

Project Implementation- follow up the baseline plan: 

• Monitoring & controlling process of the Project
• What does the PM look at?
• Key Points in Project Management
• The concept of Earned Value Analysis

• Reading the Project Monitoring Indicators & Project-S curve

• Extended Demo / Tutorial on Using MS Project 2000 in Project Planning & Management.

• The Training lectures.
• The Group discussions.
• The Training Workshops.