The Project Management Course

Projects are temporary undertakings that deliver a unique product, service, or end-result and must always be aligned with business strategies and goals. A majority of global senior managers agree that project management skills are important or even critical, for not only successful project delivery, but organizational success, advancement and competitiveness. As a result, project management skills have become a core competency in organizations.

This course provides a solid grounding in project management. This is an ideal course for anyone looking for a practical yet adaptable approach to managing projects successfully. Learn new skills and enhance your ability to manage simple or complex projects. Learn how to adapt the processes to the size and type of project.

In class, the five project management process groups (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring/Controlling, and Closing) provide a comprehensive and practical overview of the entire project from beginning to end. The course provides a solid grounding in project management processes by applying the key concepts to select projects in workgroup sessions, while emphasizing the importance of managing stakeholder expectations, through strong communications skills and planning.

Past participants have been in agreement that learning how to apply these skills to multiple projects in class has made them confident in knowing they will be able to apply their skills to workplace projects. Lively classroom discussions, group breakout sessions, and receipt of six critical templates are highly rated and popular components of this project management course.  

The Project Management Course is designed for new project managers and teams, or those without previous project management training or experience. This course is the ideal pre-requisite for the Certificate in Comprehensive Project Management.

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Program Content

Project Management Framework

• Review key terminology
• Understand the building blocks of successful project management
• Learn the factors that contribute to project success or failure

Project Selection, Initiation and Roles and Responsibilities

• Understand key project approval concepts
• Build the business case
• Develop 3 core objectives
• Identify stakeholders
• Manage change
• Establish and manage the triple constraints
• Identify roles/responsibilities
• Understand the importance of the project charter

Project Scope Planning and Work Breakdown

• Document product and project scope
• Collect requirements
• Create a detailed scope statement
• Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Successful Task Sequencing

• Determine the right task dependencies
• Input lead and lag
• Fast-track the project
• Determine work and duration estimates
• Develop a realistic schedule
• Calculate the critical path
• Use the critical path to manage the schedule
• Crash the schedule

Resource Planning and Budgeting

• Identify human and physical resources
• Document required skill sets
• Negotiate and acquire the resources

Project Risk and Quality Management

• Identify and analyze project risks
• Develop a risk response plan
• Understand and establish product and project quality
• Develop quality concepts and metrics
• Define the total cost of quality

Project Execution, Monitoring, and Control

• Carry out the core processes of project execution
• Integrate change control
• Establish PM control interfaces
• Monitor time, cost, scope and quality
• Manage project meetings, status updates and reports

Leadership Skills in Action

• Build strategies for leadership vs. management
• Motivate and develop the team
• Develop communications strategies for key stakeholders

Project Close-outs

• Ensure projects are closed and archived properly

What You Will Learn

• Learn essential PM terminology that will enable you to communicate effectively with your peers.
• Understand the project life cycle
• Break the work down into more manageable components
• Manage the key constraints of time, cost, and scope
• Identify and analyze project risks
• Perform a stakeholder scan and understand key stakeholder roles and responsibilities
• Establish and use the proper communication channels
• Learn what key information to collect for status and progress meetings
• Closeout your project, gather lessons learned and implement best practices on future projects

Who Should Attend?

You will benefit from this seminar if you:

• are a new project manager and/or functional manager
• are undertaking unique projects and wish to learn/hone project management skills
• are head of a corporate department
• have business planning responsibilities
• work in systems, manufacturing and/or operations
• are an engineering professional
• are a technology or research manager

This program is delivered in partnership with Schulich Executive Education Centre at York University.