Being effective at project management means being able to strategise the project and plan for initial success, establish what the risks are and how to mitigate or remove them, structure actions and key performance indicators and successfully manage key stakeholders. It also requires you to be able to continual reports on progress, recording of issues, adapt to changes and evaluate your performance after the project is complete.

The main content of the course …

Module 1

Setting the scene

Exploring the participants understanding of projects and the role of a project manager in making projects a success. Understanding why projects might fail and what can be done to avoid this.

Project People

Identify the key people in the project team and how they will be utilised.

Module 2

Phase 1 – Project Start-up

Collecting information that is required to gain approval for a project to start. There is a form provided to support this.

Phase 2 – Initiate

A look at some of the supporting tools required to begin, structure and plan a project. There are some generic examples supplied, which help give clarity to how participants should approach this with their own projects.

The following areas are reviewed: Milestone plans, Stakeholder Analysis, Critical Path Analysis and Risk and Issues Logs.

Module 3

Phase 3 – Deploy

An in-depth review of status logs and issue log reports. This explains how to use them, what to include and how to action and apply change requests when they are required.

Module 4

Phase 4 – Handover and project closure

When a project is complete, it is usually handed over into a business as usual process whereby it is being implemented and deployed beyond your project. This session describes how to approach this and the key elements that must be completed to ensure the smooth handover. Participants will also review what is required from a project closure document to ensure success.

Phase 5 – Evaluation and Post Implementation Review

After a project is completed, a good project manager will carry out a full project evaluation to ensure it has performed against its objectives. This session covers how to evaluate and make further recommendations with a final post implementation review.