Project Management for Executives

2 Days

Project management is fast becoming the preferred way for companies to get things done.  In a global economy project management will make your company more competitive that the traditional methods of managing work.  As an executive managing project managers there are many things that you will need to know to be able to make the most out of your organization’s projects.

This course is designed to make executive managers understand project management so that they will understand what their project managers are actually doing and why.  There is a unique terminology for project management and a unique way of doing things.  Project management uses unique ways of determining the scope, cost, risk, schedule, quality and communications of the project.  Project control and performance are reported through the Earned Value Reporting system.  The management of human resources is very participative.

As an executive you must understand what the project managers are doing and how they report it.  This course will cover the basics of project management with emphasis on what you will receive in terms of reports and how you will now be interacting with your project managers.

This course will award participants 14 PDUs; 1.4 CEUs and 14 qualifying hours for the PMP education requirement for PMP Certification.

Who Should Attend

Those who are or will be managing project managers and upper level managers wanting to know more about project management should attend.

Course Objectives

Participants will learn how to:

Class Outline

Project Management        

What is Project Management?

Purpose of this course

Why is Project Management Successful?

What are the Goals and Objectives of Project Management?

How big can projects be?

How small can projects be?

Advantages of Project Management

What are successful projects?

Benefits of early involvement of Project Manager

Planning Phase

What is the Plan?

Our contract with management

Our baseline from which changes are made

A written set of goals and milestones

The basis for measurement of progress

Review the baseline plan

Execution Phase

Review the baseline plan

Review the objectives and deliverables

Track progress against plan

Look for trends indicating problems

Control cost

Generate appropriate reports

Replan when required

Evaluation or Closing Phase

Evaluate what worked and why

Evaluate what didn’t work and why

Scope Management

Project Charter

Goal Statement

Scope Statement

Work Breakdown Structure

Cost Estimates

Progress Measurement Baseline

Major Milestones

Staffing Requirements

Risk Assessment

Objectives of Planning

Create project objectives

Create a complete list of deliverables

Create a structured breakdown plan

Create a list of tasks

Delegate tasks to the project team

Create schedules

Test the plan for risks

Project Justification

Types of projects

Justification methods

Scope Change Control

Change Requests

Progress Reports

Time Management

Getting organized

Network Diagrams

Probabilistic scheduling

Milestone schedules

Over allocation of Resources

Crashing Schedules

Contingency Scheduling

Tracking Progress

Project Management Scheduling software

Cost considerations

Earned Value Reports

Cost Management

Resource Planning

Life Cycle Costing

Work Breakdown Structure

Estimating

Pricing man-hours

Human Resources Management

Organizations

Project organization

Functional organization

Matrix organization

Moving toward matrix management

Making matrix management work

Formal and Informal organization

Staffing Plans

Risk Management

Risk identification

Record risks when they are identified

Look at previous projects for success or failure with Risk Management

Look to project team members for insight to risks

Look for outside advice from professional organizations

Risk quantification

What is the impact of the risk?

Risk response development

Overall Management Skills

Timely appointment of project managers

Provide good atmosphere for project teams