Deeply Practical Project Management

Course Description

At the focus of practical project management is a technique for keeping things simple and not getting stuck in long and cumbersome processes. Excellent project management practice is, however, remarkably essential and keeping it well-prepared and understanding the basics right will surely help you deliver a successful project.

The purpose of this exciting [course_title] course is to provide you with the necessary tools, knowledge and understanding of how to start, design, execute and conclude a project in the most efficient way possible. You’ll understand the practical explanation of project management and effective ways to use software tools to support the project management practices. Besides, you’ll learn how to deal with the concerns while managing ongoing projects and get plenty of tips to overcome those concerns.

What you’ll learn

• How to get stakeholder buy-in and senior management support at the beginning of your project, and maintain it throughout.
• The three fundamental messages of the PM triple constraint, how they inter-relate, and how they affect risk.
• How to plan your project VERY efficiently, so you know the scope, schedule, budget, and risks before you start.
• How to manage the top three drivers of project success to solve most of the problems on most projects.
• The critical importance of the project requirements, with best practices for documentation, review, and approval.
• How to build the work breakdown structure (WBS), your scope baseline, and when to break it down further.
• Why the precedence diagram is your most important tool for planning and managing your project.
• How to estimate the project resources, material, services, time, and cost, and handle estimating error.
• Why the critical path means schedule is more important than cost, with a step by step animated example.
• The key criteria for deciding whether to build or buy, and the best type of contract and award procedures.
• How to prepare and brief the project plan, provide options to meet the triple constraint, and stay truthful.
• How to build the project team, key hiring criteria, delegation, motivation, and resolution of personnel conflicts.
• How to manage scope so you find the things inevitably missed, but don’t make it so good that it just blows up.
• How to manage the critical path to focus on the most important items without getting bogged down in the weeds.
• How to manage the budget and its key drivers to obtain the best cost performance possible.
• How to identify the risks, mitigate them as early as possible, and stay within the risk budget.
• The two most effective things you can do to manage quality and ensure the customer is happy with the project result.
• How to use earned value management (EVM) to project cost and schedule performance objectively.
• How to communicate constructively with the stakeholders about the project status, and obtain their assistance when needed.
• How to use scenario based verification to ensure customer satisfaction with the project result.
• How to conduct lessons learned events to find out what did not go well and did go well, and easily gather them as you go.
• How to close your project team to ensure everyone is treated fairly and free to proceed to their next challenge.
• How to use the key software tools to support the project management life-cycle – WBS, precedence diagram, and Gantt chart.
• Six practice quizzes, get copies of nine key project management document templates and six summary checklists, and earn 16 PDU’s.
• Get recommendations for free open source software to support the project management process.
• Gain a deeply practical understanding of the PMI project management best practices for those that wish to obtain a PMP certification.

Requirements