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The Keys to Successful Project Planning and Execution (formerly IPPD Project Management)

Description

This course is designed to provide project managers and team members with the concepts and skills necessary for planning and executing development projects. Course materials and the in class project and exercises emphasize key concepts and techniques that lead to successful execution of your project. Using techniques from the psychological field of modeling (the study of what successful people in a field know, how they think, and how they decide and act) you will learn models of successful project managers. Specifically you will learn what is it that successful project managers do to stay on schedule and within budget and to satisfy and meet their commitment to their customers. The course also presents key topics from the PM Body of Knowledge (PM BOK), and is designed to further your education toward project manager certification. Specific topics and activities required by this mission to be covered in the course include:

The role of projects in the 21st Century organization: the vehicle for fast and effective implementation of innovation and improvement for competitive advantage.
Management of the risks found in the development project challenge, especially schedule risk. You will learn modern management techniques for planning and executing your project to reliably meet your schedule commitments, including critical path, PERT, critical chain, and monte carlo techniques.
Learning how to develop the project concept, plan and Integrated Product Team (IPT) organization including defining the project mission, scope, objectives and effectively organizing to produce a new product or process.
Alternative approaches to the development process, including phase-gate, incremental and evolutionary approaches. Developing a Work Breakdown Structure and project design to match the process.
Learn how to select, develop and motivate the project team. This includes defining team member roles, performance metrics, facilitating effective team meetings and team communication, and periodic evaluation of the team.
Develop skills in using project tools, including scheduling, budgeting and resource allocation, risk analysis; using project management software tools for these tasks.
Project problem solving and disaster resolution.
New tools and concepts for project management.

Objectives

The class environment will be participative, allowing class members to practice their project management skills in a range of facilitated in class exercises. Additionally students will work in class in teams to construct a new project and apply what is learned in class. On the last day of class teams will present their projects to the “Board of Directors”. Following the team presentations, the class and “Board of Directors” do an extensive peer evaluation and discuss lessons learned. Time is allocated during class for students to work on their projects each day. The class also provides the student with practical, hands-on usage of tools such as Microsoft Project, PERT scheduling, as well as a basic understanding critical chain scheduling, and Monte Carlo schedule simulation.

Prerequisite

If participant has a laptop with MS Project and Excel loaded, it is recommended to bring the laptop to class. Two in-class assignments will be utilizing these programs.

Who Should Attend

Engineers, managers, project/IPD/IPT leaders, and team members.

When & Where

This course is taught for three (3) days, eight (8) hours a day, for a total of 24 hours in a regular classroom.
Note: You must attend all 24 hours to complete this course.

Course Testimonials

When asked what they liked most about this course, past participants commented on the following:

Well constructed class material
Lively instructor. Knowledgeable with war stories
Very methodical and organized intro to key EVMS/Microsoft Project concepts
Group interactions and differing opinions
Hands on working
Real world examples from instructors experience
Discussions on evaluating Product Life-Cycle Strategy
Learning about life-cycle strategies, developing a charter and the basics of building a WBS
Project Leadership guidelines/rules
Statistical method of looking at a project schedule
Good use of project across all areas
Detailed Microsoft practice
Focus on tools that can be used
Hands-on training
How to read critical path
Lively discussions and interaction
Resource planning
Critical path/Critical chain - Developing an aggressive schedule
Working through a sample project as a team
Hands-on activities were helpful
Ability to relate course work to job tasks/processes
Well organized class and course work
Good information and communication
Appropriate length for important content
Pace was just right
In-class exercises
Reference material
Practical, well paced course
Nuggets - Examples and stories
Lessons learned from real programs
Relevant pro's and con's of lessons learned
Great overview on how to manage both teams and large projects
Documented instructions for future reference
Industrial experience input from the instructors
Great real life examples and stories from the instructors
Instructors' knowledge
Informative/entertaining instructor
Quality classrooms for ease of use
Multiple instructors were nice, different perspectives from varying background

"Best course i've taken so far - kept me awake all day!"

"Great course, recommend to others"

"Good course and presentation for the day"

"Most useful class i've taken at Raytheon, along with the PIPTL course"

"Spot On!" - C.R Hufford, Raytheon

Course Information

Instructor

Team of three highly experienced industry program managers/directors from three different companies. You will learn the practicalities of applying project management theory to real-life projects.