Advanced Project Management Tools & Techniques

What do many of today’s technology projects have in common?   The well known answer is: weak business cases, schedule slippages, and cost overruns. This three-day advanced project management workshop presents cutting edge tools to build an effective business case, develop a realistic schedule and budget, and successfully execute a project.   You will first review the principles behind the tools and then focus on their application to real world projects.   You will learn advanced techniques applicable to each stage of the project life cycle including initiation, planning, execution, and control. You will apply the tools you have learned to case study examples that simulate real projects.

Seminar Format

The seminar delegates are divided into small teams, each consisting of five or six members with a maximum of five teams.   The teams are introduced to the advanced tools one at a time.   First, the principles and the pros and cons of the tool are discussed with example illustrations.   The teams are then assigned a case study exercise where they will apply the tool they have just learned.   The teams make presentation of their solutions followed by a group discussion.   The delegates are encouraged to bring their own lap top computers with Microsoft Office® and Microsoft Project® capabilities.  If a laptop is not available, calculators are mandatory.

Seminar Materials

You will receive a binder consisting of copies of the seminar slides and the case study/exercise materials.

Seminar Duration

Three days

Prerequisites

Since this is an advanced seminar, it is important that you have a minimum of five years of project management or team lead experience and a basic understanding of common project management terms, tools and techniques.

Who Should Attend

• Experienced project managers
• Project team leads
• Program managers
• Project planners

What You Will Learn

• How to develop a “Project Business Plan” that helps you build a winning project business case.
• Discounted cash flow method to estimate the value of your project.
• Decision techniques for project go/no-go decisions.
• Real options analysis for project valuation based on “flexibility” and contingent decisions.
• Weighted scoring models to quantify project intangibles.
• Simulation methods to estimate any variable that exhibits uncertainty.
• Tornado diagrams and sensitivity techniques to identify the most influencing input parameters in estimating any given variable.
• Risk and opportunity assessment tools.
• Network diagram and critical path method to estimate project schedule.
• Critical chain project management method to reduce costs and accelerate product development cycles.
• Why any task takes four times longer than you expect and how to overcome the real world obstacles and compress project schedules.
• How to estimate the probability of completing a project within a specified time period and budget, and, conversely, the time/budget needed to complete a project for a specified probability.
• How to set up accounting systems for easy and effective cost management.
• Earned Value Management technique to track, control, and manage costs.
• Effective techniques to adjust current plans by forecasting future resource and budget needs based on your to-date project performance.
• Management tools that help you analyze and quantify cost and schedule variances for appropriate corrective action.
• How to apply the techniques learned in this seminar with tools such as Microsoft Project® and Excel® .

Outline

Introduction

• Agenda, objectives, and format
• Definitions: Project, program, project portfolio
• End-to-end project life cycle: Funnels & Filters Ò model
• Project life cycle phases

Project Initiation

• Building a business case
• Present value
• Discounted cash flow (DCF) method
• Monte Carlo simulation
• Decision tree analysis (DTA)
• Real options analysis (ROA)
• Risk vs. opportunity assessment
• Weighted scoring models

Project Planning

• Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• Estimation methods
• Resource constrained scheduling
• Time constrained scheduling
• Task duration estimation
• Network diagrams
• Critical path method
• Scheduling tools
• Cost estimation methods
• Budget contingencies
• Simulation tools for schedule and cost estimation
• Project performance measurement baseline (PMB)
• Change management

Project Execution/Control

• Earned Value Management (EVM) basics
• EVM building blocks
• How to calculate earned value?
• Schedule & cost variances
• Schedule & cost performance indices
• Project variance assessment
• Performance evaluation using EVM
• EVM: Forecasting future budget and schedule needs

Project Close-out

• Project control book
• Lessons learned
• Contract and administrative closure