This one-day course teaches participants a clear, interesting, comprehensive system for sequencing the steps of a project, bringing it to a successful conclusion, and producing completed staff work in a way that is satisfying to their managers and to their internal clients. This course teaches the fundamentals of project management from the point of view of the person actually doing the project, and is based on the methodologies developed by the Project Management Institute.

Complete Course Description

PURPOSE OF THE WORKSHOP: This is an intensive, one-day workshop which teaches participants how to tackle projects of any size by learning how to plan, organize and sequence the correct activities of a project , coordinate its many tasks and resources, and then achieve project objectives by bringing all this together in a successful conclusion on time and on budget.

This course is designed primarily for people who conduct standard business projects of intermediate length and complexity, who command either modest budgets and staffs or none at all, and who need very practical techniques for achieving results quickly and reliably even when (quite often) they get very little help along the way.

The Workshop Content: These are the steps and techniques covered in this course:

Topic	What Participants Learn
1. Getting a Handle:	How to define a project with precision as to its scope, effort, and desired outcomes.
2. Gathering Data:	How to get key information quickly, test assumptions, and probe for the interests of the project sponsors.
3. Making a Contract:	How to write out an agreement with project sponsors on the terms and conditions of the project, the resources required to do it, and their expectations of the results it will produce.
4. Planning the Project:	Exploring the advantages and utility of using time lines, Gantt charts, PERT and other CPM techniques, and other methods for setting up and laying out a project so that all parties to it can see its directions and resource implications.
5. Executing the Project:	Mastering an 8-point model for analyzing and allocating the work of the project, coordinating its varied activities, and managing the performance of project team members.
6. Keeping a Project on Track:	Learning how to establish milestones, monitor progress, make adjustments and (periodically) take corrective action to redirect effort and direction when that becomes necessary.
7. Dealing with Problems:	When a project gets into trouble, identifying what’s wrong with it and then resolving that with a 5-point problem-solving model. Three classes of problems get special attention: (a.) competing priorities; (b.) operating in a crisis management environment; and (c.) getting the attention of and buy-in from busy project sponsors.
8. Gaining Acceptance:	Using key communications skills to gain support for project outcomes.
9. Closing the Project:	Bringing the project to an end point in such a way that project sponsors feel they got a completed package, and project team members feel they got a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

The Workshop Format: A special feature of this program is our insistence that we survey course participants well in advance of the program to learn of their special needs and challenges, and then to develop problems, cases, and exercises that are specifically tailored to their company and their situation. We then create learning materials using language and references and cultural constraints that participants are familiar with.

We teach concepts and techniques in the workshop in short lecturettes. Participants then get a rich array of problems, cases, and role plays, where they learn how to apply the techniques and skills they have just learned. The tenor of the workshop is therefore lively and interactive, and participants have a chance to learn from each other as well as from the instructor.

Who and How Many Should Attend: This course is intended for people who are undertaking project work for the first time, or who have done several projects in the past but never really learned an efficient, classical way to do that. Oftentimes they are people who get projects as quick “hand-offs” from their boss. Typical candidates are people who work in staff departments like IT or HR, or who form support groups in legal, consulting, or advertising companies. The course works well also for Administrators, Executive Assistants, TQM Team Leaders, and others who get responsibility for projects quickly and casually, often with very little direction or instruction, but who nevertheless are expected to be resourceful in coming up with timely solutions.

Eighteen to twenty-four participants is an ideal class size.

Length of the Workshop: This workshop is one day in length.

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