Duration

5 days

Suitable for Project Managers, and Professionals leading/managing a team.

Course Overview

This course is intended for managers and executives who need to acquire a working knowledge in managing multiple projects and multiple priorities including People Management Techniques in project management. The entire course content is compliant with the standard Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) of the Project Management Institute (USA).

The course covers key techniques and functional skills required to operate successfully when managing work in multiple projects of multiple priorities and project risk including uncertainty management. Visualizing “what-if” scenarios and running simulations in Microsoft Project are used to reinforce the learning. Participants will observe and learn how to manage project stakeholders, involve or engage them, create project buy-in or ownership, and build relationships that contributes to project success.

Every participant will undergo a quick self-assessment of his/her leadership skills, then master the basics of these leadership competencies: setting direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring, leading teams, communicating, building relationships, negotiating and leading change.

Upon completing the course, participants will have increased confidence and improved skills. They will feel more at ease and have greater control in managing for results and leading people, and managing multiple projects of different priorities in the workplace. The participants will be more willing to deal with various types of opportunities and challenges to seek out optimal project resources to reduce wastages, understand impacts to project work, and ever more ready to engage and influence project stakeholders.

A high level of participation and team involvement is required. Their participation through presentation, case studies, role-plays and discussion helps to facilitate an immediate transfer of such competency to workplace. Maximum opportunities will be given to participants to inject their own examples and issues into the course and continually relate the material to their company’s strategy and organizational culture.

Objectives

Know the delicate task of leading visionary project teams including other project stakeholders.
Know and apply skills in leading a project team, creating stakeholder ownership, pacing the team through team development and motivating them.

At the end of the course, participants will be able to:

Learn the ways of handling conflicts and leading change.
Develop good communication skills.
Clarifying the roles of senior management, project manager, team members and suppliers.
Understand stakeholder influences and manage stakeholders in a project.
Have a set of project management software and charting tools, techniques and system for immediate application at the workplace.
Identify and respond to challenges in managing multiple projects and multiple priorities.
Understand the use of risk management simulations and sensitivity analyses on multiple tasks, in multiple projects.
Conducting systematic and structured project scoping, scheduling and costing.
Making accurate task duration and cost estimations for various cost components, even when using uncertain information - determining worst-case, best case and most likely case for task/project durations, and costs.
Identifying and determining performance metrics for project tracking in a project.
Tracking project progress and making project reports – using network, milestone and Gantt chart diagramming.

Detailed Course Content

The sessions will start at 9.00 am and end at 5.00 pm, or at client’s timing preference; with two 15-minute tea breaks and a 1-hour lunch.

Day 1

Leadership and Management (4 hours)

What is leadership?
The difference between leadership and management
Challenges of leading project teams
Establish direction, align and motivate people to follow your project vision
Identify and utilising different leadership styles, at different situations and team makeup
Tasking, Steering, Encouraging, and Entrusting styles
Power bases
Formal, Reward, Expert, Referent, and Penalty power

Leading Effective Teams (1.5 hours)

Assembling and empowering a team
Develop team ownership of a project
Characteristics of effective teams
Challenges of teams
The stages of team development
Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning
Co-location and geographic dispersion
Evaluate team progress
Coach team members
Reasons for communicating
Communication model
Communication channel, message encode and decode, acknowledgement, and communication blockers
Effective communication and action steps
Selecting the appropriate communication media, informal and formal, written, verbal or visual basing on the communication situation

Building Relationships (1.5 hours)

Objectives of building relationships with project stakeholders
Behaviour and motivation theories
Team behaviour
Setting positive and negative behavioural targets
Enforcing behavioural patterns
Team member’s motivational needs
Motivational patterns and deployment strategies
Relating styles
Values, Borrowed, and Masked

Day 2

Negotiating Conflict (3.5 hours)

Stages of conflict
Negotiating conflict
Major sources of conflict on project teams
Conflict negotiation strategies
Problem-Solving, Compromising, Collaborating, Smoothing, Withdrawal, and Forcing
How to plan and conduct collaborative negotiation
Dimensions of behaviour during conflict
Competitive modes of handling conflict
Collaborative modes of handling conflict
Applying conflict management styles
Preparing to negotiate
Competitive negotiation
Collaborative negotiation
Stages of collaborative negotiation
Rapport Setting, Exploration, Agreement, and Closure

Leading Change (3.5 hours)

What is Change?
Role in a changing organization
Implementing change
Predictable stages of adjusting to change
Appropriate leadership strategies for each stage
Developing a change management plan using the ADKAR model

Day 3

Initiating (3.5 hours)

Challenges unique to multiple projects
Factors which make managing multiple projects easier and difficult
Developing the Project Charter
Activity: creating a Project Charter
Determining initial project cost estimates (order-of-magnitude/top-down/budget estimation techniques) for project cost-benefit analysis
Estimating project resource cost components with a checklist

Planning (Part 1) (3.5 hours)

Developing a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) from project scope requirements
Observing software development lifecycle methodologies
Activity: constructing a WBS
Develop a Task List from the WBS
Activity: constructing a Task List
Detailing resources and cost listings – human, material, facility, equipment, etc.; resource effort, quantities and costs
Activity: creating a Resource Requirements list

Day 4

Planning (Part 2) (7 hours)

Task sequencing using network diagramming technique
Assigning task duration and predecessors, and work estimating
Scheduling the project using the Milestone diagram and Gantt chart
Fine-tuning the Gantt chart with leading and lagging, and various project duration reduction strategies
Understanding the critical tasks, non-critical tasks, and their role in the Critical Path Method (CPM)
Visualizing multiple projects and critical paths
Using bottom-up estimates for scheduling and cost control
Organizing programs and categorizing multiple projects
Establish and rank multiple project priorities
Project resource management and multiple project resource pooling
Assess schedule and resource conflicts to determine approaches availability and resource loading (overload and under-utilization) of projects
Expediting schedules and reducing costs
Planning for project risks – risk identification, assessment, and responses
Activity: risk management planning
Planning for risk with contingency (risk management plan and risk management strategies)
Identifying critical resources influencing multiple projects durations and costs – using Monte-Carlo simulation and Tornado Diagramming technique

Day 5

Executing (3 hours)

Executing the project plan, and tracking project schedule progress using the Gantt Chart
Activity: Using project management software to track project progress
Activity: Gantt charting and measuring project progress
Responding to project risks (executing risk responses, monitor and control the execution of the responses).
Work-around risk responses (for risks unidentified in risk management plan)

Monitoring & Controlling (3 hours)

The change control system – change request, change control board, change impact assessment approve/disapprove, change implementation schedule, and updating configuration documents
Tracking and controlling multiple projects schedules and costs

Closing (1 hour)

Administrative close-out checklist - product verification (formal acceptance and handover sign-offs), closing project books, post-mortem, documenting lessons learned, archiving project documents, disbanding, rewarding and thanking the team
Contract close-out administration checklist - final scope verification of supplier deliverables (as per contract), document lessons learned, closing the contract, and thanking the supplier

Project Case Studies

Mobile Field Sales Force Automation using PDA & wireless technology
Real Cases (Stories) on Challenges: System deployment and change management, change of user groups and effect on project, a new project manager facing difficulties to get team support and loyalty, project managers being treated like project administrators by the CEO, and many others
Situational project cases

Exercises and Cases

Real case studies
Scenario case role-play and quizzes

Training Approach

Participants leave this course with an understanding of why it is crucial to spend time up front preparing multiple project work for resource-sharing, conflicting priorities, and they will develop useful skills as they work through many of the exercises and games that are incorporated into the course.

The training uses practical exercises that take individuals outside their comfort zones. By giving the participants help and guidance during the process, confidence and skills are strengthened. We make the sessions challenging and practical through the use of role-play, experiential learning and group exercises. Participants will quickly discover their strengths and weaknesses in communicating with others. Moreover, this interaction makes classes enjoyable and motivational.

The tempo of the training is light-hearted and fast-paced. Our experience suggests that this makes people actually look forward to attending our training sessions and reinforces the motivational effects. Peer group pressure, structure and relaxed atmosphere are the key elements to the success of our courses.

Methodology

Presentation, group exercises, discussions, and case studies. Includes visualizing project schedules using software..

Software Used In The Training

Microsoft Project
Microsoft Excel
WBS ChartPro
@Risk for Project Monte-Carlo Simulation

Programme scope, delivery arrangements and suitability are confirmed during enquiry.

5-Day Critical Skills for Project Management