Duration
3 days
Overview
This course helps attendees develop effective measures for scheduling and controlling projects by putting the tools of project management to work. The focus is on managing the constraints faced on any project: limits on time, human resources, materials, budget and specifications, and provides proven ways to work within identified constraints, without letting predefined limits curtail creativity or innovation.
Delegates receive hands-on experience for practicing their skills in building project requirements and the work breakdown structure. They learn a sound, logical framework for scheduling and controlling project activities and master techniques for estimating, forecasting, budgeting, monitoring, controlling, analyzing and reporting costs and interpreting the meaning of earned-value data.
Individual and small-group exercises feature scenarios that help hone these skills and a comprehensive toolkit provides practical field guidance. The course materials also include comprehensive reference materials specific to each unit of the course.
Through a number of sophisticated tools and techniques that can be used to manage time and costs effectively on every type of project, this is one of the program’s most popular courses.
Participants in this course will receive our Earned Valued Formula Finder, which puts the information needed to determine cost, schedule, estimate at completion and estimate to complete values for projects right at their fingertips.
Benefits
- Use the work breakdown structure to develop a network diagram
- Calculate schedules using PERT/CPM
- Identify, assign, and tabulate resource requirements
- Predict costs and work time using specific levels and estimate types
- Plan for contingencies and anticipate variations
- Predict future project performance based on historical data
- Monitor changes and close out projects on time
Who Should Attend
- Project Managers
- Program Managers
- Schedulers
- Programmers
- Testers
- IT Manager/Directors
- Software Engineers
- Cost Controllers
- Product Managers
Module 1 – INTRODUCTION AND ESSENTIALS OF PROJECT SCHEDULING & COST
- Overview of Project Management Practices
- Knowledge Areas of Projects
- About project management life cycle
- The triple constraint
- Planning tools
- Project requirements & review
Module 2 - BUILDING THE PROJECT RESOURCE POOL
- Using resources to build estimates
- The responsibility matrix
- Time-controlled estimates
- Resource-limited estimates
Module 3 – EVALUATION AND FORECASTING
- Causes of variances
- Establishing the "data date" for evaluation
- Controlling costs and schedule late in the project
- Components of the project audit
- Considerations in establishing a monitoring system
- Earned value management
- Advanced earned value management forecasting tools
Module 4 – MANAGING CHANGE WITHIN THE PROJECT
- The process of control
- Identifying sources of change
- Screening change
- Updating the project plan
- Communicating change
Module 5 – IDENTIFYING CONTROLLABLE COSTS
- Resource
- Material
- Direct
- Indirect
- Planning for risk with contingency
Module 6 – PROJECT SCHEDULING
- Network scheduling
- Validating schedules
- Arrow diagrams and precedence diagrams
- Basic scheduling and network calculations
- Advanced precedence relationships and the critical path
- Alternative constraints
- Gantt and milestone charts
Module 7 – THE BASELINE
- Establishing baselines
- Understanding types of baselines
- Time-phased distribution of costs
- Cumulative cost curves
Module 8 – THE WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE & REVIEW
- Resource Allocation and Estimating
- Using estimates for scheduling and cost control
- The basic rules of estimating
- Levels of estimating and estimate types
- Top-down vs. bottom-up
- Order of magnitude
Module 9 – THE EXIT STRATEGY
- Steps in completing the project
- Scope verification
- Contract closeout
- Administrative closure
NoteAll sessions contain group activities and case studies to strengthen the understanding of Project Scheduling and Cost Control and readiness to be applied at respective individual’s organization.
Programme scope, delivery arrangements and suitability are confirmed during enquiry.