Project Management Fundamentals

Welcome to the world of project management! This course will give a broad overview of how projects are managed and will show how there is more to a project than careful determination and management of budgets. The goal is to de-mystify project management by clearly explaining the terminology being used and demonstrating the principal project management artefacts employed to plan and manage projects.

Course Overview
This full day course will begin by defining what a project is and show why projects need to be carefully managed. The student will learn to appreciate the value of professional project management by exploring high-profile project failures. Following from this, the main project management knowledge areas will be visited to give the student a flavour of each.

To that end, we will examine what needs to be done – the whole area of requirements and scope management. Then we will look at scheduling and how to create effective estimates. Of course, things can go wrong on projects, so risk management will help us prepare for possible disasters.

Many people (stakeholders) are interested in how the project is getting on and are anxious to know if it will complete on time, within budget and deliver what is expected. Project managers need to maintain regular contact with these stakeholders and communicate the project’s status to them.

By the end of the day, the student will have a clear understanding of the role of the project manager and the importance of project management to the organization.

For whom is this course suitable?

This course is designed for those with a finance background who find themselves either members of project teams or managing entire projects. They want to understand the context they are working in and would like to support the project more effectively. Learning about project management and its vocabulary will allow team members to assist their project managers by coming up with better estimates and by communicating issues more effectively. It will also enable new project managers to tie down the project’s scope and build realistic schedules.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Identify the key project phases
• Identify project stakeholders and map project outputs to their needs
• Define and develop the project’s scope
• Create realistic estimates for your tasks
• Identify risks and decide how to deal with them
• Identify and analyse the project’s stakeholders
• Communicate effectively with the team and other stakeholders
• Plan how to engage effectively with stakeholders

Course Content

• Overview of project management
• • Definitions – project, project management, project lifecycle
  • Failed project – case studies
• What is the project meant to do?
  • Requirements
  • Scope – what is in scope and what is out of scope?
  • The Work Breakdown Structure
• How long will it take?
  • Identify tasks, the resources they need and how long they are likely to take.
  • Put these in order – where will we start?
• What could go wrong?
  • Identify possible risks
  • Decide which are the really important ones
  • Plan what to do if any of these happen.
• Reporting on the project
  • The importance of communication
  • Reporting status
  • Being careful with language
• Who are involved?
  • Identifying the stakeholders
  • How do you deal with them?

Key Course Details:

Location: CPA Ireland, 17 Harcourt Street, Dublin 2
Time: 9am - 5pm
CPD Credit: 8 hours

The maximum capacity on this course is 12 delegates