Project Management Essentials: Planning that Boosts Coordination, Control, and Cash Flow

Thursday, February 18, 2010 from 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Cost: $150
Room: 201

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Ron Black, The Mentor Group

The greatest gains in operational success come with a focus and mastery of the basics of your business. Learn how to leverage the essential elements of planning and scheduling to boost the volume, value, and velocity of work your organization delivers. These essential planning and scheduling skills will help you get more done with limited resources, operate more efficiently, and improve the coordination and control of your projects. Learn how better planning can build your organization’s profits, strength, and growth.

• Create schedules that improve coordination, control, and operational effectiveness
• Turn your planning investment into better financial performance
• Focus on the four keys to effective project planning and scheduling

Upon completion of this session, you will be able to: Describe the purpose and content of commonly used project management control documents; Demonstrate how to use the work breakdown structure to decompose project goals and objectives into work activities, milestones, and constraining dates; Create a task analysis chart and describe what information is required to plan your projects; List four approaches to estimating task durations and their pros and cons; Model workflow using commonly accepted terminology and formats; Assess resource requirements at the task and project level; Create a project schedule using the critical path method and communicate the information using both Gantt (time-line) and activity-on-node (network) charts; Describe the pros and cons of normal, fast-track, and expedite scheduling approaches and their effect on project durations, costs, resources, and risk; and List seven tracking and control documents and describe their purpose.

Seminar Outline

INTRODUCTION
The Golden Rules of Project Success

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS
The Project Lifecycle Model
Project Decision Points
Managing the Process of Success

PROJECT INITIATION
Start Slow to Finish Fast
Creating Effective Project Goals
The Triple Constraints
Using a Preplanning Checklist

PLANNING AND SCHEDULING
The Work Breakdown Structure
Activity and Task Analysis
Estimating Task Durations and Resources
Duration Estimating Techniques
Establishing Workflow
The Critical Path Method
Scheduling Strategies—Normal, Expedite, and Fast-Track
Tool Tip—Planning Step-by-Step

TRACKING AND CONTROL
Facts and Data—Success / Failure Factors
Seven Essential Controls

BUDGETS AND FINANCIAL CONTROL
Financial Effectiveness
The Success Formula
Typical Cost Estimating Problems