Offered By: Administrative Controls Management
Professional Development Hours: 14
Course Number: AEP3001-CEPM2D

Applying project management skills gives the competitive edge to bring projects in on time, within budget, and provide the quality to meet your client's expectations.

Course Outline

Topic 1: Overview - Learn what occurs to managers, plans, execution, priorities, cost, and time when project management principles and processes are not used. Learn what managers must do, how plans are developed, resources are managed, communications used, and time and cost are managed by applying project management principles and processes. Learn what goals to look for and how to recognize them in short and long term applications of project management.

Topic 2: Planning - Learn the seven phases a project goes through without proper planning and the consequences of poor planning. Learn why the planning process is so important to the success of the project and what constitutes proper planning. Learn the six-step approach to proper planning. Working with a scope of work, perform an exercise to develop a list of activities and work breakdown structure (WBS). Learn the importance of defining a work scope and how to use it to recognize changes that impact completion, cost, and/or quality of the project. Review the results from performing good planning. Learn why the competitive edge is gained by the job that is based on good, sound planning rather than by a job that is based on a plan that sounds good.

Topic 3: Critical Path - Understand why the critical path method used for preparing schedules is the best tool for communicating the plan to those who have to execute it. This topic provides the step-by-step preparation and calculation of a project schedule using the critical path method. Learn and use the schedule terms of early and late start and finish dates, identify the critical path, and understand schedule float. Learn how to better estimate the duration of activities. Learn how effective CPM preparation is the foundation for the most used communication tool, the Gantt chart.

Topic 4: Progress Collection and Control - The project plan, transformed into the schedule, is a living document used as a measure to gauge how well the project is progressing. Learn how to avoid delay by having the key to knowing where your project is with respect to the work plan. Status and progress provide the manager with knowledge to perform in a pro-active role. Why updating the plan minimizes adverse project impact. Progress collection/reporting and updates rely on open communication between team members. Learn the project control process as it is applied to the project plan/schedule developed in Topic 3.

Topic 5: Project Management Implementation - Learn the five traits to profile the project manager and the four critical success factors to be incorporated into the project. Identify the key roles and functions of the team members and organization interfaces. Resolving authority and responsibility issues internally is crucial for accountability. Understand project delivery systems and contracts that work best for you. Understanding the contract rights and responsibilities of the project parties provides a sound basis for administration. Successful communication contributes to the daily effectiveness of a project manager, including incorporating meetings, documentation, and reports. Plan for and execute successful meetings. Understand why documentation supports effective management and what key documents should be maintained. Learn the key elements to be included to make reports useful. Timely coordination of critical information and the coordination of actions between the parties is crucial to successful project implementation.

Topic 6: Project Control - Resource Management Performance Measurement Multiple Project Planning & Scheduling - Learn how to use three powerful project management tools: resource management, performance measurement, and cost/time relationships. Review the four major resource areas and how they interrelate. The key to resource management is to provide the right resources to critical activities when they are needed. Learn how to quantify the number of resources required to perform the work. Understand how the work can be accomplished in the required time when less than the required resources are available. Understand how resource leveling can assist in pro-active problem solving.

While management focuses on accomplishing critical activities, they must also manage the majority of non-critical activities to keep them from becoming critical. Learn to use the simple and powerful key to control these activities by tracking the baseline plan, earned value, and actual expenditures. Learn how monitoring these simple trends provide early warning of major problems before they occur, supplying management with the ability to be pro-active.

Projects are sometimes faced with acceleration or slow down (delay) requirements. Learn how to determine which project activities can be shortened for the least cost to improve completion date requirements.

The complexities of multiple projects include priority assignments, limited resources to perform work, and having the responsibility to complete all projects by a fixed deadline. Students will learn the use of WBS on multiple projects, the importance of a priority system and its application, and how resource analysis and management can be applied to multiple projects. Attendees will also learn useful effective reporting methods for multiple projects.

Topic 7: Project Closeout - While emphasis on project start-up is well accepted and planned for, this section addresses the importance of project closeout occurring well after start-up in some cases. Prior to closeout, substantial completion activities form a solid base for closeout procedures to be implemented. Learn the steps for successful project closeout. Learn to transfer responsibility for the project and how to verify completion of administrative functions. Good closeout procedures save time and resources at project completion. Discuss additional benefits from proper project closeout.

Topic Areas and Industries

• Aerospace
• Automotive
• Construction
• Cost Engineering
• Cost/Schedule Control
• Decision & Risk Management
• Defense
• Engineering
• Environmental
• Facilities Management
• Government & Public Works
• Health Care
• Information Technology
• International Projects
• Manufacturing
• Manufacturing - High Tech
• Oil/Gas/Chemicals
• Pharmaceuticals
• Planning & Scheduling
• Productivity
• Program & Project Management
• Project Control
• Project & Cost Control
• Utilities & Energy