Why This Course? (3 days)
Faster, cheaper, better. Projects can be more successful: better planned, higher quality, and more responsive than ever before. The effective Project Manager must be able to develop better strategies, work plans, estimates and schedules. And, simply planning a successful project is merely half the job. You also need attentive tracking, status reporting and change management to assure success.

This 3-day learning experience blends five modules from our Modular Project Management program. It provides practical tools and techniques for planning and managing the vital signs of project success, using content discussion, a series of exercises and case study application. Participants gain classroom experience with today's best approaches for planning, estimating, scheduling and tracking projects, in order to bring them in on time, within budget and with high quality.

Truncated Learning Objectives (contact us for the full set)

	Discuss the vital signs a Project Manager manages; begin a project successfully, defining the business problem or opportunity, performing early estimates, setting resource requirements and a preliminary schedule.
	Use the Work Breakdown Structure in a teambuilding process to organize and define a phase's delegatable work packages; describe the needed roles in a project, and their impact on quality.
	Discuss the characteristics of a really good activity-level estimate; identify the unique benefits of Assumptions Based Estimating; use different levels of effort and duration estimating methods to improve communication of the factors that affect estimates.
	Produce more reliable and useful project schedules, using PERT and Gantt charts to show ways to get any project done faster and improve the use of available staff.
	Apply a tracking method that produces useful reports and provides advance notice of problems; control change while retaining responsiveness to your customer; bring projects to successful closure and identify ways to evaluate the results.

Audience
This learning experience meets the needs of Project Managers and leaders of medium to large projects: those lasting three months to two years in duration. The content is similar to our 4 day learning experience, but omits the topics in that course that deal with management style, leadership, teambuilding and interpersonal skills.

Course Outline (3 days)

1. Initial Planning

	Today's Challenges; The Vital Signs of Successful Projects; The Document of Understanding
	Defining the Problem or Opportunity; Setting Project Scope and Objectives
	Early Project Estimating; Project Type Analysis; Project Life Cycle Phases and Deliverables
	Establishing Project Duration and Milestones

2. Phase Structuring

	A Phased Planning Approach; Identify Activities For Project Phases
	Organize Using Work Breakdown Structures; Roles and Responsibilities in the Team
	Project Organization & Support; Project Manager Role; Planning Project Management Activities
	Delegation and Ownership;Quality and Customer Involvement; Quality Reviews

3. Activity-Level Estimating

	Attributes of Good Estimates; The Factors That Make Estimates Wrong
	Levels of Estimating Rigor; Assumptions Based Effort Estimating
	Developing Duration Estimates; Guidelines For Estimating Project Management Time

4. Phase Scheduling

	Precedence Analysis: How To Get Any Phase Done Faster; Evaluating the Trade-Offs
	Gantt Charts For Resource Analysis and Refined Project Scheduling; Other Charting Tools
	Today's Project Management Software Support; Improved Scheduling Summary

5. Project Control and Closure

	Tracking the Vital Signs; Components of an Ideal Project Tracking System
	Minimum-Effort Project Tracking Methods: Quality, Duration, Effort and Assumptions
	Project Progress and Status Reporting
	Controlling Change and Managing Customer Satisfaction
	Six Different Ways to Successfully End A Project; Project Closure; Criteria for Post-Project Evaluation
	Evaluating Project Success; The Final Exam

Project Management Tools 'N Techniques is a registered trademark of Goff Associates, Inc., the ProjectExperts.