• Length: 2 days (15 PDUs)                   Read a customer story

Call them “Accidental project managers,” “Incidental PMs” or “Unofficial project managers”. They are the staff and management that are running over half your projects – important projects that need to be delivered successfully.

Give these leaders the practical, proven tools of project management, scaled to fit their needs.

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Learn and practice specific techniques such as Stakeholder Analysis, Building an Action Plan, and Project Communication in class. Be able to perform every technique and explain how each technique contributes to your leadership ability and a successful project outcome.

The course provides the building blocks of project leadership. Participants learn how the project management tool set enables them to satisfy all their stakeholders -- sponsors, management, customers and the project team. 

Participants plan one of their own projects in class. It's the best way for individuals to learn the concepts faster to transfer the learning to their job. 

The workshop component is embedded in the course so that each lecture topic is immediately followed by the workshop component.  For example, after the scheduling lecture, teams will create their own project schedule.

Anyone responsible for leading or sponsoring projects benefits from understanding the tools of project management.  This course is particularly appropriate for leaders of part-time, internal business projects – “project management for non-project managers.”

Upon completion of this course the student will be able to:

• Identify five project success factors that apply to every project.
• Articulate the business benefit of their current project
• Develop a partnership with a project sponsor.
• Describe the cost, schedule, and quality constraints and tradeoffs for their projects
• Systematically apply the proven techniques of project management to define, plan and control a project.
• Develop a realistic project schedule that relies on team members who are less than fully assigned to the project.
• Plan stakeholder communication based on stakeholder authority and involvement
• Understand the relationship between the science of project management and the art of leadership.

I.          Why Project Management?                             

A.         Project Success Factors

B.         What is Project Management?

C.         A Successful Project Delivers Value

D.         Project Life Cycle and Product Life Cycle

Workshop: Selecting projects for the workshop   

II.         Project Definition                                            

A.         Assign the Sponsor and Project Manager

B.         Top Five Definition Questions

C.         Project Charter

Workshop: Develop a Statement of Work           

III.        Project Planning

A.         The Purpose of Planning                      

B.         Break the Project Into Manageable Units of Work                    

Workshop: Developing the Task List                                  

C.         Network Diagrams Help Visualize the Sequence of Events                                

D.         Task Estimating Guidelines                                  

Workshop: Build the Network & Visualize the Schedule                             

E.         Establish a Realistic Schedule with a Part-Time Team

Workshop: Completion of the project plan          

IV.        Project Control

A.         Stakeholder Engagement                      

B.         Plan Communication

Workshop: Identify Stakeholders                        

C.         Change Management

D.         Project Team Kickoff

E.         Monitor Schedule, Risks, and Issues                 

F.         Project Close Out

V.         Course Summary: Project Leadership            

A.         Project Manager Skills

B.         Art Based on Science

Are you looking for a career that makes the world a better place? Well, few people are trying to make the world a worse place. Some of the benefits people have claimed during our project management training: 

• Project management reduces my stress. 

• Project management will give people a better understanding of how their piece fits into the big picture. 

• I think we could all work fewer hours, get home to our families, and still make stuff people want on time. 

And that doesn't count the work that actual social services firms do. Check out www.PM4NGOS.org. There are a lot of human lives being saved because projects are being better managed. 

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Mark Mullaly posted his thoughts on www.ProjectManagement.com, recently, concerned about people working on creative activities - including problem solving - where it's difficult to measure progress. 

According to Mark, "Asked how we are doing, we might say, “It’s coming along.” Or “I’m making good progress.” Or “A few hiccups, but nothing major.” Occasionally, you might here a “I’m having issues, but it’s nothing that I can’t sort out and get addressed.” When you get down to it, these noncommittal updates are the status equivalent of meaningless cocktail-party chatter. It’s uttering words, while saying absolutely nothing." 

This is clearly a problem for someone who has milestones to meet and has a VP looking over their shoulder. 

When an HR team came to Versatile's office recently to attend Microsoft Project training in Seattle, we spent time working on their Work Breakdown Structures, because the way we structure our tasks is the foundation of effective project management. Every task can have tangible outcomes, even creative ones. 

If your project management class doesn't teach you how to make your tasks tangible, you are attending the wrong project management training. 

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Who Will Be Managing Projects in Ten Years? 

One reason for the increase in demand for project management training for non-project managers is that we live in a world of projects. Or a Whirled of projects!  

Right now we have some full-time project managers and a lot of unofficial project managers. What does the future hold? 

www.ProjectManagement.com has many webinars and blogs, and currently has a discussion of this very question. 

"How do view the role of a project manager changing in the next ten years?" 

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