Day 1 — Understanding Projects and Project Management
Module 1: Characteristics of Projects and Fundamental Concepts
- What makes a project different from operations
- Core project management concepts, and the project lifecycle
- Predictive, adaptive, and hybrid approaches: an overview, and what drives the choice
- The PMBOK® Guide, Eighth Edition: principles, performance domains, and tailoring
- Practical Exercise: classify a set of sample projects as predictive, adaptive, or hybrid, and justify the choice
Module 2: Setting Up for Success: The Charter
- Purpose and content of the project charter
- Objectives, success criteria, assumptions, and constraints
- Authorisation and the role of the sponsor
- Practical Exercise: draft a one-page project charter
Module 3: Setting Up for Success: The Project Team
- Roles and responsibilities, and building the project team
- Characteristics of high-performing teams
- Predictive and adaptive team structures compared
Module 4: Setting Up for Success: Needs Analysis and Solution Vision
- Business needs analysis, and the problem or opportunity statement
- Developing a solution vision and the expected benefits
Module 5: Understanding Stakeholders
- Identifying and analysing stakeholders
- Stakeholder engagement and communication planning
- Engaging stakeholders continuously in an adaptive project
- Practical Exercise: build a stakeholder map and engagement plan for a sample project
Day 2 — Predictive Project Management: Planning
Module 6: Product Scope Planning
- Collecting and documenting requirements
- Requirements techniques: interviews, workshops, and prototypes
- Requirements traceability
Module 7: Project Scope Planning
- Defining scope, and what is in and out
- Creating a work breakdown structure (WBS)
- Controlling scope creep
- Practical Exercise: decompose a sample project into a WBS
Module 8: Schedule Planning
- Sequencing activities, estimating durations, and constructing the timeline
- Critical path analysis
- Optimising the timeline: crashing and fast-tracking, and resource levelling
- Practical Exercise: build a network diagram, find the critical path, and shorten the schedule
Module 9: Cost Planning
- Cost estimation techniques: analogous, parametric, and bottom-up
- Establishing the project budget and the cost baseline
- Contingency and management reserves
- Practical Exercise: estimate costs and build a time-phased budget
Day 3 — Predictive Project Management: Control
Module 10: Risk Management
- Identifying risks, and qualitative and quantitative analysis
- Risk response strategies for threats and opportunities
- Risk management in predictive and adaptive projects compared
- Practical Exercise: build and prioritise a risk register for a sample project
Module 11: Managing Project Change
- Integrated change control
- Change requests, impact assessment, and approval
- Handling change in a predictive versus an adaptive project
Module 12: Contingency Planning
- Planning for adversity: triggers, fallback plans, and reserves
- Linking contingency plans to the risk register
Module 13: Controlling Progress with Earned Value Management
- Planned value, earned value, and actual cost
- Schedule and cost variances, and the performance indices (SPI and CPI)
- Forecasting with estimate at completion (EAC) and to-complete performance index (TCPI)
- Analysing variance drivers
- Case Study: calculate earned value measures for a project in trouble, and recommend corrective action
Day 4 — Adaptive Project Management
Module 14: Agile Foundations
- The Agile Manifesto: its values and principles
- Why teams move from predictive to adaptive approaches
- Characteristics of highly effective, self-managing teams
- Common agile approaches: Scrum, Kanban, and hybrid models (overview)
Module 15: The Scrum Framework
- Scrum theory: transparency, inspection, and adaptation
- Scrum values
- The Scrum Team, the Sprint, and the Scrum events
- Product Goal, Sprint Goal, and Definition of Done
Module 16: Scrum Accountabilities: The Product Owner
- Maximising value, and managing the Product Backlog
- Working with stakeholders and prioritising
- Practical Exercise: write user stories and prioritise a Product Backlog
Module 17: Scrum Accountabilities: The Scrum Master
- Serving the team, the Product Owner, and the organisation
- Facilitating events and removing impediments
- Coaching the team and promoting good practice
Module 18: Scrum Accountabilities: The Developers and the Self-Managing Team
- Creating a usable Increment every Sprint
- Self-management, collaboration, and shared accountability
Module 19: Scrum Artefacts and Commitments
- Product Backlog and the Product Goal
- Sprint Backlog and the Sprint Goal
- Increment and the Definition of Done
- Practical Exercise: create a Definition of Done and a Sprint Backlog for a sample project
Day 5 — Practical Application of Scrum, and Choosing the Right Approach
Module 20: Sprint Planning Techniques
- Refining the Product Backlog, and estimating with story points and planning poker
- Running Sprint Planning: why, what, and how
- Setting the Sprint Goal and agreeing capacity
- Practical Exercise: plan a Sprint using a prepared backlog
Module 21: Executing the Sprint
- The Daily Scrum
- Tracking progress with a task board, burndown, and velocity
- Handling changes and impediments during the Sprint
- The Sprint Review: inspecting the Increment and adapting the backlog
- Practical Exercise: simulate a Sprint, including a Daily Scrum and a Sprint Review
Module 22: Continuous Learning Through Retrospectives
- Purpose and structure of the Sprint Retrospective
- Retrospective techniques, and turning insights into improvement actions
- Practical Exercise: facilitate a retrospective on the simulated Sprint
Module 23: Contrasting Control Mechanisms and Tailoring the Approach
- Control in predictive and adaptive projects compared: baselines and earned value versus velocity, burndown, and inspection
- Selecting and tailoring an approach, including hybrid models
- Challenges in adopting Agile, and how to address them
- Case Study: recommend the best approach for three different projects, and justify the choice
Closing Session: Course Review and Action Planning
- Review of the key techniques
- Personal action plan for applying the course to your own projects
- Course evaluation
