Creating outstanding project managers

If you are a project manager with a few years experience and have taken at least one training class, and feel you could do better and move up to the next level, then this is the place for you to start that process.

This course defines a systemic and systematic approach to project management. The emphasis is on the relationships and interconnections between project management processes and engineering processes, both in planning projects and then and performing them. Mastery of these key tools is important for career development, as projects are a major tool by which organizations achieve their strategic goals.

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Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student should:

  1. Understand and be able to apply the systems approach to project management
  2. Improved ability to successfully manage a project
  3. Improved problem-solving, systems and critical thinking abilities
  4. Understand that there isn’t always a single “right” solution to a problem
  5. Ability to define project scope, objectives, and deliverables.
  6. Ability to develop detailed project schedules, including tasks, timelines, and milestones.
  7. Understand how to create and manage a project budget
  8. Ability to identify potential project risks and develop strategies for risk mitigation
  9. Learned how to monitor and control risks throughout the project lifecycle
  10. Enhanced skills in communicating with stakeholders, team members, and clients
  11. Better leadership qualities to manage project teams effectively
  12. A better than average project manager for your level of experience
  13. Well on the road to becoming an outstanding project manager

Who should attend

Good managers who wish to improve their project management skills and become outstanding.

Access to the modules and lessons

You access the course video lectures, readings and recordings via  the membership area of this website which is also the course host platform.

Structure

The course uses the Evercourse format. Read this first !!!!!

Unless otherwise stated all lecture videos are unlisted and are not be shared outside this class without permission. YouTube videos may be shared without permission.

Text books

The topics in each session are linked to the following book.

  • Kasser J.E., Systemic and systematic project management, CRC Press, 2020

Text books provide in-depth coverage of a topic. There is a plethora of management text books in print. The various text books cover the same material (more or less) from different perspectives using different language styles. Students are free to, and should, refer to any management text books they wish. Other useful books include:

  • Forsberg, K., Mooz, H. and Cotterman, H., Visualising Project Management, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 3rd edition, 2005.
  • Gray, C., and Larson, E., Project Management: The Managerial Process, 4th Edition, McGraw H ill, 2007, ISBN 978-0-07-1228751-7.
  • Eisner, H., Essentials of Project and Systems Engineering Management, 3rd Edition, Wiley Interscience, 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-12933-3.
  • Kasser, J. E., Applying Total Quality Management to Systems Engineering, Artech House, Boston, 1995.
  • Kerzner, H., Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling, 9th Edition, Wiley, 2005, ISBN 978-0-471-74187-9.
  • Kerzner, H., and Saladis, F. P., Project Management Workbook and PMP/CAPM Exam Study Guide, 9th Edition, 2006, ISBN 978-0-471-76076-4.

Modules

Module 0 Introduction and overview

Objectives

  1. To introduce the course.
  2. To provide administrative information.
  3. To explain the structure of the course.
  4. To provide an overview of the modules and how they fit together.
  5. To discuss the two biggest mistakes students make in essay examinations and how to easily eliminate them.

Module 1 The seven interdependent P’s of a project

Objectives

  1. To understand the seven interdependent P’s of a project, their importance and how they fit together in successful projects
  2. To provide the problem-solving skills to help the student become an outstanding project manager by understanding the nature of thinking, problems and problems-solving and the benefits of systems thinking and beyond when dealing with undesirable situations.

The in-depth modules of the Creating Outstanding Problem Solvers course and used to provide the problem-solving and decision-making knowledge and skills to meet the objectives of this module.

Module 2 Management: general and project management

Objectives

  1. To understand the nature of:
    • Management
    • General management
    • Project management
  2. To understand the differences between general management and project management

Module 3 Milestone reviews in the project implementation phase

Objectives

  1. To explain the purpose and nature of informal and formal reviews

Module 4 Successful change and time management

Objectives

  1. To show the effect of change on (an assumed) cost and schedule.
  2. To provide examples of typical responses to parts of subsequent change management exercises.
  3. To experience what happens when the project diverges from the plan.
  4. To present summary of management component of the Preliminary Design Review (PDR).
  5. To present summary of management component of the Critical Design Review (CDR)
  6. To introduce and practice a personal time management methodology.

Module 5 Successful project planning

This module provides the student understand and practice project planning

Objectives

  1. To introduce the case study exercise.
  2. To introduce the background to the class project exercise.
  3. To introduce the project lifecycle.
  4. To provide enough technical details to enable students to create the project plan.
  5. To explain the purpose and nature of informal and formal reviews.
  6. To understand the essential elements of a project plan.
  7. To understand product-based planning.
  8. To understand the difference between a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and a Work Package (WP).
  9. To understand why planning should iterate from:
    1. project start to finish at the conceptual level
    2. from project finish back to start at the detailed level.
  10. To begin to create a Project Plan (PP).

Module 6 Successful project staffing

This module covers the personal aspect of project management because the rarely mentioned a major contribution to project failure is the use of personnel with poor or inappropriate competencies.

Objectives

  1. To understand the systems approach to staffing a project
  2. To understand the need for high performance teams.
  3. To understand that people are not interchangeable namely one engineer does not necessarily equal another.
  4. To create a project team to staff the case study exercise.

    Module 7 Successful project scheduling

    This module covers the scheduling aspect of project planning.

    Objectives

    1. To understand the systems approach to scheduling a project
    2. To be able to create the project network.
    3. To be able to create project schedules.
    4. To understand the critical path and its importance.
    5. To understand the fallacy in slack time in fixed resource situations.
    6. To schedule the case study exercise.

    Module 8 Successful project cost estimating

    This module introduces cost estimating.

    Objectives

    1. To understand the systems approach to cost estimating a project
    2. To understand factors influencing the quality of estimates.
    3. To understand and apply methods for estimating project costs.
    4. To understand different types of cost contracts.
    5. To cost the case study exercise.
    6. To learnt how to implement:
      1. Cost and schedule reductions.
      2. Project cancellations.
    7. To shorten a project schedule by 25%.

    Module 9 Successfully adjusting project schedules and costs

    Objectives

    1. To learnt how to implement
      • Cost and schedule reductions
      • Project cancellations
    2. To shorten a project schedule by 25%

    Module 10 Project performance and control of projects

    This module covers the most critical state in the project which is not mentioned in many project management texts and courses.

    Objectives

    1. To understand a performance monitoring system as a system.
    2. To understand the structure of a performance monitoring system.
    3. To understand and partake in the project control process.
    4. To learn about Earned Value Analysis (EVA).
    5. To learn about Enhanced Traffic Light (ETL) Charts.
    6. To learn about and analyze a CRIP Chart.
    7. To understand the triple and quadruple constraints of project management

    Module 11 An introduction to risk and uncertainty over the project life cycle

    Objectives

    1. To identify where and how risks and uncertainties arise in the project lifecycle.
    2. To understand the difference between strategic and tactical risks.
    3. To understand ways of estimating risks.
    4. To perform risk management

    Module 12 The human side of project management

    Objectives

    1. To introduce the human element of project management
    2. To discuss:
      • Conflict.
      • Managing teams.
      • Leadership, styles, authority and influence.
      • Performance reviews
      • Recognizing and rewarding individual & team achievements.
      • Negotiation.
      • Outsourcing.
    3. To present summary of management component of the Test Readiness Review (TRR).
    4. To present summary of management component of the Delivery Readiness Review (DRR).
    5. To present summary of management component of the project meeting following Customer Acceptance (CA).

    Module 13 Managing software projects

    This module discuses managing some of the unique attributes of a software development project.

    Module 14 Managing research projects

    This module discuses managing some of the unique attributes of a research project

    Module 15 Project audit and closeout

    Objectives

    1. To understand the nature of a project audit.
    2. To understand project closure procedures
    3. To analyze and evaluate a project at closeout.

    Module 16 Ethics in project management

    TBS

    Module 17  Summary and closeout

    Objectives

    1. To summarize and close out the course.
    2. To summarize how the systems approach to project management differs from the traditional approach.

    Footnotes

    The core modules in this course were originally offered as “Systems Engineering Project Management”.

    The contents of the course is often changed to clarify the material based on student feedback as well as changes in the state of systems engineering. Accordingly, what is actually taught may be different to what is posted in this page. Lecture handout serial numbers are updated in accordance with the configuration control standard.