Improving Your Project Management Skills: The Basics for Success

Establish a strong, practical foundation in project management knowledge, tools, and techniques through this intensive hands-on workshop, which covers the full project lifecycle from initiation through closure.

As business competition intensifies, organizations are taking on more projects than ever, yet many of those projects are led by professionals who lack formal project management training. This seminar addresses that gap directly. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, and practical exercises, you will learn and practice the core tools and techniques that have been proven to drive project management success. The course is closely aligned with the Project Management Institute (PMI) framework while remaining focused on practical, real-world application. You will return to work with the tools and confidence needed to start projects on a solid footing and see them through to successful completion.

Who Should Attend:

• Professionals who are new to project management
• "Accidental" project managers for whom PM is a secondary part of their role
• Business analysts, subject-matter experts, managers responsible for projects, and experienced project managers looking to revisit and reinforce current tools and processes

How You Will Benefit:

• Set your projects up for success from the very first step
• Learn the fundamentals of gathering and documenting project requirements effectively
• Understand the distinct roles of the project manager, business analyst, and other key contributors
• Develop an integrated project plan that includes realistic scope, schedule, budget, and risk components, and translate that plan into action
• Track and report project progress clearly and consistently
• Earn the respect of your project team and build credibility with senior leadership

What You Will Cover:

Overview of Key Project Management Concepts

• Key terminology, roles, and the project triangle
• Defining a "project" and differentiating it from ongoing operations
• The five core process groups of project management

Initiating the Project

• Creating a project charter and connecting it to the business case
• Gathering and documenting project requirements
• Aligning expectations across customers, sponsors, and team members

Identifying the Work

• Creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) from the charter and product requirements
• Assigning clear ownership to individual tasks

Estimating the Work

• Applying industry best practices for creating realistic, defensible estimates

Scheduling the Work

• Creating precedence diagrams to map task dependencies
• Producing Gantt charts to visualize project timelines
• Determining the critical path and calculating float

Creating the Budget

• Estimating and tracking both personnel costs and out-of-pocket expenses

Completing the Plan

• Creating a project communications plan
• Describing the risk management process
• Understanding the purpose of a procurement plan and the role of reserves

Executing the Plan

• Building an effective project status report
• Identifying the key indicators of project health
• Running productive project status meetings
• Managing changes to scope, schedule, and budget

Closing the Project

• Completing both administrative and contractual closure procedures
• Understanding the different ways projects can be terminated
• Documenting lessons learned and contributing them to the organizational repository

Complete Planning Phase

• Create a comprehensive project communications plan that covers all stakeholder groups
• Apply the project risk management process, including risk identification, analysis, and response planning
• Describe the purpose and key elements of a project procurement plan
• Discuss the purpose of contingency reserves and how they protect project health

Executing the Plan

• Build a project status report that gives stakeholders a clear, accurate view of project health
• Identify the key performance indicators that signal whether a project is on track or in trouble
• Run effective project status meetings that drive decisions rather than just reporting information
• Apply a structured change management process to control scope, schedule, and budget changes

Closing the Project

• Execute both administrative and contractual project closure procedures completely and correctly
• Understand the different circumstances under which projects end, whether through successful completion, cancellation, or other outcomes
• Explain why a project lessons-learned repository is essential to organizational learning and future project success