Introduction

• How do you ensure that projects are properly prioritized?
  
• What can be done to increase a project’s likelihood of success?
  
• How do you plan a project when there are many uncertainties?
  
• How can you meet deadlines and control costs?
  
• How can you manage projects in organizations that are structured by functional area?
  
• What are the keys to setting up a project with external teams? 
• How do you set up a Project Management Office? 
  

In today’s business environment, project management has become one of the most valued skills in all types of organizations (profit, non-profit, governmental, etc.). Companies are experiencing a growing phenomenon called projectization, where strategy implementation is carried out through appropriately selected projects. Project Management has therefore evolved from being a competence required by technical experts to a management responsibility. To compete and survive, organizations have no choice but to achieve the intended results on time while keeping control of the resources used. This is true for companies that deliver project work as part of their customer offerings and for companies that use projects to improve their internal processes.

The current economic crisis is creating many opportunities that can become projects aimed at changing a company’s business focus, such as opening  new markets, establishing alliances with suppliers and customers, eliminating operations waste, merging companies, and integrating vertically. To be successful, each of these opportunities should be transformed into a manageable project and  then planned and executed taking into account the inherent uncertainties and risks.

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Key Take-Aways

For the participant

• Understand the key to management by projects in your organization
• Learn the crucial elements to consider at each stage of the project lifecycle and avoid common mistakes
• Ensure that the projects for which you are responsible are properly managed with minimum management effort and attention is focused on the most critical elements
• Determine how to treat uncertainty and risk in projects, learn to incorporate contingencies, and discover, analyze and establish plans to address potential risks
• Understand your role as project manager, sponsor, client or project team member
• Improve the way you manage project teams and deal with conflicts

For the company

• Establish the basis for promoting true project management within the organization
• Establish a common language and proven methodology for project management
• Facilitate the creation of a project management office and improve its operational effectiveness
• Understand the elements of motivation and remuneration of project teams
• Discover the pros and cons of the different structural ways of organizing projects within the organization

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Program Structure

The program is structured around two specific areas. It first provides a guided tour through the different stages in the lifecycle of a project, and then addresses the complementary elements that support the organizational or management structure.

The six stages of the project lifecycle

Selection
In this section we will cover the management of the project portfolio, the prioritizing of projects and aggregate planning in terms of capacity. Selection is one of the most relevant elements to ensure short-term benefit and long-term growth. The various stages of selection will be explored as well as the models that allow you to structure and evaluate decision making properly.

Organization
Choosing the right team and especially the best project manager is one of the key success factors. However, without an adequate organizational structure, even the best project manager will fail. How can you adapt the project structure for success?

Definition
Most problems associated with project management arise in this area. Correctly defining the project scope (stakeholders, evaluation criteria, risk management, etc.) is key to preventing further problems down the line.

Planning
This is the central stage and consists of breaking down the project into work packages, allocating them to different managers, determining the activities to be undertaken, estimating the duration and timing, analyzing the project network, and allocating resources. The traditional methods used in well-defined projects will be revised, as well as the most innovative methods used to manage projects whose iterative design generates a high level of uncertainty.
 
Monitoring and Control
Monitoring techniques will be introduced to allow managers to identify potential problems in the early stages when there is still room for recovery.
 
Finalization
Closing actions and evaluations. The most frequent causes of failure will be studied, along with ways to recognize and avoid them in future projects.
 
Support elements
• Organizational structures for Project Management
• Team management
• Conflict management
• People management and compensation systems
• The role of the Project ManagementOffice and the continuous learningprocess
• Recent trends in planning and valuecreation
• Models for defining, measuring andproposing ways to improve yourorganization’s ability to manage projects
• Managing in a multi-project context;application of the critical chainmethodology, which extends the concept of bottlenecks to project management
• Applying process maturity models suchas ISO 10006 to projects

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Approach

The program incorporates a number ofhighly dynamic and interactive teachingmethods, including group discussions, class lectures and the case study method. Participants will also be provided with frameworks which have proven usefulin selecting,designing, implementing, controlling and evaluating projects in a wide variety of environments. The application of these frameworks has been shown to make a big difference in the way projects can be set up and managed for success.

Widely used in executive education,the case study method is an intense, challenging approach that demands that participants make business decisions and take action by analyzing, arguing and defending their recommendations against a multitude of equally plausible solutions.

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Who Should Attend

This program is designed for senior executives who are interested in introducing project management in their organizations or who are already using it and want to enhance their knowledge.

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Faculty

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