The Complete Course on Project Management

This course covers vital aspects of project definition, planning, control and handover to ensure relevant quality within time, budget and resource constraints. It shows in detail what a contract does (and does not) require each party to the contract to do, and the consequences for both parties of any failure. It additionally tackles team leadership, stakeholder management and project communication.

This comprehensive 10-day course offers complete guidance for handling and managing all kinds of projects that include the complexity of commercial and business relationships. The course illustrates how to ensure projects deliver outcomes which are client-focused, contractually appropriate and organisationally relevant.

Objectives

• Build up project plans concentrated on delivering reasonable benefits.
• Lead project teams in the usage of contracts and delivery of projects.
• Manage relationships with project stakeholders and contractual partners.
• Enhance their comprehending of the role of contracts within a business.
• Apply the most recent international thinking in dispute resolution.

Course Outline

Day 1

What are contracts and how are they created?

• The need for contractual relationships
• What is needed to create a valid contract? Ingredients and formalities.
• Authority and agency.
• The tender process.
• Alternative sourcing.
• Making contracts enforceable – with particular emphasis on the international context.

Day 2

The Structure of contracts

• Form of Agreement.
• Hierarchy of Terms and Conditions.
• Different contractual structures? Traditional and new.
• Risk and Title (ownership) in international trade. When does it transfer?
• Notices and other formalities.
• Which law and which courts?

Day 3

Collateral documents

• Securitising performance obligations.
• Bonds and guarantees.
• Parent company guarantees.
• Letters of intent, comfort or awareness.
• Insurance policies.
• Assessing the need for financial security.

Day 4

Change and variation

• Amendments to Contract documents.
• Assignment/Novation explained and distinguished.
• Variation clauses and changes to the scope of work.
• Claims – what they are, and how they arise.
• Delay and disruption.
• Force majeure.

Day 5

Resolving Disputes

• Conflict avoidance and tiered dispute resolution clauses.
• Negotiation.
• Litigation.
• Arbitration.
• Mediation, ENE and new best practices in dispute resolution and management.

Day 6

The World of Project Management

• What is a project?
• Mature project management.
• Selecting projects to meet organizational goals.
• Managing programmes and portfolios.
• Uncertainty in project selection decisions.
• Project data, information and knowledge management.

Day 7

Project Planning, Scheduling and Budgeting

• Strategic, tactical and operational planning.
• The contents of a project plan.
• Level of detail in scheduling.
• Network logic and dependency analysis.
• Project uncertainty and risk management.
• Fundamentals of budgeting and cost control.

Day 8

Project Resourcing, Monitoring and Control

• Resource allocation.
• Expediting a project.
• The Critical Chain approach.
• Designing the monitoring cycle.
• Performance indicators and control mechanisms.
• Designing the change control system.

Day 9

The Project Manager’s Roles and Responsibilities

• Selection of the Project Manager.
• Project Team-building and empowerment.
• Delegating with confidence.
• Communication within the project team.
• Project team leadership.
• Conflict resolution.

Day 10

Project Evaluation, Reporting, Closure, and Hand-over

• Evaluation criteria and project auditing.
• Analysing project performance.
• Progress reports and records.
• Determinants of project success.
• Successful project hand-over.
• Lessons learned and creating learning culture.