Foundation Skills for Would Be PRINCE2® Practitioners

Foundation Skills for Would Be PRINCE2® Practitioners

A course for those new to project management who require a structured and practical PRINCE2® based approach that works in the real world (for veterans of an exam cram course see our shorter versions, for those without interest in PRINCE2® see our “Delivering Results to Plan: Structured Project Management from the Ground Up”.

You Will Learn To

  • Really use PRINCE2® (rather than have academic exam oriented knowledge of its contents).
  • Build a Project Plan. Assign work-packages to project participants. Track project progress. Take necessary corrective actions in a timely manner.
  • Set project tolerances and contingencies to include auditable justified allowances for risk and change.
  • Make reliable assessment of progress towards project goals.
  • Establish a consensus view of the project’s end-point or outcomes amongst the stakeholder community.
  • Establish a control regime that balances formality (bureaucracy), agility, risk and cost.
  • Close-out the project in an orderly fashion.

Duration

Base course available in 3 4 or 5 day formats
0900 to 1630 formal class hours (1630 onward informal/ optional time for discussion of “topics raised on the day” and demonstration of relevant software tools if wanted), 1530 finish on last day.

Tailored versions available to match in-house procedures and reduced or extended timescale.

Course Benefits

Be able to apply PRINCE2® to reality. Learn how to use PRINCE2® and fill the gaps left in the PRINCE2® manual.

This course teaches PRINCE2® plus all the skills that PRINCE2® project managers are assumed by the PRINCE2® manual to already possess.

Use the vocabulary and structure or ‘project speak’ as over a hundred thousand registered practitioners to aid clear communications within your organisation.

Attendance on a exam cram course in PRINCE2® focuses on exam technique and precise coverage of the official manual even when not the best advice for achieving project success. Further PRINCE2®’s scope is less than a new entrant to project management needs to fulfil their responsibilities. This course reverses that position to show how to get return on the training investment.

Who Should Attend

Anyone who is involved in real-world project planning, execution and control who wants a ground-up structured approach from 1st principals that they can mould and amend to local business practices.

Those new to PM who will be working in a PRINCE2® environment.

Those whose organisation uses a PRINCE2® based project management method.

Those wishing to introduce PRINCE2® to the organisation or whose sub-contractors or customers are using (or moving towards) PRINCE2®.

Those looking for a route-map for how to apply the PMBoK Guide® within a control framework (PRINCE2® and the PMBoK Guide®’s are complementary and knowledge of both is required for successful best practice project management).

Content – Planning

  • Mostly the same material as our “Real-world and Practical: Fluency in Actually USING PRINCE2®”. Real-world and practical is aimed at Registered Practitioners, this course is aimed at those without familiarity of PRINCE2® principles, themes, processes, roles, activities and other elements.
  • Fundamentals that start projects on the road to success
  • Taking the skills back to work, Project Lifecycle In The Class And In The Office.
  • PRINCE2® on a page, The whole process model. PRINCE2® on a page again: the components.
  • Definitions & the PM’s job through the lifecycle, Principals of Stages and Rolling Wave Planning
  • Expanding SU and IP’s approach to scoping and planning
    • Better Faster Cheaper: Tools and techniques defining scope, establishing stakeholder’s real needs and wants, Know The End Point, Know The Trade-Offs
    • Better, Faster, Cheaper (pick two), Know the limits, tolerance and escalations, Balancing Risk Versus Reward, Deliverables (PBP, Product Descriptions and Work Packages), What v. how (PD & WP).
  • Expanding Chapter 7 the Planning Theme
    • Surer, safer, steadier: Tools and techniques to ensure the project’s scope of work is unambiguously defined and agreed
    • Breakdown structures, PBS, WBS & WBS Dictionary, Guidelines for construction of a PBS & WBS, Breakdown Structure Rules & Guidelines, Activity is Verb, Product is Noun.
    • Skilful application of scheduling: Part 1 Knowing who could to do what and when, Precedence Diagram Method, Tasks in PDM/ Network diagrams, Critical Path, Float & Slack, Network Diagram to Resource Gantt.
    • Skilful application of scheduling actives: Part 2 Knowing that the resources are available , Resource Gantt to Resource Histogram, Resourcing and levelling, Cumulative Resources & Timing, Finalise and Baseline the plan, Base-lining.
    • 7.3.4 Estimating: Black-art to transparent process producing reliable figures, The Importance of Good Estimates, The Difficulties, Confidence over a Range, Three point estimates, Adding uncertainties, Calculating Contingency, Showing Schedule & Cost Contingency, Deriving the quantities, Estimating techniques, Parametric estimates, Analogous estimates.

Content – Maintaining control

  • Avoiding bureaucracy and running the project to budget and schedule, Risk assessment, Communications Strategy, Progress Report Template (Highlight & Checkpoint), Actions & Responses.
  • Sources of Change & Configuration Management.
  • Quality & Scope, Quality Control: Using the Quality Register & Quality Review technique, Verification, Scope Creep, Validation.
  • Project Execution, Staying on the straight and narrow path all the way to the project’s end point, Planning Draws The Map, Tests For A Current Plan, What happens in execution?, Checking the Route, Assessing Status, Analysing Measurements.

Content – Close-out: Agreeing we’re done

  • Acceptance, Product Close-Out: Handover, Project Close-Out, Parties and Lessons Learned.
  • Conclusions and wrap-up

Workshops

Throughout the course a Case-study and exercises are used to introduce, practice and consolidate effective use of techniques and understanding of the concepts of project management. Discussion after every practical segment explores the issues and actions for adding value Back@Work.

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