PracticeFields, LLC



	At this time, no immediately upcoming workshops are scheduled. As we are always adding to our schedule, please check back frequently or e-mail us for more information.

Workshop Description

Organizations take on projects to generate new value. All too often the original vision of the business benefit gets lost in the chaos of project implementation -- sometimes even despite diligent planning and control efforts. This highly interactive seminar uses the "learning by doing" approach to give you a bird's eye view of why projects fail to deliver their intended benefits, and more importantly, what you can do to improve project performance. Through the use of a real-world case study and a table-sized board game (or "practice field"), you experience managing the entire life cycle of a project and learn how to integrate scope, cost, quality, and time concerns. Rooted in the principles of systems thinking popularized by Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline, the workshop reveals the often hidden "cause and effect" on projects and gives you the knowledge and practice necessary to manage projects that deliver maximum value to your company.

Benefits

Develop and enhance the contributions you make to your organization by being able to:

Use value-based decision making to make tradeoffs between scope, quality, time, and cost
Implement policies that prevent the ripple effects of poor risk and quality management
Use stakeholder and user analysis to accelerate the discovery of scope
Apply techniques that improve the communication of project vision and value
Develop activities that increase the quality of stakeholder and user involvement

Instructional Methods

Board game simulation, case study, group discussion and exercises, and lecture.

Your Seminar Experience Will Cover

1. Integration - Integrate scope, quality, time, and cost objectives by focusing on end-product value. Understand how the impacts of decisions and actions in one area can ripple through a project, and how those decisions and actions affect the value of the project as a whole.

2. Value Estimation and Communication - Learn the important components of project life cycle benefits and costs. Distinguish project life cycle performance from product life cycle value. Apply simple techniques for communicating project value in a manner that provides operational guidance to team members.

3. Risk Identification and Mitigation - Minimize rework and the emergency juggling of resources by mitigating the probability and consequences of project risks. Increase your understanding of the secondary and tertiary effects of risk events.

4. Project Alignment and Quality - Implement project alignment and issue resolution processes that minimize errors and rework. Recognize that quality is a key component of project value and include project alignment and quality assurance work as part of the project plan.

5. Project Planning and Execution - Develop a plan and schedule including decisions on resource loading/leveling, critical path compression, and contingency planning. Evaluate ongoing project decisions with respect to the impact on end-product value.

6. Scope Discovery - Unearth project scope "surprises" by applying a technique that identifies and pulls forward key learning junctures of a project.

7. Stakeholder and User Analysis - Identify the value of the project from the perspective of each stakeholder and use the analysis to structure stakeholder and user involvement.

Who Should Attend?

The seminar is geared toward senior project managers and project office personnel, but knowledge of project management terminology and techniques is not assumed.