Identify key characteristics of a project, the structures and governance required to manage projects and the strategic role projects play within organisational change
Understand the main concepts related to project management. Discuss the characteristics of a project and distinguish between projects and operations. Highlight the relationship between Project, Programme and Portfolio Management such as to illustrate the role projects play within organisational change. Explain organisational influence on project management, in particular organisation structure and culture. Classify the different type of stakeholders and their roles on a project. Identify key enterprise environmental factors that would apply to different projects in different industries. Recognise the objectives of project governance and the process to achieve proper project governance. Discuss the different structures of a program management office.
Sketch out the standard project life cycle and the main phases of a project. Assess the phase concept as applied to projects in terms of (i) project initiation, (ii) project planning and scheduling, (iii) project monitoring and control, and (iv) project termination. Apply the concepts of key project knowledge areas to define and control project scope, build and maintain a project schedule, and deliver the project within a stipulated budget and customer expectations. Interpret a Project Charter as part of the initiating process of a project. Draft a Project Plan. Categorise stakeholders and appraise common strategies to manage stakeholders throughout the project. Determine the human resources management process within a project and identify common challenges faced. Examine the importance of collecting, distributing, storing, retrieving, controlling, monitoring and disposing of information during the communication management process applying on a project.
Create and maintain a work breakdown structure to identify and control project scope. Analyse standard techniques used to gather requirements. Construct a schedule model using the precedence diagramming technique in order to show activity sequence. Apply trend analysis, critical path method, critical chain method and earned valued method to control project schedule. Evaluate standard techniques used to estimate project costs. Establish a project story. Control information sharing by making use of a communication matrix. Develop a probability and impact risk matrix. Illustrate various stakeholder classification models
Identify and categorize risk. Determine the probability and impact of risk. Formulating strategies to control risk. Define project failure. Assess major root causes of project failure. Explore common shortcomings in project planning as related to the project knowledge areas that contributes to projects failing. Interpret early warning signs of project failure, and relate how the processes, tools and techniques discussed during the unit can reduce the risk of failure. Walk through a project recovery life cycle and appraise key areas that need to be addressed in each phase of project recovery.