Project Management Course

Developing a Project Plan

Project Titles (Choose ONE only)
1.    ASEAN Sports event in Singapore for ASEAN countries.
2.    ASEAN Ministerial Conference in Singapore for ASEAN leaders.
3.    Volunteer team for disaster relief efforts in another country.
4.    Promotional event and red carpet opening of a mega blockbuster movie premier.
5.    A 5000 seats capacity concert for international artiste(s).
6.    Opening an upscale fashion boutique or fine dining restaurant.
7.    Redevelopment of a small town and facilities.
8.    An international fashion show for renowned designer.

TOPIC 6    Developing a Project Plan

Objectives    •    To establish the linkage between the WBS and the project network
•    To diagram a project network using AON methods
•    To provide a process for computing early, late, and slack activity times and identify the critical path
•    To demonstrate understanding and application of “lags” in compressing projects or constraining the start or finish of an activity
•    To provide an overview framework for estimating times and costs
•    To suggest the importance of slack in scheduling projects.

TOPIC 7    Managing Risk

Objectives    •    To describe the risk management process
•    To identify different kinds of risks
•    To illustrate approaches for risk identification, analysis, and assessment
•    To suggest approaches for responding to project risks
•    To propose the use of contingency reserves to cover risk events
•    To recognize the need for a change control process/system for any size project.

TOPIC 8    Leadership: Being an Effective Project Manager

Objectives    •    To create an awareness of the network of relationships that need to be managed to be a successful project manager
•    To identify the “currencies” a project manager can use to influence others
•    To encourage students to engage in MBWA
•    To highlight the importance of maintaining positive relationships with project sponsors
•    To understand and discuss the importance of building trust for project success
•    To identify some of the qualities of an effective project manager.

TOPIC 9    Managing Project Teams
Objectives    •    To identify key characteristics of a high-performance project team
•    To appreciate the impact situational factors have on project team development
•    To develop strategies for developing a high-performance project team
•    To build skills that encourage functional conflict and discourage dysfunctional conflict
•    To understand the challenges of managing virtual project teams
•    To recognize the importance of the project manager’s behaviour in shaping how a team performs.

TOPIC 10    Scheduling Resources and Costs
Objectives    •    To contrast the differences between time and resource constrained projects
•    To explain the implications for managing time and resource constrained projects
•    To demonstrate an understanding of one heuristic method for scheduling resource constrained projects
•    To explain the potential for hidden critical paths
•    To demonstrate the use of responsibility matrixes to assign individuals and responsibility
•    To introduce multiproject resource scheduling
•    To demonstrate the ability to create a project cost baseline
•    To explain how costs are translated from an estimate to a time-phase baseline.

TOPIC 11    Reducing Project Duration
Objectives    •    To understand how to use the critical path to reduce project duration
•    To explain alternative methods for crashing activities
•    To explain the risks associated with compressing or crashing a project
•    To recognize when a project manager should try for the optimum cost-duration.

    
TOPIC 13    Progress and Performance Measurement and Evaluation
Objectives    •    To understand how organizations track project performance
•    To understand and appreciate the significance of earned value
•    To be able to calculate and interpret different project performance indexes
•    To be able to develop a project reporting system that will ensure project control and progress
•    To demonstrate how a project rollup can pinpoint problems in two dimensions.

TOPIC 14    Project Closure
Objectives    •    To appreciate the importance of engaging in project audits
•    To identify the major elements of a project audit
•    To understand key issues surrounding project closure
•    To provide useful advice for conducting performance reviews of project members.