Project Management: Deep Dive Online

Fundamental Concepts of Project Management

• Basic terms and concepts of project management;
•  Project management trends;
• Modern standards, methodologies, and frameworks in project management;
• The role of a project manager / delivery manager, tasks, competencies, spheres of influence, skill matrix;
• Types of projects: Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid.
• Project vs product;
• Project phases, project/product lifecycle, SDLC in software development;
• Processes in project management;
• Tailoring. Choosing the project type: Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid;
• Project constraints (PM triangle: traditional vs Agile, project constraints);
• Influence of internal and external organizational environment on project activities;
• Types of organizational structures with project management functions;
• Optimal set of project documentation;
• Three-level project management model, methodologies used at each level, Program Management, Lean Portfolio Management.

Key practical exercises of the module: defining course goals and expectations, project vs operational activities, project cycle vs product cycle, identifying the project you will work on within the course with a team, setting SMART project goals, determining project type, determining the type of organizational structure of the company based on a provided case study; examples of PMP exam questions on the topic.

Agile Project Management

• Values and principles of Agile;
• Cynefin & Stacey Complexity models;
• Scrum:
  • Overview of the Scrum framework (values, process, artifacts, ceremonies)
  • Roles in Scrum (competencies, spheres of influence, areas of responsibility)
  • Value and importance of using Scrum Board, Burndown/Burnup Chart, Velocity Chart
  • Bus Factor within the Scrum team
  • Scrum ceremonies (timing, agenda, typical issues for each ceremony)
• Kanban:
  • Overview of Kanban (values, principles, practices, process)
  •  Designing a Kanban flow
  • Cadences in Kanban
  • Kanban policies
  • Service classes
  • Metrics: Cumulative Flow Diagram, Cycle time, Lead time, Throughput (what they are, how they work, and how to use them)
  • ScrumBan
•  Comparison of the usage of the most popular Agile frameworks
• Brief overview and comparison of the usage of the most popular Agile frameworks for scaling: SAFe, LeSS, etc.

Key practical exercises of the module: discussing Agile Principles within teams, identifying which ones work and which ones do not in your active projects, practical recommendations from the trainer on how to “launch” non-working principles; determining the Scrum flow “As Is” in your work projects; reinforcing task distribution and areas of responsibility for Scrum team roles; describing typical issues with Scrum ceremonies and defining their solutions; designing a Kanban system; examples of PMP exam questions on the topic.

Product Validation, Project Initiation

• The path from needs to project;
• Product management tools: Elevator Pitch, Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, Product Vision Statement, Product Roadmap, Customer Journey Map, User Personas, Empathy Map;
• Business Case as a project initiation tool;
• SMART project goals;
• Pre-sale process in software development: main stages and artifacts, proposal management, RFI / RFQ / RFP;
• Types of contracts (Master Agreement) and their features for different project business models: Fixed price, Time and material, Cost plus, Capped Time and Material, Target Cost, Incremental Delivery, Story Point Contract, Statement of Work (SoW);
• Project Charter: basic project document, its content;
• Project knowledge management, Knowledge Base;
• Discovery Workshop with the client;
• Project kick-off and Sprint 0.

Key practical exercises of the module: creating a One Page Project Charter for a project within the training; creating a full-sized Project Charter for your work/personal project (homework); examples of PMP exam questions on the topic.

Product / Project Requirements Management

• Requirement elicitation techniques: focus groups, surveys, benchmarking, 5-why, what-if, user story mapping;
• Requirement gathering tools: user story map, mind map, fishbone diagram, affinity diagram, UML, BPMN, prototypes;
• Requirement documentation: Requirements Traceability Matrix, Backlog, Project Scope Statement (PSS), Use Cases, Business/Product/Functional requirements document;
• Types of product/project requirements, requirement decomposition methods, WBS structure, EPIC / Feature / Story / Task decomposition, alignment with project/product goals;
• Rules for describing User Stories, INVEST principle;
• Scope Baseline;
• Requirement prioritization methods: MoSCoW, Cost of delay, WSJF;
• Change management in the project;
• Validation and quality control of requirement execution: Definition of Ready / Definition of Done / Acceptance Criteria.

Key practical exercises of the module: gathering requirements for an educational project (choice of tool: Fishbone Diagram, Mind Map, Affinity Diagram); User Story Mapping (decomposition of gathered requirements into Epics and User Stories using INVEST principles); practice writing Acceptance Criteria; creating a WBS for a personal project (homework); prioritizing described requirements (MoSCoW and WSJF tools); examples of PMP exam questions on the topic.

Project Schedule Management

• Project schedule development methods (Critical Path Method, Iterative (Rolling-wave) scheduling for Scrum, On-demand scheduling for Kanban);
• Task dependencies definition, dependency management in projects and project programs;
• Gantt chart, Milestone list, leads & lags, float;
• Task duration/complexity estimation methods: PERT, analogous estimation, parametric estimation, bottom-up estimation, story points estimation.
• Choosing an approach to estimation at different stages of the project: story points vs. man-hours;
• Reserve analysis during task duration estimation;
• Estimation accuracy levels: Rough Order of Magnitude, Order Of Magnitude, Budget, Definitive;
• Schedule control metrics;
• Logging team members’ work time and utilization;
• Release planning and monitoring (Release Management).

Key practical exercises of the module: estimating User Stories using Planning Poker in Story Points; PERT estimation; examples of PMP exam questions on the topic.

Financial Management of the Project

• Terminology of financial indicators management in the project;
• Planning and control of project budget: CAPEX, OPEX, TCO, P&L;
• Financial indicators for the service segment: Revenue, GM, Gross / Net Profit, methods of project margin management;
• Product financial indicators: ROI, P&L, Monthly recurring revenue (MRR), Average revenue per user (ARPU);
• Methods for estimating the cost of tasks / product elements;
• Cost Baseline, Earned Value Management (EVM) method for monitoring financial indicators, CPI (Cost Performance Index), SPI (Schedule Performance Index).

Key practical exercises of the module: calculating GM or ROI of the project; conducting Earned Value Analysis (EVA); examples of PMP exam questions on the topic.

Project Team / Stakeholder Management

• Project team recruitment / removal of team members from the project, Staffing plan;
• Key concepts and trends in project team management;
• Team Charter as the basis for team rules;
• Roles and personality types of project team members, methods of working with them;
• Facilitation: rules, tools (online / offline);
• Tools (online / offline) for conducting effective stand-ups, retrospectives, sprint reviews (demos), team-building, and knowledge sharing sessions;
• Creation of Communities of Practices;
• Delegation and delegation matrix, RACI matrix, levels of responsibility for team members, Delegation Poker;
• Motivation theories and working with key motivators (Moving Motivators, want / can matrix, etc.);
• Team assessment tools (121, Performance review, 365 assessment, Team happiness radar), identification and work with dysfunctions in teams;
• Team lifecycle: Tuckman’s model;
• Conflict management tools and problem resolution in teams;
• Stakeholder identification using Stakeholders Matrix: roles, interests, level of knowledge, expectations, and level of influence. Power / interest grid or impact / influence grid, Stakeholder cube;
• Management of stakeholder engagement level and working with problematic clients;
• Monitoring stakeholder engagement / satisfaction with the project;
• Management of communication channels in the project, cross-cultural communications.

Main practical exercises of the module: describing approaches to working with different roles (Behavior Model) in the team; identifying team dysfunctions; working with a case of conflict within the team; Stakeholder Mapping for the educational project (identifying stakeholders, distributing them across the stakeholder matrix, determining measures to increase stakeholder engagement); examples of questions on the topic from the PMP exam.

Project Risk Management

• Project risk culture, rules for describing risks, risk properties, risk assessment methods;
• Risk identification and risk management planning: Risk register, Probability and impact matrix;
• Tools for engaging the team and other stakeholders in risk management;
• Qualitative and quantitative analysis of project risks;
• Planning/implementing responses to risks, risk response strategies.

Main practical exercises of the module: quantitative risk analysis (defining a scale for assessing risks Impact & Probability, identifying risks in the educational project, calculating Risk Value, and determining Risk Level, selecting risk management strategies, mitigation/response actions); examples of questions on the PMP exam topic.

Monitoring and Control, Project Phase Closure

• Monitoring and control of project execution: RAG report;
• Project quality management;
• Types of reporting in the project and their areas of application;
• Agile metrics: Velocity, Burndown/up chart, Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD), Lead time, Cycle time, User story planned VS User story accepted, Predictability, number of defects per release/feature/user story etc.;
• Project, iteration, or phase closure;
• Retrospectives, post-mortem analysis, lessons learned, and their incorporation into new projects.

Certifications in Project Management

• Certifications: which ones to choose, where to start
• PMP certification: how to prepare?