The Journey Line of the Project Management Institute’s PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge). As you can see from this journey line, the practice of project management has grown and developed in this definition over the years. With its humble beginnings back in 1996, with about 170 pages, the PMBOK’s latest Version 6 is out with over 700 pages! (Yikes!)
“The Practical Project Manager”
I’ve been a project manager for decades. For the first couple of decades, it was all about instinct and continuous improvement. In later years, I got formal training and certification in this life skill and realized there are a few key fundamentals to know and practice to have wildly successful project execution outcomes. In my practice, I’ve always done what was practical, what made sense and what got the job done.
This program is about getting started, establishing a light structure for project execution by synthesizing all that is in the PMBOK down to the KEY concepts and deliverables needed to successfully get started with running projects and establishing a practice for effective execution in your culture.
Organizational outcomes from this training investment:
• Camaraderie among the team trained together
• Critical/lateral thinking ability enhanced by use of tools like those defined below in project outputs and tools
• Increase in Project Management fluency (understanding of events, artifacts, roles & language)
• Motivated (Application of new knowledge)
• Very energized and ready to get started
• Focus on outcomes
• Transparency of issues, concerns
• Focus on roles and the importance of clarifying roles in the overall process
• Alignment
Project Management and agility can co-exists peacefully. My approach is this:
• Have a vision for agility (PMO)
• Understand what’s strategy and what’s tactics
• Get clear about the roles
• Get started! (inspect & adapt)
Approach: The Steps we’ll take together to get you up and running
• Assessment of your organization and practices
• Visioning workshop
• Training
• Coaching
“The Practical PM” Foundations Training Agenda:
Format: Two Day, 9:00am – 5:00pm. Post training quiz to help ‘anchor’ the learning
Foundations – Part I
• What is a project (history & structures)
• Terminology – your top 12
• Project Outputs – your top 5
• Project leadership roles (Depends on your organization)
Foundations – Part II
• Knowledge Areas & artifacts
A Day in the Life – of a PM
• Process Areas
• Levels of Planning
• Tools
The Project Leader
• Empathy
• Systems Thinking
• Stakeholder Analysis
Managing conflict
• What is conflict
• ‘You’ in conflict
Continuous Improvement
• The Retrospective
Working Agreements
• Definition of Done
Wrap Up
• Action Plans
• Continuous improvement – feedback
• Resources
Other (add on) topics:
– These topics are post foundations training so add-ons to the training outlined above.
Stakeholder Training – This training helps those in your organization who will be the beneficiaries of project work, understand how they can support, where they fit and how they can help projects succeed.
Format: 1 day
Facilitation Training – This is a vital skill that can take the fundamentals of project management to the next level. This is a required add on.
Format: 1 day (1 day team training commitment)
Continuous Improvement – This training expands what we learned in the foundations course “The Practical Project Manager” by teaching structures to sustain this practice and
Format: 1 day (1/2 day team training commitment, 1/2 day coaching/mentoring)
Coaching – This is a training to teach your project managers the basics of good coaching practices to begin to develop a coaching culture in your organization.
Format: 1 day (1/2 day team training commitment, 1/2 day coaching/mentoring)
To get started, book your 1 hour complimentary exploration call to see how I might best be of service to you and your organization. I invite you to read my testimonials or ask me for a referral of my work.
Schedule Appointment
- Alicia McLain – alicia@operational-innovations.com or call my office at 619-972-0453
Let’s connect!
LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciarmclain/
Contact Me: via email
I invite you to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE my YouTube Channel, where you can get more tips from the ‘Practical Project Manager’ series: The Practical Project Manager – You Tube