Project Management Success: Learn by Managing 5 Projects

The lecture covers the theory of scope management:

• Types of scope
• The purpose of scope management
• Scope planning 
• Change management 
• QFD – the Quality Function Deployment

This lecture demonstrates Scope Management, in practice, with the PTB simulator.

Each project has different system requirements. When we select how we’re going to perform our project, the quality is affected.

When making changes to our project we have to check what the consequences and the impact on the system requirements are, as well as the consequences on the project duration and cost.

This unit explains human resource management, organizational structure and its effect on projects, morale and communication skills. 

HR Management in practice with the PTB Simulator

Project Time Management includes the processes required to manage the timely completion of the project. The lecture covers:

• Definition of project time management
• Scheduling information
• Activity On Node (AON) network model
• The Gantt chart
• The Critical Path, Criticality Index and the Critical Path Method
• Scheduling Under Uncertainty
• Monte Carlo simulation

This lecture demonstrates Project Scheduling with the PTB simulator. The topics discussed in the previous lecture are illustrated.

This unit we discusses project resource management, focusing on the effect of resources on the project schedule. It classifies the types of resources used and the resulting problems the project manager faces when dealing with different types of resources. Two problems are considered: the resource utilization problem and the problem of delays caused by scarce resources. Mode, or alternative selection has a major impact on resources and on activity duration. Using more resources to reduce duration is known as activity crashing. Finally, the concept of baseline schedule is discussed - a feasible schedule selected by the stakeholders as the plan for the project execution. The important topics are:

• Types of resources
• Resources and scheduling
• Resource Usage Profile
• Solving resource utilization and resource constraints problems
• Activity mode and activity duration - activity crashing
• The baseline schedule

This walkthrough demonstrates resource management in practice with the PTB simulator. It goes over the different aspects previously discussed and demonstrate them.

This Unit focuses on project cost management. We will discuss project costs and income. We will classify the types of costs that are typical in a project environment. We will focus on cash flow management and cash flow considerations in project planning monitoring and control and their impact on scheduling and mode selection. We will see how the information in the detailed project budget should be used to support better project planning and trade off analysis. Finally we will discuss the integration of different cost components in an effort to minimize the total project cost and to maximize its profit. The main topics covered are:

• Types of costs
• Expenses and income
• Cash flow
• The detailed budget
• Minimizing total project cost

In this walkthrough we will see cost management in practice with the PTB.
A project that deals with building an electrical transformation plant is used. It focuses on budget and cost.

In this unit we focus on the management of project progress during its execution. We discuss the need to process new information as it becomes available during project execution. Additionally, we see how corrective actions can be taken during project execution based on the information provided by the control system.
The topics covered are:

• The need for project control
• Design of the control system
• The tracking Gantt
• Taking corrective actions

This unit focuses on Project Risk Management. We discuss and define risks in projects, present the tools and techniques commonly used to identify, analyze and manage risk before during and after the project.
It is important to start the risk management process early on as part of project planning and to consider alternative mitigation options including risk acceptance. 

This walkthrough demonstrates the project risk management techniques discussed in the previous lecture.

This unit focuses on Lean Project Management. Lean Project Management focuses on maximizing value to the customer and other stakeholders while minimizing project waste. We explain the concepts of value and waste, and show how to translate the voice of the customer to measurable benefits, or value, as well as how to analyze the value of alternative project plans to find the efficient frontier of project solutions. The Lean Indicators screen in PTB is used to minimize waste and to find the efficient frontier of project plans and thus to achieve the goals of Lean Project Management. The main areas covered are:

• Introduction to Lean Project Management
• Benefit, value and waste
• Voice of the customer (VOC)
• Value analysis in PTB
• The Efficient Frontier
• Using the Lean Indicators to find the Efficient Frontier

This walkthrough shows the Lean project management aspects in practice with the PTB. It shows how to view the lean report where you can see the project waste and value and how to find the efficient project plans.