Introduction to project management

• Defining what a project is and what project management is
• Understanding the issues in project management
• Grasping basic concepts: Components, types, project stakeholders.
• Life cycle, project and product of the project.
• Awareness of legal restrictions and standards.

Defining a project's content

• Preparing demand management: Feasibility, project framework, specifications.
• Defining deliverables: Final product or service, transitional result.
• Determining the project's scope. Organizing the hierarchical breakdown.
• Creating the project management plan. Considering possible alternatives.
• Establishing project documentation management rules.

Time, cost, and profitability management

• Estimating durations and workloads to assess human challenges: Analytical method, expert judgment.
• Sequencing activities using a PERT network or Gantt chart: Free margin, total margin, critical path.
• Using compression techniques for resource leveling and planning.
• Estimating project costs: Analogous estimation, parametric estimation, bottom-up estimation, three-point estimation, reserve analysis.
• Creating the budget: Aggregating costs, expert judgment, integrating historical data and budget constraints.
• Evaluating return on investment and managing costs: Profitability threshold, break-even point, budget monitoring.

Risk management

• Risk management planning: FMECA methodology.
• Identifying risks: Information-collecting technique, checklist analysis, assumptions, SWOT.
• Qualitative analysis: Description and categorization of risks, probability assessment and risk impact.
• Quantitative analysis: Evaluation and matrix of a risk's probability and impact, criticality, risk modeling.
• Risk response planning: Strategies for negative risks, positive risks, conditional response.
• Searching for the causes of risks: Ishikawa diagram (5M), Five Whys method.
• Monitoring and reducing risks: Risk auditing, gap and trend analysis, performance measurement.

Entering into a contract

• Planning contracts: Decision tree to choose between production and purchasing.
• Launching a request for proposals: Functional or non-functional specifications, requirements, response framework.
• Selecting subcontractors: Assessment criteria and grading proposals.
• Administering and executing the contract: Negotiating the specifications and proposal, approving the contract.
• Managing the integration of a service provider into the management plan and project monitoring.

Oversight and communication

• Planning human resources: Analysis of environmental factors and organizational assets.
• Training, developing, leading the project team: The five steps of creating a team, recognition, rewards.
• Tracking the team's activity and assessing it. Evaluating performance.
• Individual monitoring and project monitoring: Progress report, dashboards, evaluation meetings.
• Planning communication: Analysis of needs, using technology, communication methods and models.
• Distributing information and reporting: Required frequency, available technology, project duration, etc.
• Managing, negotiating, and handling conflicts: Disagreements, tensions, obstruction, conflicts whether open or not.

Quality management and knowledge management

• Knowing the definition of quality and the standards. Project acceptability criteria.
• Planning quality: Analyzing the cost-benefit ratio, special quality management methods.
• Implementing quality assurance and control: Quality audits and analyzing the process.
• Project report, successes and failures, institutional and project memory.