Advanced Techniques in Stakeholder Management

Please contact us if you would like to set up a customized training course in your city or at your corporate site.

Duration: 1/2 to 1 day

Description: Are you looking for ways to improve your stakeholder engagement to build positive relationships and get more out of your projects? Stakeholder management is the key to delivering successful projects consistently. Many project teams either don't pay much attention to stakeholders or don't know how to keep the stakeholders engaged throughout the project, resulting in delays, cost overruns and unsatisfied stakeholders and customers.

Metrics for Improving Project, Program, and Portfolio Performance

Duration: 1 day in person or two half-days online

Description: One of the keys to successful project, program, and portfolio management is measuring that success in ways that support critical decisions. Planned vs. actual duration and cost, number of defects, and number of change requests are only a few of the powerful metrics that can help drive strategic decision-making. If you want to learn more about metrics that can help you make project decisions, this course is for you.

Cost Management for Projects

Duration: 1 day

Description: Do you struggle to figure out what it will cost to execute a project? Does your organization lack effective techniques for estimating and controlling project costs? If you can answer yes to either of these questions, you should consider attending this course.

RefineM’s Cost Management for Projects course gives you the basics you need to perform effective cost management. You will learn how to put together a cost management plan, utilize proven techniques for estimating cost, assemble a project budget, and implement tight controls to guard against cost overruns. This course will help you understand the difference between management reserve and contingency reserve. You will leave this course able to perform the critical functions of cost management on your projects. This course is aligned with the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) Fifth Edition.

Course Objectives: After completing the course, you will be able to

• Describe the components of a cost management plan.
• Understand and apply techniques for estimating costs and determining budget.
• Apply effective cost control techniques, including Earned Value Management.

Who Should Attend: Any project managers, PMO directors or members, or project team members who are involved with cost management in their organizations.

PDUs: 7 PDUs (Strategic: 0, Leadership: 0, Technical: 7)

Course Delivery: Variable

Course Material: RefineM will prepare and provide the necessary training course material for all attendees.

About RefineM's Instructors: RefineM's instructors are experienced and certified in project management and Agile and bring real-world experience to their instruction. Our instructors not only teach concepts, we also provide insights and hands-on experience. And we don’t waste time. Our training is focused and hard-hitting. We offer practical targeted training in just the key topics that will make the most impact.

Contact us about future dates or to arrange for this training to be delivered in your organization or city.

The Science of Project Management

Duration: 1 day

Description: Are you a project manager or project team member looking for a course to help you understand the technical aspects of project management? If so, you will likely benefit from RefineM’s The Science of Project Management course.

The Science of Project Management covers basic technical topics in Project Management. This course is aligned to the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide) Fifth Edition to help attendees become familiar with the framework and terminology. You will have the opportunity to work on project examples and/or case studies and gain valuable hands-on experience to apply to your real projects. Topics covered include project charters, WBS, stakeholder management, risk management, project schedules, and performance reports.

Course Objectives: After completing the course, you will be able to

• Understand and describe the benefits of project management.
• Perform key technical project management processes.
• Differentiate among processes in the five project management process groups.

Who Should Attend: This course is ideal for anyone who is responsible for project delivery but never went through formal training on project management. Anyone working on a project, such as a project manager, project coordinator, project lead, team lead, senior project manager, or PMO director, will also benefit from this course.

In addition, organizations that want to adopt consistent project management practices should also benefit from sending their project managers to this formal training.

PDUs: 7 PDUs (Strategic: 0, Leadership: 0, Technical: 7)

Course Delivery: Variable

Course Material: RefineM will prepare and provide the necessary training course material for all attendees.

About RefineM's Instructors: RefineM's instructors are experienced and certified in project management and Agile and bring real-world experience to their instruction. Our instructors not only teach concepts, we also provide insights and hands-on experience. And we don’t waste time. Our training is focused and hard-hitting. We offer practical targeted training in just the key topics that will make the most impact.

Contact us about future dates or to arrange for this training to be delivered in your organization or city.

Earned Value Management

Duration: 1 day

Description: Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known project management technique that can be used to track project progress. It is probably one of the most mature project management techniques that measures project performance in an objective manner. Early EVM research showed that the areas of planning and control are significantly impacted by its use. More recent research studies have shown that the principles of EVM are positive predictors of project success.

EVM is not new. The genesis of EVM occurred in industrial manufacturing in early 1900s. The concept took root in US Dept. of Defense in 1960. Its overview was included in PMI’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) in 1987. EVM received greater attention by publicly traded companies in response to the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002. Now, it is a very well recognized project management tool to measure project performance.

Even though EVM is not a new project management technique, many project managers struggle to implement it successfully in their projects. The most significant challenges to implement EVM are:

1. Gaining support from sponsors and stakeholders to implement EVM,
2. Accurately gathering data for actual cost, and
3. Determining earning rules to calculate Earned Value.

During this presentation, the instructor will share some of the simple but effective methods used to successfully implement EVM. This course also provides opportunity to learn several EVM metrics such as Schedule Variance, Cost Variance, Schedule Performance Index, Cost Performance Index, Estimate to Complete, Estimate at Completion etc., in an easy and fun manner. This presentation also offers tips for using EVM to communicate project status and key issues to stakeholders, thereby gaining their support rather than a barrage of questions.

In this dynamic course, experienced project managers will have an opportunity to share their personal experiences (both challenges and rewards) to implement EVM in their projects and analyze what worked and what didn’t. At the same time, this course would be a great learning experience for less experienced project managers who are looking for tips and tricks to implement EVM in their projects. The course will also provide several opportunities for attendees to participate in exercises and discussions.

Effective EVM is one of the most important project management tools a project manager can employ to increase the likelihood of project success. Since EVM is still not widely used, this could be a significant competitive advantage to those who implement it in their projects.

Course Objectives: After completing the course, attendees will be able to

• Explain the benefits and basic concepts of Earned Value Management (EVM).
• Gather data and apply earning rules for EVM.
• Learn how to gain support from sponsors and stakeholders to invest in EVM.

Who Should Attend: This course is ideal for a project manager or anyone on a project team. This may include project/program managers, portfolio managers, PMO leaders, executives, project sponsors, change agents, project team members, business/systems analysts and other project stakeholders.

PDUs: 7 PDUs (Strategic: 0, Leadership: 0, Technical: 7)

Course Delivery: Variable

Course Material: RefineM will prepare and provide the necessary training course material for all attendees.

About RefineM's Instructors: RefineM's instructors are experienced and certified in project management and Agile and bring real-world experience to their instruction. Our instructors not only teach concepts, we also provide insights and hands-on experience. And we don’t waste time. Our training is focused and hard-hitting. We offer practical targeted training in just the key topics that will make the most impact.

Contact us about future dates or to arrange for this training to be delivered in your organization or city.

Develop Project Schedule Using WBS

Duration: 1 day

Description: Schedule management is one of the most critical parts of project management. Stakeholders expect to see a project schedule and receive updates on a regular basis. To effectively create and maintain a schedule requires a strong work breakdown structure (WBS). How do you create an effective WBS, and how do you use the WBS to create the project schedule?

In RefineM’s Develop Project Schedule Using WBS course, you will learn more about the key processes in scope and schedule management used to create an effective WBS and corresponding project schedule. You will learn how to create the WBS and validate it with stakeholders. You will learn how to use the WBS to define and sequence activities in order to build a network diagram and project schedule. Through individual and group exercises and hands-on instruction from a PMP-certified instructor, you will learn and reinforce the concepts of the course. You will leave this course with the knowledge and skills to build effective project schedules using the WBS.

Course Objectives: After completing the course, you will be able to

• Understand how the WBS contributes to the project schedule.
• Define and sequence activities from the WBS.
• Build effective WBS and schedule on your real projects.

Who Should Attend: This course is ideal for project managers, project team members, PMO leads/directors, and stakeholders.

PDUs: 7 PDUs (Strategic: 0, Leadership: 0, Technical: 7)

Course Delivery: Variable

Course Material: RefineM will prepare and provide the necessary training course material for all attendees.

About RefineM's Instructors: RefineM's instructors are experienced and certified in project management and Agile and bring real-world experience to their instruction. Our instructors not only teach concepts, we also provide insights and hands-on experience. And we don’t waste time. Our training is focused and hard-hitting. We offer practical targeted training in just the key topics that will make the most impact.

Contact us about future dates or to arrange for this training to be delivered in your organization or city.