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ETP's workshop, where attendees apply the Ten Steps to
a project of their own, has become the standard by which other project
management training courses are judged. The workshop is less about Gantt
Charts and PERT charts - the tools of project management - and more
about behaviour change i.e. those behaviours necessary to make a success
of projects. ETP's courses have been tailored both for specific companies
(e.g. Goodyear, Elan) and for specific industry sectors (e.g. Software
Localisation, Software Development).
The key differentiator in ETP's project management Workshops
is that attendees use their own projects as case studies. Thus the course
is tailored to each individual attending it. Attendees are not just
'on a course'. They end up:
- Building a real plan for their project
- Having this plan assessed by the rest of
the group
- Solving real life problems that apply to
them today on their projects
- Doing 'real work'.
This kind of training has enormous benefits for both the
individual undertaking the training and for the organisation to which
they belong. In short these benefits are:
Attendees
- Can make commitments on project budgets and
delivery dates with maximum confidence - and deliver on these commitments
- Far less 'fire fighting' and unpleasant surprises
on projects, thereby saving / freeing up much valuable time
- Able to build a track record of consistent
project delivery
Organisation
- Projects done as quickly and as cheaply as
possible
- Visibility by senior management into the
status of projects as they are executed
- Much more predictability in terms of project
delivery dates and budgets
- Significantly less surprises - especially
unpleasant ones.
Skills and behaviours taught
The workshop teaches project managers the following skills
and behaviours:
- How to identify all of a project's stakeholders
- How to establish the goal of the project
- the goal which will satisfy the win conditions of all of the stakeholders
- How to implement effective change control
while still successfully managing the expectations of the stakeholders
- How to accurately estimate projects - even
those phases of the project which lie very far into the future
- What exactly the project manager is required
to do, what s(he) is responsible for i.e. the roles and responsibilities
of the project manager
- How to identify the resources required for
the project
- How to ensure that those resources will be
available and what to do if they are not
- How to play to the strengths of the project
team [The word 'team' is used in the widest sense i.e. it includes
the stakeholders]
- How to put a margin for error into the project
plan through the use of contingency and risk analysis / risk management
- The correct response when the project given
to the project manager is impossible to achieve within the given deadline,
budget or resource constraint
- How to negotiate with the stakeholders, and
resolve conflicts when their win-conditions are impossible to reconcile
- How to lead / work with / influence other
people so as to get the best out of them
- How to use the plan as instrumentation to
drive the project
- How to correctly assess the status of the
project
- How to do truthful, accurate and useful status
reporting
- The project manager's Daily and Weekly routines
- How to do audits / post mortems / reviews
at the conclusion of projects
- How to assess any project using the Probability
of Success Indicator (PSI)
- How to run multiple projects.
One of the key results of rolling out such training is
that all project managers end up with
- A common project management language / vocabulary
- A common approach to projects
- A common way of thinking about projects.
Knowing the Ten Steps enables project managers to do all
of the following:
- Scope projects
- Make project plans
- Run projects - planning and execution
- Assess project plans
- Assess projects in the execution phase
- Rescue projects that have gone off the rails
(i.e. assess, re-scope and re-plan)
- Audit completed projects
- Run multiple projects
- Build a database of completed projects
- Analyse project management processes
- Manage outside resources on projects
Learning approach
The learning approach on the training is:
Tell - the instructor teaches attendees a particular step; explains
why it is important; how the step is carried out and any other issues
they need to be aware of
See - The instructor and the class apply a particular step to an attendee's
project. Attendees see how what they have been taught is applied in
a real life situation
Do - The most important bit. Attendees apply what they have learnt to
their own projects.
Assess - By presenting their project plans to the rest of the class,
attendees can gauge how well they have absorbed what they have been
taught.
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