As organisations mature, they develop a fundamental understanding of the bottom-line value of effective project management in assuring project success, and to achieve this, they also appreciate the value of employing and / or developing competent and effective Project Managers. Yet still we find that Project Managers trained only to the most basic level of competence are a ‘dime-a-dozen’. They can write a simple Scope of Work, build a satisfactory Work Breakdown Structure and even develop a risk management plan…
This is all perfectly adequate given an idyllic project environment/situation in which all stakeholder objectives/expectations are fully aligned, all key players are speaking the same language and the threat of risk or change is absent – from either a project or an organisational perspective. In our experience though – and that of our clients – this situation is extremely rare, if it exists at all.
What distinguishes the truly successful project managers from the mostly average performers (i.e. the ‘run-of-the-mill ‘co-ordinators’), is how Project Managers think and behave in the face of the multitude of ‘less-than-ideal’ situations that they are destined to face almost every day of their project management lives. This is simply the nature of Project Management.
The best of breed Project Manager accepts full responsibility for a project’s outcomes and assumes intrinsically, the requisite authority to match – without external prompting. The mark of this Project Manager is his/her ability to strike a delicate balance of the following: analytical and critical thinking skills, superior communication, leadership, negotiation and facilitation skills, combined with a problem-solving, results-oriented focus.
Our Project Management in Practice Course has been designed with all of the above in mind. With the best practice principles of the PMBOK® Guide Knowledge Areas and Processes as its foundation, it builds upon participants’ existing skills and knowledge by way of a ‘guided tour’ through a series of rigorous and real-life scenarios, problems and issues faced by Project Managers across the board, led by an expert, senior level facilitator possessing a wealth of project management knowledge and long-term hands-on experience at both the project and programme levels.