Chapter 3

Half-Day Project Management Workshop

What’s in This Chapter

•  Project management fundamentals and introduction

•  Objectives of the half-day Project Management Workshop

•  Half-day workshop agenda in detail

As the other workshop agendas in this book have shown, project management is a process-intensive practice that requires significant time and expertise to do well. Clearly, a half-day workshop cannot cover all the concepts required to learn project management. The question, then, is how to design a half-day workshop on the topic. The approach that this half-day workshop takes is to provide a broad framework of what project management is and an overview of the cycle of processes involved, with some tools and practice included for usefulness and variety. This half-day workshop can serve as a nice introduction to the two-day and one-day workshops as well. It will benefit anyone who must manage projects or who works on project teams.

Project Management: From the Beginning

Because formal project management theory, methods, and best practice standards have been employed in every conceivable governmental, military, and commercial organization and industry, the field of project management has evolved over time. This evolution (revolution even) continues as the profession is continually refined and gains more traction globally. Project management is a methodical approach and discipline that everyone knows about but may not realize they use.

Consider the case of doctors—they see patients, they diagnose their problems, they prescribe solutions, and then they discharge the patients with possible follow-up visits. Compare that to the definition of a project: distinctive, transitory, defined start and finish, and continuously advanced. Doctors see a unique problem (patient), for a temporary time with a start and finish, and throughout the process determine the problem through diagnoses. They complete projects: They are project managers!

Project management is in the business of delivering results. Its strategies and methodologies work as well for disaster relief, fighting fires, and emergency response as they do for business goals in for-profit and nonprofit organizations. It is a proven method that will consistently deliver the results the project defines.

The workshops in this book have been designed from the perspective of healthy project management, which simply means that you do not have to use every process, procedure, template, trick, tip, and technique on every project to achieve your desired results. But you should know what tools are available before you can decide which tools you don’t need. Using just the right amount of project management is one of the keys to success.

The half-day workshop will introduce the topic of project management and give participants a good start toward building a solid foundation of project management processes and practices. The workshop materials provide templates for the participants to use during the workshop activities and as tools back on the job. You are welcome to use these templates or create your own that are more specific to the needs of your organization and participants. Keep in mind, however, that project management is not about filling in templates or using a particular project software. Such tools can help save time and make project management easier, but there is only one element that can deliver a project on time, within scope, and within budget—the project manager. You will want to stress this point with your participants to empower their project management success.

As you prepare to deliver the workshop, think about times you have used project management to facilitate a training session, create a product, deliver a service, convene a meeting, or even plan a vacation. That’s right—you, too, are a project manager. Add your personal experiences and successes to this workshop to make it your own. (And don’t forget that people learn as much from your failures as they do from your successes.) Be willing to share whatever will make the concepts real and doable. Just like we tell the project manager to own the project, as the facilitator you should own your role in this workshop. The more of “you” you put into the sessions, the more your participants will get out of them.

Managing projects requires the ability to set clear objectives, report, project plan, work collaboratively, navigate uncertainty, and monitor and control project outcomes. Everything you do to prepare for and deliver this workshop needs to model these skills. Spend time building your understanding of project management methods and practice them in your preparation, design, delivery, and follow-up of this workshop.

A Word About Pre-Work

The half-day workshop includes a pre-work assignment to help your participants think about project management in their own specific context. When you send a welcome or confirmation message to participants, ask them to think about a project they were involved in this past year. Ask your participants to answer these questions about the project:

•  What role did you play?

•  What was unique about the project?

•  Did it come in on time, within budget, and within scope?

•  Did your project follow any specific process?

This is a great way to begin the relationship with your participants. At the start of the workshop you will debrief their pre-work by encouraging them to share one or two of their answers to the questions with group. Not everyone has to share; you can ask everyone to keep the questions in mind as they experience the workshop.

A Word About the Slides, Notes, and Handouts

The slides for this workshop contain key learning concepts about project management. Additional and supporting information will be found in the notes column of the agenda. Because it is impossible to include every piece of information in the slide, you will need to be prepared to discuss points from your own experience to help answer participants’ questions. Project management is a complex topic, so I encourage you to research and learn more about the concepts covered in the workshop. See Figure 1-1 in chapter 1 for resources that will help you sharpen your project management skills and build your project management acumen. The blogs and online resources noted in the figure will bolster the information presented in the workshop with cutting-edge expertise in project management topics. Also, if you are unsure about any topic in the agenda, send me an email with your questions at [email protected] and I will be glad to help you.

The handouts provided in this volume are another source of information for you as the facilitator and for your participants. In some cases, the handouts provide templates to be used in the learning activities. In other cases, they include “must-know” concepts that summarize the key learning in the modules or they provide tips, examples, flowcharts, and so on. And still other handouts provide useful information you won’t have time to present within the scope of this workshop but that will help participants once they are back in their workplaces. Encourage participants to review these valuable resources to increase their project management knowledge and skills.

Also included in this volume is a Project Manager Toolkit (Chapter 14) that includes all the templates from the two-day agenda plus additional templates, all created by True Solutions Inc. (TSI). You can distribute a print copy of the Project Manager Toolkit to your participants at the close of the workshop or send it to them digitally a week or two after the workshop is completed as follow-up support for their learning. (In addition, TSI publishes a set of more than 100 templates on a wide range of project management processes and tasks to help project managers.)

The agenda notes are not highly scripted. They are addressed to you, the facilitator, and crafted in a natural voice that you can make your own when you deliver the content. Avoid just reading the slides—or your participants will immediately see that you are not comfortable with the subject and begin a contest to uncover what you don’t know.

As an instructor, author, consultant, and experienced corporate executive, I can talk for days about project management, but when I get in front of people they see my passion. Show them yours. If you are confident with project management principles and content, you will find navigating the agenda very easy. If you are more of a novice to the field, rely on the agendas to help guide you through the material but plan to spend some time broadening your knowledge base with the resources noted in Figure 1-1.

Half-Day Workshop Objectives

In the half-day workshop, participants will

•  Define what a project is

•  Develop a working definition of project management

•  Learn the project process groups—initiate, plan, execute, control, and close

•  Gain confidence to apply project management processes to a project as a project manager or project team member.

Half-Day Workshop Overview

Half-Day Workshop Agenda

What to Do Next

If you have decided that the half-day workshop is the best choice for your participants, consider these next steps as you prepare for your workshop:

•  Determine the schedule for workshops, reserve location, and order any catering you may wish to provide.

•  Identify and invite participants.

•  Review the workshop objectives, activities, and handouts to plan the content you will use.

•  Prepare copies of the participant materials and any activity-related materials you may need. Refer to Chapter 15 for information about how to access and use the supplemental materials provided for this workshop.

•  Gather tactile items, such as Koosh balls, crayons, magnets, or Play-Doh, to place on the tables for tactile learners. See Chapter 8 for other ideas to enhance the learning environment of your workshop.

•  Confirm that you have addressed scheduling and personal concerns so that you can be fully present to facilitate the class.

Reference

PMI. (2013). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK™ Guide, fifth ed. Newtown Square, PA: PMI.