Project Work Plans and Scheduling
Instructor: Lynda Carter
May 1, 2008; ; 9 am - 4 pm; 6 PDU; $349; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
Creating a realistic project completion date requires the project manager to juggle many factors. This session focuses on the techniques used to improve and refine your skills. We will focus on using milestone charts, network diagrams, progressive elaboration, resource leveling and work breakdown structures.
You’ll learn how to:
- Develop a deliverable Work Breakdown Structure
- Improve project estimates using the 3-point technique
- Develop network diagram, determine critical path, and identify slack and float time
- Create a project milestone chart and refine milestones taking into consideration resource allocation and productivity levels
Who should attend: Project Managers that would like to refine their work plan and scheduling techniques; project managers working in any industry, or to meet education requirements to sit for CAPM exam.
Course Outline:
Project Management Foundation
Work Breakdown Structure
- Work Plan
- Definitions
- Types of WBS
- Level of Detail
- Progressive Elaboration
- PMBOK & PM Life Cycle
Estimating
- Estimating Approaches
- Characteristics of a Good Estimate
- Estimating Technique
- Estimating Inaccuracy
- Contingency and Safety
- Risk Contingency
Milestones
- Deliverable Based Milestones
- Iterative Approach Milestones
- Dependencies
- Terminology
Network Diagrams & Critical Path
- Determining Slack / Float
- Critical Chain
- Buffers
Gantt & Short Interval Scheduling
- Preliminary Resource Leveling
- Scheduling Tips
- Short-Interval Scheduling
Resource Leveling
Registration
Leading and Implementing Business Change
Instructor: Jeff Darner
May 8, 2008; 9 am - 4 pm; 6 PDU; $349; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
HRCI 6 Strategic
The speed of change increases daily. It’s unavoidable. You need improved performance from everyone everyday. In order to consistently drive these improvements, supervisors and managers must take a positive approach to change management.
The Baldwin-Wallace College Managing and Implementing Business Change Workshop, is a hands-on program that offers the best insights from research and practice focused on addressing your specific change management needs. The program offers practical models, templates, and tools that participants can immediately apply to their own change efforts.
This workshop is focused on application of tools and tactics to effectively implement change. You'll be asked to come to class with at least one current or upcoming change in mind. You'll work that situation throughout the day and apply it to the change implementation framework.
You will spend a brief time learning about how organizations can best create a change strategy, the primary focus of this day will be about how managers and team leaders implement change that has been directed by the top leaders.
For example, you will spend time looking at why people react differently to change and what is behind resistance. Then you'll take time evaluating your team members to uncover what you can do to move them to acceptance for the change you're implementing. You will have a chance to practice coaching through resistance. We'll also look at the different vehicles available to effectively communicate change. You'll be asked to create some written (or electronic) communication to try out on the rest of class to see if it gets the message across. I'll provide you with a change communication template also.
You will receive your own copy of Change Management: The People Side of Change.
You will learn:
- Apply a proven change management process built to insure success
- Recognize and respond to common reactions to change in the workplace
- Coach and train your employees to embrace change and focus on performance
- Describe critical activities required for effective change communication
- Create a comprehensive change management action plan for successful change implementation
Who Should Attend:
Managers, supervisors, and team leaders who are responsible for communicating and implementing change into a department, function, group, or organization; for those who need to motivate and lead their teams to embrace business change while achieving improved performance and better results.
Course outline:
I. How to Effectively Initiate Change – learn to follow a proven 5-step process applied by successful leaders and organizations
- Create a shared need
- Shape a vision
- Mobilize commitment
- Make things happen
- Measure and sustain success
II. How to Successfully Implement Change as a Manager – practice the high-impact change management techniques presented in the top-selling book Change Management: the people side of change from leading change management researcher Jeffrey M. Hiatt, Ph.D., of Prosci. You’ll also receive a complementary copy of the book with your enrollment.
- Explore four critical roles required for implementing change: Sponsors, Agents, Targets, and Advocates
- Apply the Prosci ADKAR Model (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) to insure your employees successfully move from current to future state
III. How to be a High-Impact Change Communicator – learn to create clear concise messages that address the issues that, according to prominent change management research, all employees want to know about any change
- Learn how to build an effective change communication plan
- Apply proven tactics for communicating about change in a variety of mediums including group meetings, individual discussions, e-mail and written memorandums
- Practice writing communication messages for changes that you are implementing with your work group
IV. How to Effectively Coach Change-resistant Employees – discover a 3-step model for coaching individuals and teams through turbulent times of transition
- Explore why different people react and respond differently to change
- Learn how to anticipate and spot signs of change resistance
- Consider targeted tactics for overcoming resistance including active listening, removing barriers, and explaining choices and consequences for not changing
V. How to Build a Comprehensive Change Management Plan – bring all your new knowledge together in one change management action plan that you can implement tomorrow!
Registration
What the Reader Expects: Practical Guidelines for Professional Correspondence and Documents
Instructor: Judi Lakner
May 12, 2008; 9 am - 4 pm; 6 PDU; $349; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
Course Description:
Knowing your readers’ expectations is the first step to communicating with them effectively. Today, most readers of e-mails, memos, reports, and other professional documents have come to rely on format to interpret content. McLuhan and Fiore (1967) were among the first to study this phenomenon, coining the phrase the medium is the message. For example, television viewers have come to expect a standard reporting sequence for each nightly news broadcast, and internet users have come to expect a fairly standard format for commercial websites. Knowing the media logic of ordinary business correspondence, then, can increase your communication power.
The purpose of this course is to increase participants’ writing efficacy by examining practical content and format guidelines for faxes, e-mails, memos, business letters, instructional and policy manuals, websites, reports, and proposals. Through discussion, writing sample analysis, and group exercises, participants will learn ways to better serve their readers while preserving their organization’s existing image or communication style. Participants should bring written samples of these different types of documents and correspondence for self and peer critique exercises.
You will:
- Be able to apply the concept of media logic to communicate more effectively through routine business correspondence such as faxes, emails, memos, and business letters
- Be able to apply the concept of media logic to produce more effectively written professional documents such as reports, proposals, instructional manuals, policy manuals, and websites
- Be able to constructively critique your own writing and that of your peers to enhance its communication power
- Know when and how to cite outside sources in technical documents
- Conduct a communication audit of internal and external written communication pieces and recommend suggestions for improvement.
Who should attend:
This course is appropriate for those who find themselves in new positions that require much writing, for those seeking to improve the quality of their organization’s internal and external written communication, or for those who simply feel they could use a refresher course.
Course Outline:
I. Importance of quality written communication
- Information age
- Proliferation of e-mail
- Proliferation of e-documents; websites, intranets, kiosks
II. Concept of media logic (what the reader expects)
- Concept defined
- Theoretical background
- Exercise to demonstrate concept
- Practical application to meet reader expectations; fax, e-mail, memo, business letters, instruction manual, policy manuals, reports, proposals
III. Citing sources
- When it is necessary
- How to cite
- Field-specific documentation systems; CMS, MLA, APA, CSE, IEEE
IV. Communication audits
- Purposes for
- Methodology
- Hands-on exercise
V. Additional resources
- Technical writing
- General writing
Registration
Coaching for Better Performance
Instructor: Karla Potetz
May 13, 2008; 9 am - 4 pm; 6 PDU; $349; B-W East, Beachwood, OH
Course description:
Are you an effective manager? The successful manager of today is a coach who guides rather than a boss who tells employees what to do. Coaching is a valuable tool which empowers both high and low performers to increase collaboration and achieve business results. Learn strategies and tips for motivating and bringing out the best in others in this interactive workshop, Coaching for Better Performance.
You will learn:
- Boost employee performance
- Revitalize staff’s energy and commitment
- Increase collaboration
- Maximize your coaching time and effort
- Turn around unacceptable performance
- Coach to achieve long and short term business goals
Course outline:
- What is coaching?
- Assess your coaching strengths
- New ways of coaching to achieve improved performance
- Discover what brings out people’s energy and commitment
- Strategies for overcoming barriers to effective coaching
- How to give and receive feedback
- Skill practice using the coaching model
- Fine-tune coaching skills through real-life exercises
Registration
Requirement Gathering
Instructor: Lynda Carter
May 20, 2008; 9 am - 4 pm; 6 PDU; $349; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
Course Description:
Requirement gathering is a communication process of identifying and translating requests into actionable project metrics. This course is designed to aid the project manager in identifying alternative approaches to gathering and documenting project requirements.
You will learn:
- Establish project metrics and goals
- Define different types of requirements
- Identify appropriate requirement gathering techniques:
- Interviewing, facilitated session
- Modeling, prototyping
Who should attend:
Project Managers and project participants responsible for gathering and documenting project requirements.
Course outline:
I. Foundational Overview:
- Requirements definition
- Characteristic of excellent requirements
- Tying requirements to the Work Breakdown Structure
- Requirement prioritization
- Types of requirements:
-
- Business
- Functional
- Technical
II. Requirements documentation techniques
- Logical data modeling
- Physical data modeling
- Logical process modeling
- Workflow modeling
- Prototyping
III. Requirements gathering techniques
- Interviewing
- Facilitated session
- Focus groups
- Surveys
Observation
275 Eastland Rd.