Foundations of Project Management
September 8, 2008; 9 am - 4 pm; $349; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
6 PDU; HRCI 6 Strategic
Instructor: Lynda Carter
Course Description: Project Management is a proven strategy for success, no matter the industry. Project management methodology breaks down complex projects into manageable pieces of work, allowing for efficient and effective management of small and large-scale projects, conserving time, money and resources. This dynamic session takes you through project scheduling and reporting, communication planning, selecting and managing resources, and managing changes in project scope. Build an awareness and understanding of the principal components of project management concepts, processes and best practices. Individuals will receive tips, tools and techniques to implement at the workplace. Learn how to effective plan, start and finish a project on track, on time and within budget.
Target Audience: New project managers working in any industry; individuals interested in project management general knowledge
Learning Objectives:
- Understand project management methodology
- Learn to accurately track and prioritize project components
- Confidently estimate costs and schedules
- Effectively communicate with project team members
Course Outline:
Project Management Overview
The common components of project management
- Success characteristics – challenges to success
- What project management can and cannot do
Standard phase of the project management life cycle
- A high-level overview of each stage
- Project management deliverables for each stage
- The overlapping of each stage
Interdependencies between time, cost, deliverable quality and resources
Project Chartering
- Project Goals – linking project goals with the organizational strategies and developing specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound goals
- Scope – the boundaries of what is included and excluded in a project. Boundaries are established around deliverables, organizational impact and processes impacted
- Acceptance Criteria – the level of quality defined for each deliverable, the role of various project participants in establishing acceptance criteria and steps to build quality and approval throughout the project
- Milestones – determining when the major milestones of the project should occur to keep the project on track including: identifying project dependencies
- Standards & Procedures – (common agreements on how the team will work together)
- Issues Management – definition of issues, criteria for determining what is an issue, roles and responsibilities in issue management, and the use of an issue log
- Change Management – definition of a change (and scope creep), the difference between issues and changes, roles and responsibilities in change management, the use of a change log and the change lifecycle
- Communication Plan - determining who needs project information, why when, and how they need it
- Action Planning – turning training into action, identifying specific key actions that each individual can take to implement the learning (this is done throughout the course and finalized here)
Registration
Managing Customer Relationships in Project Management
September 17 & 18, 2008; 9 am-4pm; $750; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
12 PDU; HRCI 12 Strategic
Instructor: Lynda Carter
Course description: This dynamic two-day course focuses on the customer's perspective. The content is essential for project managers looking to refocus or improve customer relations within a project driven environment. Learn how to define the needs of your customers, how to look at key project deliverables from their perspective, how to organize effective communication, and how to conduct effective customer meetings. The course content is delivered through a variety of teaching methods, which include lecture and demonstrations, small group work, and participant skill practice.
Target Audience: This course is designed for project managers looking to enhance customer relationships within a project driven environment.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe the project life cycle and key project deliverables from a customers perspective
- Define the customer’s personal and practical needs
- Organize effective customer communications
- Identify the requirements necessary to run effective customer meetings
Course outline:
Foundational Project Knowledge:
- Project lifecycle
- Phases: key deliverables, roles and responsibilities, integrating PM with other lifecycles
Establishing a Customer Perspective:
- Clients As Customers
- Cycle of Service
- Moments of Truth
- Focusing on Customer Needs
- Setting Expectations
Organizing Effective Customer Communications:
- The Communication Process
- Communication Planning
- Develop the Communication
- Request Feedback
- Test Your Message
Running Effective Customer Meetings:
- Meeting Checklist
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Plan the Meeting
- Team Dynamics
- Tools and Techniques
Registration
Building Multi-Generational Work Teams
September 25, 2008; 9 am - 4 pm; $349; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
6 PDU
Instructor: Kathleen Razi
Course Description: Today’s work environment is becoming more and more focused on using teams to accomplish more in a shorter time span. Whether these teams are local or virtual the work must get done. What is different about these teams is they are often composed of 4 different generations each generation having its own work styles, expectations, needs, values and beliefs. This program explores the four different generational differences and similarities and how to use this knowledge to create effective teams. This is an interactive program with individual, small and large group activities.
Target Audience: Business professionals at every level and in all functional areas, including project managers and those working in or leading teams.
Learning Objectives:
- Discover how to create an effective multigenerational team.
- Identify techniques to effectively manage, motivate, and address communication issues with members of each generation
- Learn how to leverage generational differences to your advantage
Course Outline: coming soon
What the Reader Expects: Practical Guidelines for Professional Correspondence and Documents
September 30, 2008; 9 am - 4 pm; $349; Baldwin-Wallace, Berea
6 PDU
Instructor: Judi Lakner
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.
Target Audience: 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.
Learning Objectives:
- 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.
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
275 Eastland Rd.