Evolving Technologies

• Construct realistic schedules and budgets to achieve cost-effective and timely project delivery
• Facilitate strong team estimates which factor in uncertainty
• Calculate Critical Path from well-defined network diagrams
• Allocate accurate and realistic costs and chart expected cash flow
• Assign resources effectively and respond to end-date changes
• Perform Earned Value Analysis (EVA) to keep the project on track

Project managers must balance scant resources, tight budgets and strict deadlines all in the face of ever-increasing customer expectations. This course provides the core scheduling and budgeting skills required to deliver critical projects on time and within budget. By performing tasks manually and with spreadsheets, rather than relying on project management software, you learn vital techniques for future project success.

• Estimating and completing a project
• Comparing estimates to actuals
• Defining project success criteria

• Developing a WBS
• Adopting a product-oriented focus
• Identifying the appropriate level of detail

• Applying network diagrams: AOA, AON
• Reviewing CPM and PERT
• Defining precedence relationships
• Establishing dependencies
• Determining lead and lag times
• Constructing PDM diagrams

• Engaging subject-matter experts: the Delphi Technique
• Preparing analogous estimates
• Applying parametric techniques to estimates
• Contrasting bottom-up and top-down methods
• Determining a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimate

• Formulating three-point estimates
• Factoring in contingency

• Adding task durations to determine path lengths
• Calculating activity Start and End dates
• Determining the critical path
• Identifying near-critical paths

• Building Gantt charts following industry standards
• Representing the relative durations of activities graphically

• Calculating and using float
• Planning delivery by applying earliest start times

• Identifying direct and indirect cost elements
• Itemizing capital expenses
• Costing based on WBS tasks
• Aggregating project costs

• Calculating total project costs
• Adding costs to the schedule
• Scheduling cash accruals
• Building the project cash flow
• Analyzing contingency reserves

• Factoring in productivity
• Allocating resources effectively: resource aggregation, leveling and smoothing
• Addressing resource constraints: rescheduling and resourcing strategies

• Fast-tracking the project plan
• Crashing the Critical Path

• Recording actual durations and costs
• Summarizing project status
• Determining project progress

• Calculating schedule and budget efficiency
• Quantifying cost and schedule variance
• Projecting impact on project outcomes
• Mapping EVA to cost accounting
• Reconciling project issues

• Working with inbound information
• Building outbound reports
• Identifying the right level of detail
• Interfacing project information with organizational reporting needs
• Aligning project monitoring to project planning