Course Overview

Projects can have a muti-dimensional effect on the overall performance of a business. They typically have multiple moving parts that need to work together ‘seamlessly. Therefore, project planning is a critical competency skill in project management.

Today’s Project management demands change in businesses and organisations, by carefully defining stakeholder needs, scoping projects, communicating with various stakeholders, utilizing resources, minimizing risks and recommending projects that deliver value to stakeholders.

What is a project scope?

Once the project has been scoped and defined, and the project team selected, the next critical phase is detailed project planning. Project planning is core to a project life cycle, it identifies what you’re going to achieve and how you will achieve it. The project requirements are captured in detail, the project plans documented, the project deliverables defined, and the project schedule is developed.

This involves creating a set of plans to help guide your team through the start-up phase, implementation phase, and conclusion phases of the project. The plans created during this phase are very critical to help Project Managers, and all team members appropriately manage time, cost, quality, changes, risk, and any other related issues. These plans will also help Project Managers to appropriately resource staff, as well as, manage external suppliers and vendors. This ensures that the Project Manager delivers the project on time, within budget, and on schedule.

The project planning phase is typically the most exciting, yet the most challenging phase of a project, as you need to make guestimates about resourcing, budgets, timelines, and equipment needed to complete the project. The Project manager will also need to establish the stakeholder communication plans, as well as, establish the procurement activities needed, and the contracts with any third-party suppliers, if required.

What qualifications do I need to be a project planner?

This Zoe course, will highlight and detail the critical concepts of planning and executing projects, identifying factors that favour project success, and teaching how to plan, analyse, and manage projects. Learners will be exposed to modern methodologies, and how to mitigate the challenges of various types of projects. This course will qualify you with expertise in project planning techniques, principles and execution methods to create project plans that will ensure projects run effectively and efficiently. Becoming certified as a Project Planner, can make a difference in the business world and transform your career in a fresh direction.

Course Objectives

• Demonstrate an advanced understanding of key concepts, principles and practice of project planning and design in a project development context
• Describe how to define a project by understanding the project goal, identifying the priorities, and adequately planning the time, cost and resources needed for the project
• Development of project management plans, which includes the project schedule, amongst, various other plans.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the project design and planning skills and engagement with project stakeholders
• Detail a project plan by identifying the scope, task dependencies, schedule, critical path, and risks
• Identify the critical factors and stakeholders to project success
• Understand the various stages of a project life-cycle and the related activities in each stage
• Understand the roles and responsibilities within a project and the different levels of empowerment concerning requirements and the business case
• Development of communication and change plans through active stakeholder management principles
• Develop the required skillset and capabilities to support successful business change programmes within your organisation
• Understand the framework and mindset for planning and managing projects by properly setting and prioritizing project goals and objectives
• Develop the skills to identify the most relevant project management methodology to use, given the project objectives, the degrees of uncertainty, and the constraints

Training Methodology

This collaborative Project Planner Course will comprise the following training methods:

• Lectures
• Seminars & Presentations
• Group Discussions
• Assignments
• Case Studies & Functional Exercises

Like all our acclaimed courses, this certification program also follows the ‘Do-Review-Learn-Apply’ model.

Organisational Benefits

The organisation will benefit from Certified Project Planning professionals as follows:

• The ability to plan and specify the scope requirements for projects to facilitate creation of the work breakdown structure
• The development of project schedules, listing the detailed schedule of the activities and respective sequencing of implementation
• Identification of resource planning, with a breakdown of tasks and activities by role and timelines, as well as, identification of any special skills that are needed to accomplish the project tasks
• Development of budgets, specifying the costs to be incurred
• Adequate and timely planning of procurement activities, managing suppliers and vendors
• Planning for risk management, and considering optional contingency plans and mitigation strategies
• Quality planning. Development of quality criteria to be used to assess the project quality
• Communication planning, design of the communication strategy to all project stakeholders

Personal Benefits

Professionals attending this course will benefit in the following ways:

• Development of competencies required of an effective project planner and designer
• Trained and experienced professionals can successfully manage the project planning function of the organisation
• Project Planners who bring a fresh perspective on projects, and how the goals and objectives fit in with the Business strategy
• Project resources are prioritized and used efficiently
• Professionals who can plan projects effectively, enabling the organisation to implement projects promptly
• Trained professionals who can identify risks, make sure projects stay on schedule, and keep costs and resources within budget
• Ensures effective Stakeholder management via communication strategy and plan
• Better decision-making for the organisation based on key insights on data, information & analytics
• Better risk assessment and management, and timely mitigation of risks to avoid Projects from failing
• Stay up-to-date on best practices and industry trends, and upcoming changes in the new-age
• A sense of pride in contributing to the overall success of the projects through effective planning

Who Should Attend?

• Business Leaders, and Managers who wish to understand the fundamentals of Project Management, and Project Planning Principles
• Practising Project Planners, who wish to enhance their knowledge, and skills
• Project Managers, team leaders, product owners, and PMO (project management office) professionals
• Scrum Masters, Kanban Leads,
• Any other professional members, or team members, who are involved in project management or PMO (project management office)
• Any Individuals/professionals wishing to pursue a career with the Project Planning certificate

Course Outline

Module 1: Introduction to Project Management

• Fundamentals Of Project Management
• Introduction to project management concepts, methodologies
• Key project management tools
• Stages of Project Life-cycle
• Project vs Program vs Portfolio Management

Module 2: Defining the Project Charter

• Defining a project
• Project Objectives / Goals
• Project Scoping
• Team Selection
• Team Roles and Responsibilities
• Project Monitoring & Evaluation
• Develop Project Charter

Module 3: Project Design Tools and Techniques

• Work-breakdown Structure
• RACI
• Methods to be used in situations with a high degree of ambiguity
• Decision Tree
• An earned value approach for monitoring progress

Module 4: Project Stakeholder Management

• Identification of Project Stakeholders
• Stakeholder matrix
• Communication Plan
• Key Project Communication Skills

Module 5: Project Scheduling, Gantt Charts and Critical Path Analysis

• Define Activities
• Sequence Activities
• Project Scheduling
• MS Project vs Excel Gantt Chart
• Sequencing project tasks
• Dependencies among project activities
• Project duration and evaluation of critical path
• Perform Integrated Change Control

Module 6: Estimating Project Costs

• Plan Cost Management
• Estimate Costs
• Preparing Project Budgets
• Control Costs

 Module 7: Resource Allocation and Resource Smoothing

• Plan Human Resource Management
• Acquire Project Team
• Develop Project Team
• Resource Mobilization
• Project Procurement and Management

 Module 8: Risk Management

• Determining the project environment
• FMEA
• Identify and assess project risks
• Prioritize and schedule project risks
• Risk Mitigation – Plan Risk Responses
• Issue Management

 Module 9: Project Quality Management

• Plan Quality
• Perform Quality Assurance
• Quality Control

 Module 10: Project Failure and Critical Success Factors

• Reasons for Project Failure
• Measuring Project Success
• Benefits Realization
• Industry Trends