a Project Management Masterclass
by
Suzanne Robertson - Atlantic
Systems Guild
Susannah Finzi - Antelope
Projects
Background
Managing means making the right things happen. It is about helping people
to do what is needed, using the most effective management tools, and understanding
and keeping the focus on the business needs of the project.
Managing the Deadline is a
master class. It assumes that you already understand what a Gantt chart
tells you, and you are familiar with the nuts and bolts of project management.
Managing the Deadline is unique
in addressing the powerful issues affecting the success of all projects,
including the balance between business needs, people needs and technology.
Have you ever wondered why some managers succeed? Have you ever wondered
why the latest management wonder-tool seems to be making no difference?
The difference lies in becoming a total manager: A manager who
knows the right techniques, and knows when and how to apply them. A manager
who knows how to estimate, and how to allocate. A manager who knows how
to handle the team so that the team members are willing collaborators in
project success. This is what we teach in Managing
the Deadline how to achieve
a balance between the apparently opposing factors in project management.
How to balance risk and deadline, how to estimate size, and then partition
into useful pieces. This course gives you the insider's knowledge on how
to make your projects the ones that succeed.
This unique learning experience combines the vision, skills and experience
of The Atlantic Systems Guild
and Antelope Projects.
It is designed to enable people to:
- experience the important project management issues in a workshop environment
- relate them to current practice in their own workplace
- explore and evaluate techniques, templates and methods
- learn from the experience of master project managers in many fields
Tom DeMarco's book, The Deadline,
is an inspiration in its approach to project management. We use the case
study from The Deadline to illustrate
the workshop sessions. Participants receive their own copy of The
Deadline. and because it provides a case study that we use for
illustration and workshop sessions.
What value does "Managing the Deadline"
give you?
It enables you to:
- understand the underlying issues that determine project success
- assess how these issues are reflected in your own working practice
and your own workplace, and to know where to start improvements
- sample and use some techniques and tools that make a practical contribution
to better project management
- link project management to other useful disciplines and specialisations
- get exposure to some of the best project management ideas and to integrate
them with your own practice
- develop your experience base for management judgement
- build a guidebook that reflects your new insights on best project management
practice
Duration:
Three days. The classes are held in normal working hours.
Who should attend?
Project managers, and people with some experience of project management
who would like to enhance their skills.
There will be many exercises and workshops throughout the course. Participants
should come prepared to participate actively in exercises that produce deliverables
rather than to listen to lecture-style sessions. There will be plenty of
opportunity for discussion with the presenters.
Course materials:
Each participant will receive:
- Copies of all presentation material
- Summary reference text
- Templates, checklists and tools references
- A copy of "The Deadline"
by Tom DeMarco
- An annotated listing of source material for project managers including
books, articles, web sites, user-groups and associations.
- Materials for building participants own individual "Best Practice
Guidebook"
Structure of Course:
The course is composed of 9 units of equal length.
Each unit focuses on a common project management issue, a connected
set of project management insights and their applicability to your
environment and applicable project management techniques.
A unit is made up of:
- Exploration of a central project management issue
- raising awareness of the real questions
- what would you do in this situation, what are your "hunches"?
- Application within your organisation
- do you recognise this issue, or one like it, on your project ?
- how is it handled?
- how can the approach be improved?
- Formal technique tutorial
- A modelling technique, a template, a procedure which provides a practical
way to manage this project issue.
- Your guidebook
- Individual participants gather their insights and ideas
- You create your own best practice guidebook as part of the output of
the course
Content
1. Balancing the Management Ingredients
To be able to see your project management ingredients and the need
for balance between them.
- The elements that enable a project to be managed
- The balance between the business elements, people elements and technical
elements
- Different deliverables need different project management strategies
- Techniques for quantifying business goals (Purpose Advantage Measure)
- The requirements template
2. How big is this?
To be able to ask the right questions to assess the scope of the
project
- The work we need to study versus the product we are building
- The questions that enable us to scope the project
- Assessing the size of projects in your environment
- Techniques for making work context, product context, stakeholders and
constraints visible
3. The Deadline versus The Estimate
To be able to distinguish between, and to manage deadlines and estimates
- Juggling the knowables in pursuit of the possible
- The characteristics of deadlines and estimates
- Making and adjusting plans
- Negotiating around deadlines
- Measurement techniques: function points, bang, event counts, data weight
- The process of estimating the work to be done
4. Managing the risks
To understand why managing the risks is an investment in project
success
- Making your project visible
- Identifying risks to the project's success
- The Risk Management task force
- Building a capability for collaborative action
- Risk clinic, how well are risks managed in your environment?
- Templates for recording, monitoring and managing risks
5. Partitioning the work
To be able to partition the project into relevant and manageable
chunks
- Identifying useful chunks (business events, product use cases, subject
matter, stakeholder, domain)
- The questions that help the partitioning process
- Identifying and allocating project tasks
- Templates and checklists to improve partitioning
6. Project Dynamics
To be able to understand and manage the dynamic factors in your project
- Identifying the ripple effect of changes
- Predicting the way a single dynamic will work in your project
- Recognition Primed Decisions
- Improving your hunchbase
- How well do you handle dynamics in your environment?
- Techniques for modelling and simulating the project dynamics
7. Are we on track?
To be able to identify what needs attention
- Evaluating metrics for usefulness
- Measurement clinic: how well do you use metrics in your environment?
- Useful measurables: cost, duration, resource, functionality, properties
- Project management charting techniques
- The Critical Chain for realistic planning
- Comparing estimates and actuals
8. Peopleware
To be able to understand how to build a functional working environment
- Football versus Tug-of-War
- Staffing strategies
- Stakeholder responsibilities
- Team dynamics under pressure
- The Environment-Performance equation
9. Learning to Manage
A project manager's survival kit
- The project manager is not alone
- The manager as a stakeholder
- Assess yourself; the project manager's questionnaire
- Growing "The Knowledge"
- A small group tracking progress: building and improving your own guidebook
For more information please contact Suzanne
Robertson or Susannah
Finzi.
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Suzanne Robertson
Suzanne has had extensive experience in managing varied projects. She
is a principal of The Atlantic
Systems Guild and is doing currently doing research and consulting
on the specification, management and reuse of requirements. The product
of this research is Volere, a complete
requirements process and template for assessing requirements quality, and
for specifying business requirements along with the book: Mastering the Requirements Process (Addison-Wesley,
1999).
Suzanne Robertson is also co-author of Complete Systems Analysis:
the Workbook, the Textbook, the Answers (Dorset House, 1994), a textbook
and case study that teaches the core skills necessary for systems analysis.
She is a member of IEEE and the Australian Computer Society.
Susannah Finzi
 Susannah
is a partner in Antelope Projects
a consultancy specialising in risk management. She is also a director of
Software Quality Engineering Europe who provide training, consultancy and
conferences in the field of software quality and testing. Susannah brings
experience from working in small creative teams in advertising as well as
from the management of a number of large European Community projects.
She has also edited and managed the production of many technical books
including Principles of Software Engineering Management and Software
Inspection (both by Tom Gilb) and Software Testing in the Real World
by Ed Kit.
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