I am developing a course for a group of post graduate it managers & senior developers. I have written all the basic PRINCE, business case, software tool modules but need soem ideas/help for the rest of the course content
I would like to know if someone could point me in the direction of any resources and/or case studies for the following :-
Risk Management & Exception Reports
Testing Approaches & User Acceptance Testing Strategy
Configuration Management
Any practical examples and/or suggested exercises would also be great.
Many thanks
Adrian
Adrian Winckles
4 Responses
how about looking outside the pure technical arena
I was involved in a programme of courses some time ago for a multinational firm who recognised that the prime thing IT Project Managers needed to manage was people! ie the project team, vendors, customers and sponsors. We similarly used PRINCE but we built in a number of behavioural aspects that related to the good old PRINCE bits you mention and made them real.
I don’t know if this helps you but it certainly helped the delegates we trained!
PMI
PRINCE is a methology rather than Project Management per se. I’ve been using the PMI programme for our project managers as it covers a number of knowledge areas including risk managment, human resource management and procurement management. Their website is http://www.pmi.org.
useful books
For bags of useful material try: “A Hackers Guide To Project Management” by Andrew K Johnston, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd 1995, ISBN 075062230X; and the APM Project Management Pathways, 2002, ISBN 1-903494-01-X – buy at:
http://www.theprojectshop.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_General_Project_Management_Books_1.html
People, People, People.
Projects fail because of things that people do – or don’t do. An ability to manage people is the main factor that determines the effectiveness of a project manager.
Most delegates on a PM course can relate to this from their own experience of “Project Managers I have known”. Few PM courses face up to this issue, far less try to address it.
If you could design the course to include the same amount of “People-related” material as “PRINCE-related”, that would be a good balance, one that I have used effectively with graduate level IT staff in the past.
If you must make the point quickly, ask your delegates how much experience they have of “Managing Others” compared to “Being Managed”. Then, see whether they prefer “giving orders” to “receiving guidance”. And, if you can be a bit controversial, ask “Are you prepared to act as a bully” .. since this is often a handy trait in project management. If your delegates can appreciate their natural tendencies, and the difficulties of learning how to manage people in a project, then they should come away with a realistic basis for using the other valuable material.
While you can certainly teach PRINCE and the tools for managing all the dimensions of a project, the key is to help delegates appreciate their own level of effectiveness as a people manager, and then let them move on to find more training to address their specific needs.