Course Description

Many organizations have invested significant time, effort and money on project management software and training but are still not achieving the desired results. This five-day course prepares participants to deploy a Strategic Project Office and achieve the measurable results to demonstrate project office value in a modern-day competitive organization. The course explores how the Strategic Project Office provides project management expertise throughout the organization.

Participants will come away with better understanding of the Strategic Project Office's role in strategic planning, project portfolio management, project implementation, and the integration necessary between project management, accounting, and other enterprise systems. Course topics covered include assessing project management maturity in an organization and baselining project management competency, knowledge, and skill. Participants will learn how to overcome the political foes of a more active project office, and how to change the very culture of the organization to a "project culture." Most importantly, they will exchange practical ideas on how to manage a Strategic Project Office in the context of real-world organizational dynamics.

Course Objective

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

·         Describe the mission and role of the Strategic Project Office (SPO) as an organization that links strategy to project execution

·         Employ the Project Management Maturity Model and Project Manager Competency Assessment

·         Describe the key staff positions necessary for deploying a Strategic Project Office and how to prepare staffing plans for bringing the Strategic Project Office on line

·         Create and sustain a project culture within the organization

·         Incorporate a project management methodology to your new and ongoing projects

·         Explain the importance of centrally managing the resource pool as an enterprise project office

·         Describe and apply the principles of portfolio management in the multi-project environment

·         Apply practical tools and templates introduced during the course on the job immediately

Who Should attend?

This course is designed for project planning engineers and managers, and senior project control and business services professionals who have the responsibility for controlling project schedules and costs in client and contracting companies.

Course Outline

Project Office Overview

·         Describe PM process improvement benefits

·         Identify three types of project offices

·         List SPO critical success factors

·         Identify industry PMO usage and types

Aligning Your Strategic Project Office with Your Business Needs

·         Describe how the SPO can facilitate deploying organizational goals through projects

·         Identify how your SPO can provide maximum value

·         Align your SPO strategy with your organization on governance, portfolio management, and resource optimization

Enabling Effective Government

·         Identify governance practices and responsibilities

·         Describe which practices will best align with your organization

·         Integrate governance and life cycles into your PM Methodology

·         Develop a plan for implementing appropriate governance policies in your SPO

Managing Your Portfolio Performance

·         Identify the components of project portfolio management

·         Describe how to perform portfolio evaluation and measurement

·         Describe the challenges to monitoring portfolio performance

Optimizing Your Resources

·         Determine the roles and responsibilities needed to effectively run an SPO

·         Identify the competencies of successful project managers

·         Describe how an SPO facilitates resource optimization

Overcoming Barriers to Organizational Change

·         Explain key change management requirements and their application to project environments

·         Identify and mitigate typical barriers to effective change implementation

·         Create an effective organizational change management plan

Measuring Your SPO’s Effectiveness

·         Articulate the basic principles and terminology of measurement

·         Recognize common barriers to implementing a measurement program and develop strategies to overcome them

·         Establish a good set of project management performance and value measures

Benefits Realization and Best Practices

·         Measure project management maturity in your organization

·         Determine the next steps in expanding your PMO

·         Identify the most important benefits of a Strategic Project Office

·         Describe best practices to address SPO critical success factors