Audience
IT professionals taking on project management or leadership responsibilities and established project managers who want to gain BCS certification in IS project management at the Foundation level.
Prerequisites
There are no formal requirements for the course although attendees should have a basic working knowledge of IT.
Duration
Three days.
Course Objectives
This course has been independently developed but conforms to the current BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management syllabus. Course fees do not include the BCS examination which may be taken at any PearsonVUE testing centre. Our Bath training centre is also a PearsonVUE testing centre, if you'd like to take the exam as part of the course please notify us after booking and we can arrange this for you.
Candidates who pass the Foundation Certificate should be able to demonstrate an understanding of the principles of project management, including those that relate to project planning, monitoring and control, change control and configuration management, effort estimation, quality and risk management and communication between project stakeholders.
The course format is instructor-led with presentations and discussions supported by practical work involving a realistic case study which allows reinforcement of learning and enhances the understanding process.
Course Content
1. Projects and Project Work
1.1. The definition of projects, as opposed to other types of work
1.2. Terms of reference for a project
1.3. The purpose of project planning and control
1.4. The typical activities in a system development life-cycle
1.5. System and project life cycles
1.6. Variations on the conventional project life cycle
1.7. Implementation strategies
1.8. Purpose and content of business case reports
1.9. Types of planning document
1.10. Post implementation review
2. Project Planning
2.1. Project deliverables and intermediate products
2.2. Work and product breakdowns
2.3. Product definitions
2.4. Relationship between products and activities in a project
2.5. Check points and milestones
2.6. Lapsed time and effort required for activities
2.7. Activity networks
2.8. Calculation of earliest and latest start and end dates of activities and resulting float
2.9. Identification and significance of critical paths
2.10. Resource allocation, smoothing and levelling, including the use of resource histograms
2.11. Work schedules and Gantt charts
3. Monitoring and Control
3.1. The project control life cycle
3.2. The nature of, and the purposes for which, information is gathered
3.3. Collecting progress information
3.4. Presenting progress information
3.5. The reporting cycle
3.6. Corrective action
4. Change Control and Configuration Management
4.1. Reasons for change and configuration management
4.2. Change control procedures
4.3. Configuration management
5. Quality
5.1. Definitions of the term ‘quality’
5.2. Quality control versus quality assurance
5.3. Defining quality
5.4. Detection of defects during the project life cycle
5.5. Quality procedures
5.6. Defect removal processes, including testing and reviews
5.7. Types of testing
5.8. The inspection process, peer reviews
5.9. Principles of IS0 9001:2000 quality management systems
5.10. Supplier evaluation
6. Estimating
6.1. Effects of over and under-estimating
6.2. Effort versus duration
6.3. Estimates versus targets
6.4. Use of expert judgement
6.5. The Delphi approach
6.6. Top-down estimating
6.7. Bottom up approaches to estimating
6.8. Use of analogy in estimating
7. Risk
7.1. Definition of the term ‘risk’
7.2. Ways of categorising risk
7.3. Identification and prioritisation of risk
7.4. Assessment of risk exposure
7.5. Risk responses and actions
7.6. Typical risks associated with information systems development
7.7. Assessment of the costs/benefits of risk reduction activities
7.8. Maintenance of risk registers and risk logs
8. Project Communications and Project Organisation
8.1. Relationship between programmes and projects
8.2. Identifying stakeholders and their concerns
8.3. The project sponsor
8.4. Establishment of the project authority
8.5. Membership of project board/steering committee
8.6. Roles and responsibilities of project board, project manager, stage manager, team leader
8.7. Desirable characteristics of project manager
8.8. Role of project support office
8.9. The project team and matrix management
8.10. Reporting structures and responsibilities
8.11. Management styles and communication
8.12. Team building
8.13. Team dynamics