What’s preventing you from success in your projects?

Missed timelines? Blown budgets? Events and people seeming to conspire against you?

What if you could see the issues, know the solutions and understand how to implement them? Project Management Reconstructed shows you professional planning and management to crack your project problems or even prevent them completely.

Short videos show the problem and the fix; course notes give you insight and background to make you the expert – and make you smile.

Welcome! Let’s Get Started

Each one of the following sections in this complete course should take less than twenty minutes to digest.

Do one each morning, and by the time you reach the office you’ll have a new block of knowledge under your belt, all ready to go.

Because we combine training with education, you’ll know what action to take and understand the background behind it so you can vary what you do to fit the circumstances.

Competence Comes In Chunks!

Video: Welcome to the Course! * 1 min

A Whole World Of Projects

Physics And The Project

Whatever type or size of project you’re going to run, there are some basic “laws of physics” that control what you can and cannot do.

In this section we’ll discuss these laws and also cover the life-cycle of a project.
What Is A Project, Anyway?

Video: The Rubber Triangle * 2 mins

Physics And The Rubber Triangle

Quiz: Physics And Rubber

Lifecycles, Frameworks & Methodologies

The way a project is planned depends much on the nature of the project, and not every method fits every project.

So in this section we’ll discuss the various ways that project can be designed and run.

Video: Project Life Cycles * 2 mins

Project Life Cycles Explained

The Fashion Show – Frameworks and Methodologies

Quiz: Lifecycles, Frameworks & Methodologies

When Stakeholders Bark, And When They Bite

How to identifying everyone who could interfere with your project – legitimately or otherwise – before they pop up and bite you.

Video: Stand Up And Be Counted * 3 mins

Understanding And Managing Stakeholders

Video: Working the System * 3 mins

Organizational Structures Explained

Quiz: Stakeholders

In And Out Of Scope

Can you guess how many fingers behind my back? Sometimes we misunderstand what we need to deliver, and this can lead to big trouble, usually at the end of the project.

So in this section we learn how to find out what your boss and your stakeholders really want before you go off and deliver something disappointing.

Video: That’s Not What I Want * 2 mins

How Not To Lose Money Before You Even Start

Quiz: Scope

Not Quite What We Thought – Estimations

Estimates are sometimes so far from reality that projects are doomed to overrun before the work even starts.

Learn how to get your project time and cost estimates right – especially if you’re being held to a deadline and a fixed price.

Video: Stacking It Up * 3 mins

Get Your Costs Right

Video: To Buy Or Not To Buy * 2 mins

Buying Things

Quiz: Estimations

Breaking Down – Planning 1

So how is a project plan produced? In this section we’ll look at planning for a medium sized or larger project where we need good estimates up-front, a firm timeline and a previously agreed scope.
Smaller projects, or sub-projects may use agile methods, but as long as clients are cost and time sensitive, the big ones will be Waterfall.

Video: Breaking Down The Work * 3 mins

Revealing Work We Need To Do

Quiz: Breaking Down Work

Still Waiting On That? – Planning 2

Video: You Can Depend On Us * 4 mins

Finding Dependencies Before They Find You

Quiz: Dependencies

How Do You Pronounce Schedule? – Planning 3

Video: Everything’s on Schedule! * 3 mins

The Project Schedule

Video: Squeezing the Schedule * 3 mins

Crashing and Fast Tracking

Quiz: The Project Schedule

Talk To The Hand – Change Control

How to avoid having so many extra requirements gleefully passed along to you, that you’re trapped in a never ending project.

Video: Will You Please Make Up Your Mind? * 3 mins

Managing Change

Quiz: Managing Change

What’s the Worst That Can Happen? – Risk

Every project has risks – things that go wrong or even sometimes, go right. But how can we cater for risks in a project and be ready for the inevitable?

This section shows how you to have a plan to challenge whatever nature throws at you. And if you have a plan, you might succeed.

Video: What Do You Mean By Contingency? * 2 mins

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

Video: Good Risks, Bad Risks & Ugly Risks * 3 mins

Fish and Bones

Quiz: Working With Risks

A Quick And Painless Death – Managing Communications

Communications can be split into two areas:

1. technical communications where we design and execute a plan to communicate to key stakeholders to meet their requirements, and
   soft-skills where we communicate in the most effective ways to get the message across (and hear the message too!).
2. This section will concentrate on the technical aspects. We’ll cover the soft-skills later.

Video: Communications Planning * 3 mins

Communicating Project Progress

Quiz: Communications

Who’s In Charge Around Here? – Leadership

It’s usually the case that you’re assigned a project and have to lead a team and a group, but you’re not official senior management.

So in this section we’ll discuss the skills you need to find and apply the right leadership style at the right time.

Video: Teams And Groups * 3 mins

Who Does What, And The Fine Art Of Leading

The Solid Team

Video: Types of Team * 3 mins

Quiz: Leadership

Thank You And Goodnight – Closure

All good projects come to an end. But did you deliver true value to your boss or your client?

In this section, we’ll discuss the various ways that a project can end and also how – as we grow in our skills and experience – we can move from deliverables all the way to ROI.

Video: Time To End It All * 4 mins

Ways To End A Project

Quiz: Project Closure

What’s Next?

Thank you for going through this course. In this final section we’ll look at further things you can do and try, to build on your success managing projects.
Video: Making Your Mark