Title: Project Execution and Management

Event: Portland State University, Professional Development Training

Date:  February 7 & 14, 2024

Speaker: Christopher Dennis

Summary

Building on PSU's Project Planning and Organization course, we delve into the practical aspects of the last three process groups as defined by the Project Management Institute in their Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®):

• Project execution
• Monitoring and control
• Project or phase closure

Practically speaking, project planning is over and it is time to implement. Where do we start?  Where do we focus our attention?   

We will start by focusing on the project team, then expand our focus on stakeholder engagement and communications. We review how to procure goods and services we need, and now to help ensure the quality of our team’s work is sufficient. We’ll dive deeply into how to direct and manage the project work. Along the way, we cover how to monitor the work, with special attention to how to handle issues and change gracefully, when stakeholders agree to change.  

We will wrap up our focus on plan-driven project management by covering how projects should be closed.  Endings are often as important as beginnings. 

In the last third of the course, we introduce adaptive project management, with emphasis on Agile / Scrum. We will discuss its similarities and differences from the predictive, plan driven approach.  We will cover the basic elements of this approach and how the project team operates.

We will finish our time together by focusing on project troubleshooting.  

This course uses a blended approach, with half-day instructor-led sessions bookending a guided self-study period.