Project management is an important part of every organization; however, often companies don't differentiate between project management and operations management. Sometimes the finance professional is called upon to serve on a project team, or in other cases is in a position to manage a project within the finance or accounting department. In either case, he or she should be well versed in both the theory and practice of project management. While project management has probably been around since the time of building the pyramids, the modern discipline started to take hold in large organizations in the late 50s and early 60s. From there it spread to smaller organizations to the point where almost any sized organization can benefit from its ideas. This course is designed for the finance professional of the small and medium size organization. It is not meant for the experienced project manager of a large organization or the person wanting training for project management certification. In an effort to avoid talking theory without concrete examples, we will follow the hypothetical project of purchasing and implementing new general ledger software as the way of discussing the steps of project management.
Learning Objectives
- Understand when and when not to apply project management thinking
- Know how to define success in a project
- Understand and manage the critical path of a project
- Understand the theory of constraints in project management
- Know how to both choose and lead people on the project team
Major Topics
- Project management is a way of thinking and managing
- Identifying projects, needs, objectives, and deliverables
- Project feasibility evaluation
- Life cycle of a project
- What causes projects to fail
- Establishing the project scope and preventing "project creep"
- Defining and managing stakeholders
- Organizational politics and conflict management
- Establishing the detailed schedule
- Introduction to project management software
