Procept courses accredited by the CCA for Gold Seal certification credits

Advanced Project Scheduling and Controls

Advanced Project Scheduling and Controls

How good are your estimates and schedules? This course is for your project controls officers to continue their learning of the intricacies of resource loading and levelling, earned value and schedule risk management. This 2-day course is Part 2 of our intensive 5-day program on Project Scheduling and Controls. Participants will manage resource assignments and update and track project progress using earned value management, identify schedule uncertainties, build in defendable schedule contingency, and manage that contingency. With these valuable skills, project managers and planners will have improved control of their projects as they will be able to identify the full effect of the unexpected and the full impact of scope changes on their project schedules.

Our instructors are seasoned project scheduling professionals, who have experience in a wide variety of industries and with a number of scheduling software packages (Microsoft Project and Primavera, among others). Examples used will include construction, IT, and telecommunications. In addition to scheduling theory, practitioners’ tips and tricks will be demonstrated.

This is a hands-on course, in which participants will use a “live” project to update the project schedule, manage it and report on its performance. Although scheduling software will be discussed and used, it is not the intent to teach to any specific scheduling software package.

Procept is first in offering this professional level course, appropriate for those seeking to obtain their professional credential in planning and scheduling: such as PMI-SP® (PMI Scheduling Professional) or AACE PSP® (AACE International’s Planning & Scheduling Professional) credentials.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Participants will gain practical skills to:

  • Schedule resources.
  • Create realistic project schedules by including schedule risk.
  • Evaluate project metrics and prepare project performance reports.
  • Use earned value management to identify change.
  • Apply best practices in scheduling projects.
  • Prepare to sit for the scheduling examination

 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This course is appropriate for individuals who want to:

  • Improve their project controls.
  • Pursue a career in project planning and controls.
  • Enhance their resume and marketability in project management.
  • Work in a project management environment, in any industry or discipline, and want to increase their scheduling knowledge.
  • Prepare for the PMI-Scheduling Professional®,or the AACE Planning & Scheduling Professional® credentials.

 

PREREQUISITE

Procept's 3-day Project Scheduling Essentials course.

MATERIALS

You will receive a course binder containing a copy of the presentation slides. Course files in Microsoft Project will be available. You may find it useful to bring your laptop with a scheduling software package already installed (Primavera, Microsoft Project, SureTrak, or similar).

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

DAY 1:
Resource Management & Earned Value

  • Levelling resources
  • Scheduling resources
  • Crashing the schedule
  • Assignment: Identifying opportunities for crashing the case study schedule
  • Identifying control accounts
  • Calculating the performance baseline
  • Measuring progress of a control account
  • Assignment: Calculate S-curve for case study

 

Risk Management
  • Identifying & estimating schedule risks
  • Responding to schedule risks
  • Responding to contract schedule risks
  • Contingency planning
  • Workshop: Risks & responses
  • Schedule risk analysis techniques
  • Monte Carlo analysis
  • Performance reporting
  • Assignment: Final report on case study

 

DAY 2:
Advanced Scheduling Techniques

  • The short-term look-ahead schedule
  • Workshops: Prepare a short-term look-ahead
  • Final presentations
  • Critical chain
  • Scheduling for “Agile” project management
  • Alternatives to CPM scheduling
  • Lessons learned
  • Establishing scheduling policies and standards

 

Wrap Up
  • Review course work
  • Test and evaluations

 

 

PMI is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.