Newtown Square, PA — The Project Management Institute has released their latest courses for Project Management Enrichment.
Reporting and Metrics
Advanced Managerial Pie Charts
Metrics make or break a project when presenting to management. This course goes over the latest developments in pie chart visualization techniques which are guaranteed to show you project in the right light, regardless of actual status.
PowerPoint Obfuscation: The Truth is Relative
Relativity is a scientific fact. Einstein proved it, and it is the basis for all science. Doesn’t your project deserve the benefit of scientific fact? This course will give you the tools you need to present the best version of the truth you can provide your Executive Steering Team (EST). You’ll learn valuable techniques such as color coding concern areas yellow, to acknowledge how hard the project is, but that it’s under capable project management hands. Remember, according to General Relativity, even light can sometimes break down next to a heavy enough body, so if your project is massive enough, you can take even more liberties with the truth!
Email Communication
Advanced Note Taking
Let’s face it, if you don’t take minutes at meetings, no one will. Plus, he who writes the history controls the story. So take control of project history, and learn how to write notes that always convey a positive message and lay seeds of blame where you think they should be, not where they really are. In this course, you’ll learn techniques for:
- Action item assignment
- Writing what you want to hear, not what was said
- Using BCC to your advantage
- Subtle scapegoating
- Reliable weasel words
Intermediate Email Topics: Action Oriented Subjects
This class will give you the tools you need to get people to respond to your innumerable emails. You will learn the most effective ways to use phrases such as URGENT, ASAP, as well as how to convey importance based on the number of exclamation points you use (!!!!). Whether you are using “Action Required”, or the more forceful “ACTION REQUIRED:”, you’ll be sure to grab someone’s attention, every time.
Advanced Email: The “Important” Button
You are leading one of the most critical projects the company has ever seen, but you’re having a hard time getting people to respond to your emails. That will be a thing of the past as soon as you master the art of marking every single one of your emails with the “Important” flag. Those emails sneak past many email filters and demand action. Before you know it, you’ll have documented responses for all of your critical, last-minute requests for additional information.
Meetings
Advanced Project Planning: Outlook Availability
There is a little-known feature in Outlook which allows you to see the availability of people BEFORE you schedule a meeting! In this class, you will learn this valuable and elusive skill. This course also covers decision-trees to help you inconvenience the least important people first if there is no good time for a meeting in the timeframe required.
Executive Steering Team Pre-Meetings
Executive Steering Team (EST) meetings are the life-blood of project management. This is your moment to shine, as you stand in front of the execs and dutifully report on all the great work the rest of the team has been doing. Don’t let project team members spoil your big day by talking “off script” or bringing up “issues” that you already have under control. In this course, you will learn techniques to call enough meetings to stupefy your project team and make them more docile for EST meetings.
Executive Meeting Rescheduling
Many times, you will find that at least one member of your EST will have to miss a meeting due to a conflict or simply lack of interest. These cancellations inevitably come at the last minute. You can learn to use real or even potential schedule conflicts to reschedule key meetings to buy more time for your team to actually deliver what was promised. Remember, if everyone but the decision-maker is there, it’s like the meeting never happened.
Intermediate Conflict Resolution: Calling More Meetings
Conflict is inevitable, particularly in technical projects. Dueling Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) can get locked into opinions with no clear way out. As the project manager, it is your responsibility to bludgeon people with more meetings until someone gives up. Under no circumstances should you involve Management to force a decision, as this will undermine what little authority you have. This course offers valuable techniques as people begin to resist your calls for additional meetings.
Miscellaneous
Advanced Requirements Gathering: Asking Questions
Chances are, you are managing a project about which you have very little direct knowledge. In this course, you will learn how to ask the same question in at least 10 different ways. Only by exhausting each avenue of questioning can you truly discern what the requirements are.
Change Control Board Karate: Verbal and Physical Defense Techniques
If your Change Control Board (CCB) has more than one line of business in it, you’ll want to learn these valuable techniques for occasions when you will need to deliver bad news.
Project Stages: Do You Really Have All the Approvals You Need?
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s hard to know if you’ve really gotten all the approvals you need to move from Initiation to Planning. This course gives you the tools you need to slow things down and communicate with even the most inconsequential decision-makers before continuing on to the next stage.
Budget Management: Overestimation As An Art Form
Finance people just love to say that they cut a budget. However, project members never have enough budget to reliably complete the tasks assigned to them. How to fix this conundrum? Simple, be sure to overestimate your budget at the beginning. The trick is not to overestimate so much as to draw attention, but enough that you can deal with the 20% hit finance is guaranteed to take if your project lasts longer than 2 years. You’ll learn how to sneak under the radar and come out smelling like roses when you finally cross the finish line!