Archive for October 14th, 2011

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Project Simulation – Online Access
Duration: Project Simulation Access Time: Up to 180 days
Credits: 10 PDUs or 1 CEU Category A – $359.00 USD
Presented by: Lambert Consulting Group, Inc. (REP 1358 )
Simulation Creator/Designer: MindEdge, Inc

Challenge Yourself – Grow your Skills! An In Basket Project Simulation will allow you to test your current skills and build new competencies. This may be an excellent opportunity to challenge yourself by applying Project Management skills to the highway project – an environment that may be unfamiliar to you!

Target Audience: This simulation is designed for adult learners with project management experience. Learners who successfully complete this simulation will be awarded 10 PDUs/contact hours.

Level: Intermediate – This simulation does not have any prerequisites. This course does not require any additional supplementary materials.

Estimated time to complete: 10 hours of online course work. This course has an “Ask the Expert” feature, which submits your questions directly to an expert in the field you are studying. Questions are answered as quickly as possible and usually within 24 hours.

“This simulation is a winner! I would highly recommend the Allerton Connector Project Management Simulation to anyone looking for a capstone experience to test their knowledge and judgment in a real world project management environment.”

— Lee R. Lambert, PMP, CEO, Lambert Consulting Group,
Project Management Institute Fellow, 2009

Through this simulation, the learner will play the role of a project manager on a highway construction project in the small city of Allerton. This project is considered to be a “major project” by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which means it has a budget of $500 million or more.

Learners will be asked to make a series of decisions during the simulation. Each decision will impact the project in different ways. The goal in the simulation is to optimize positive scores across the following project management factors (as identified by the PMI® 2011 role delineation study):

  • Initiating the Project
  • Planning the Project
  • Executing the Project
  • Monitoring and Controlling the Project
  • Closing the Project
  • Cross-cutting Skills

Expected Learning Outcomes

This simulation is meant to sharpen your understanding of key project management skills. Including:

  1. Leading a project team
  2. Balancing competing interests, such as project scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources, risk, communications, and procurement considerations throughout every project phase
  3. Dealing with controversial decisions and the potential for negative team or customer outcomes
  4. Analyzing schedule, budget, and quality data and using that information to make educated decisions
  5. Addressing issues related to project procurement

PMBOK Guide® Alignment

This simulation is designed to align with the PMI® PMBOK® Guide and the 2011 role delineation study. No prior knowledge of the PMI® framework is required, but feedback will refer to PMBOK® Guide sections where they are relevant.

Certificate of Completion

Many sections will have quizzes, and your score on these quizzes will determine whether you can receive a certificate of completion, and Project Management Institute professional development units (PDUs) for completing the simulation. If you average a cumulative 70% or above on the quizzes, you will receive the certificate. Successful Completion Requirement for IACET CEU: Learners must achieve an average test score of at least 70% to meet the minimum successful completion requirement and qualify to receive IACET CEU credit. Learners will have three attempts at all graded assessments.

Get an edge: Here are some pointers for doing your best in simulations:

  • Know the background material. You cannot do well in a simulation if you haven’t studied the background material.
  • Keep a positive attitude. The assessors are not trying to trick you, they want you to do well.
  • Take breaks when you need one. Just like a project walk away and think a bit if you need to – don’t rush through.
  • Avoid extreme or unusual behaviors while role-playing. Don’t get defensive, remember it is a role playing exercise.
  • Be confident but not arrogant. Too much confidence could be read as not taking the exercise seriously.
  • Get through the all the material. You will find important information that you will be able to use in the other simulations. Take notes, make lists, and write out a calendar. Making notes may be very helpful in the same way as in your projects. Whatever you write may be collected and included in the scoring of the exercise. Remember that the assessors can’t read your mind. In a simulation/exercise it is especially important to document your thinking.
  • Expect conflicts. Simulations often assist you in determining how to resolve conflicts and issues. Uncover and address the conflicts.
  • Be flexible. Sometimes the assessors will give you hints over the course of a role-play. For example, “Have you considered the possibility of acquiring one of our competitors?” Sometimes you will come into a role-play with a plan and learn something that requires you to change that plan. Don’t get stuck on one strategy if the simulation demands flexibility.

Click to purchase the Allerton Connector Highway Project Management Simulation

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Online Webinar
Duration: 1 hour webinar Credits: 1 PDU Category C – Free PDU
Sponsored by American Management Association (REP 1294)
Presented by: Tom Kendrick
Although the AMA is an REP this opportunity may not have a course number Contact the AMA for further information.

Optimizing Your Risk Management Effort

One ongoing project management debate concerns whether risks can really be “managed” at all. Assuming that project business risk can be managed, should it be, and if so, when?

In this Webcast you’ll discover ways to understand when it’s a good idea to manage a risk and when it may not be.

It’s obvious that doing something about a risk that actually occurs makes sense. Doing nothing for a risk that does not happen is also sensible (or perhaps just lucky). However, some risk management we undertake will ultimately prove to be unnecessary and some risks we choose to accept may lead to disaster.

As with any analysis, errors in risk assessment are of two types: “Type 1,” (false positive) errors, and “Type 2,” (false negative) errors. In the context of project risk management, Type 1 errors are the risks we choose to manage unnecessarily. Type 2 errors are the risks we ignore that then happen.

Project managers must use qualitative and quantitative assessment techniques to rank order risks, and then work out responses to deal with the ones that warrant the effort.

To improve the effectiveness of your efforts, you must carefully consider each identified project risk in terms of history and impact, and particularly in consideration with your tolerance for consequences.

What You Will Learn:

  • How to identify key criteria to use in determining which risks to manage
  • Tips for determining when it is prudent to manage what appear to be mid-range severity risks
  • Advice for justifying project schedule and budget reserves for use in dealing with risks lacking explicit risk responses

Featured Speaker: Tom Kendrick (LinkedIn profile), PMP, is Program Director for the University of California Berkeley Extension Project Management curriculum. He is author of Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project, The Project Management Tool Kit: 100 Tips and Techniques for Getting the Job Done Right, and 101 Project Management Problems and How to Solve Them: Practical Advice for Handling Real-World Project Challenges.He regularly conducts classes and presentations on program, project, and risk management for conferences, associations, and universities. He also spent over 20 years with Hewlett Packard in its Project Management Initiative and has almost 40 years of worldwide PM experience, including work for Visa, DuPont, General Electric, and as an independent consultant.

PDU Category C documentation details:

Process Groups: Planning

Knowledge Areas: 11 – Risk

  • 11.1 Plan Risk Management
  • 11.2 Identify Risks
  • 11.5 Plan Risk Responses

As a Category C ‘Self Directed Learning Activity’ remember to document your learning experience and its relationship to project management for your ‘PDU Audit Trail Folder’

Click to register for How to Identify and Manage Critical Project Risks

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Online Webinar
Duration: 1 hour webinar Credits: 1 PDU Category A $5 USD
Presented by: Solutions Cube Group (REP 2451)

Agile is one of the latest techniques sweeping the Project Management profession. Many traditional project managers have heard the name Agile, but do not truly understand the practice yet.

Solutions Cube Group’s Webinars address many relevant project issues. In this webinar, we have partnered with with Brian Rabon, President of Braintrust Software, to learn what agile project management is and what it is not.

Learn when to apply this new style of project management and when not to. Also, pick up a few tips and tricks for implementing the practice in your environment.

In this overview level recorded webinar participants learn about:

  • The Case for Agile Project Management
  • The fundamentals of Agile Project Management
  • Project Scoping and Requirements gathering in an Agile environment

EARN 1 PDU after viewing this webinar

Click to purchase An Overview of Agile Project Management (This link will place the course in your shopping cart)

What Is a Requirements Workshop?

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Live Webinar October 20, 2011 – 12:00 – 12:30 pm EST
Offered by PmCentersUSA (REP 1016)
Duration 30 Min Credits: 0.5 PDU or 0.5 CDU Cat A – Free PDU

Utilizing the JAD Session method developed by IBM in the 1970s, the Requirements Workshop is one of the most effective techniques for quickly developing high-quality requirements. This webinar will explain how to prepare for and conduct a Requirements Workshop, and will also provide tips on how to handle potential problems that can sidetrack the workshop. This presentation will be 30 minutes long with a live question and answer session afterwards.

Subject Matter Expert: Rick Clare, PMP®, CBAP®, OCP
Rick Clare (LinkedIn profile) is the Business Analysis Practice Director and a Senior Instructor for PMCentersUSA, with over 15 years experience in the Systems/Business Analyst field and over 18 years of experience as a technical lead/trainer. Rick’s career experience has been as a Senior Oracle Database Developer, performing analysis, design, development and documentation on numerous database systems using Oracle and its complete set of development tools.

Click to register for What Is a Requirements Workshop?