Foundations of Project Management 1

This session is being offered in collaboration with MITACS Training (formerly Mitacs Step). Mitacs Training provides professional development training to advanced degree graduates, supplementing their education and research experience with the tools necessary to succeed in today’s workforce.

* This is a two-day workshop, and attendance in both days is required. *

Learning teams of approximately five people each will be formed at the beginning of this session and will work together throughout the session.  This will enable the participants to enhance their learning from each other, to experience the development of a strong team, and to develop a model of the culture that they will want to create and execute their projects.

Workshop Objective:

This 2-day workshop provides an experiential, collaborative learning experience to enable participants to integrate the principles of project management, team building, group dynamics and leadership that participants can apply immediately and in their future careers and lives. Participants experience the processes of collaborative planning and management and can see the benefits firsthand. 

Learning Outcomes:

• Through participating and completing this workshop, participants will: 
• Gain a clear understanding of foundational project management principles
• Have an emphasized understanding of the importance of team and team dynamics within the context of project management and meeting project deadlines

Key Topics Areas:

Principles of project management and team building

• Forming new teams and learning from team members past experience
• Understanding self and others using the Strength Deployment Inventory, a self-scoring questionnaire that identifies, motivations, personal strengths in relating, causes of stress or conflict and each individual’s typical response to conflict
• Personal styles of learning and problem-solving
• Creating a team agreement on practices and processes that will enhance their work together
• Techniques and tools to increase team effectiveness at decision making
• Planning and conducting effective project meetings

Leadership:

• Role of the leader in decision making
• Modifying leadership behavior to meet the needs of the situation

Project planning concepts

• Developing and building effective project teams
• Project planning and scheduling: basics of the critical path method (CPM), work breakdown, time calculations, and shortening the project
• Collaborative techniques and processes for planning and scheduling projects, establishing positive project practices and procedures, and the monitoring and reporting of progress
• Risk assessment on the projects planned

Review and discussion of learning

• Providing constructive criticism for positive results

FACILITATOR 

Gary Robinson

Gary Robinson is president of E.M. Sciences Ltd, a management consulting firm formed in 1975 to meet the needs of project-oriented businesses.  Specific services include organization development and culture change, management training and coaching, collaborative project planning, work redesign, team building and project partnering processes, project management critique, strategic planning, conflict resolution and continuous productivity and quality improvement.  The purpose of his consulting is to increase the productivity of teams, organizations, and managers in ways that will also improve the quality of working life for people in the organization.

Gary has a M.Sc. in Engineering and a M.Sc. in Organization Development.  Partly as a result of his first career as an engineering manager, most of his work is done with projects or with companies whose services and products are delivered as projects.  His clients in Canada, the United States, England, Australia, India and Korea have included engineering companies, architectural firms, contractors, manufacturers, federal and provincial governments and crown corporations, city governments, high tech research and development firms, software design companies, oil companies, universities, hospitals, community agencies, and a variety of voluntary organizations.

He is a Registered Professional Organization Development consultant (RODP) in the International Organization Development Institute, a member of the Project Management Institute, and a Professional Engineer with the Association of Professional Engineers of B.C

REGISTRATION

Registration is required, and is now open. Those PDFs successfully registered will receive a confirmation email from the PDFO within one week prior to the session. Please note that lunch will not be provided as part of this session.