Project Performance International

Introduction

Experience is that projects have difficulty in delivering solutions to stakeholders on time, on budget and satisfying needs. The greater the problem complexity, solution complexity, novelty, and diversity of stakeholders, the more this experience applies.

This 2-day seminar provides an introductory level of understanding of how to manage technical projects to maximise project success, within a set of constraints. The seminar establishes principles and exposes methods for managing to get the best out of people, individually and in teams.

This Managing Engineering Projects seminar is designed for people who seek a working knowledge of how to best go about manage technical projects, especially projects involving non-trivial engineering.

Who Should Attend This Seminar?

This Managing Engineering Projects seminar is designed for personnel of all types who plan, manage, control, specify or support the development or acquisition of important products, including software products, or systems. The seminar will be of particular value to programme managers, project sponsors, project managers and their planning advisers, technical managers, system engineers, software systems engineers, engineers of all other types, stakeholders in the product being developed such as users and planners, and those responsible for the development of policy and processes in the fields of development, acquisition, and supply.

The seminar will also be of value to anyone who will interface with a Project Team and who seeks an understanding of projects, e.g. members of functional units. Relevant functional units could include Integrated Logistic Support, Configuration Management, Human Resources, Safety, Finance, etc.

To summarize, the seminar will be of value to anyone who may take on a role within, or in relation to, a project team.

Those seeking a much deeper understanding, especially as relevant to technology-intensive projects, may prefer to attend PPI’s 5-day Systems Engineering Management course.

Seminar Method and Materials

The seminar is delivered using a balanced combination of video, presentations, workshops and discussion sessions. The workshops and discussions are focused on putting into practice the techniques covered in the presentations and the lessons to be learned from the video.

The workshops are used extensively to reinforce learning and to contribute to the development of understanding.

Delegates are provided with a set of comprehensive bound seminar notes covering the presentation material and workshop exercises, a Workshop Workbook, a two-CD CDROM of relevant resources, and other materials and checklists for future reference and use.

Seminar Availability

This seminar is available worldwide for public and on-site delivery (i.e. at client-provided facilities).

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this seminar, delegates are expected to have a reasonable working knowledge of how to go about successfully Managing Engineering Projects, and be ready to take on a limited management role. Delegates will also be better equipped to work within projects.

Higher levels of skill and performance in a project/technical management role will subsequently be attained through practical experience.

Some Key Questions

• How does managing engineering projects differ from managing in general?
• Why is following the PMBOK not enough?
• What is systems engineering and how is it relevant?
• What are the skills, knowledge and attitudes (SKAs) conducive to success in conducting technical projects?
• What is the role of the technical manager in ensuring these SKAs are in place?
• How are system life cycle models relevant?
• What is the relevance of waterfall development, incremental development, evolutionary development, agile, spiral development, lean, simultaneous/concurrent engineering?
• What is the role of Project (Work) Breakdown Structure PBS/WBS in successful projects?
• How can PBS/WBS best be developed?

More Key Questions

• How does PBS/WBS relate to cost and schedule estimating and control?
• What are the ingredients of risk? Which ones may be controlled?
• Where does opportunity figure?
• How does PBS/WBS relate to risk analysis and risk management?
• Why are requirements management, configuration management, interface management and data management so fundamental?
• How may they be accomplished?
• How do we know how we have problems before it is too late to solve them?
• What is the role of leadership in achieving successful technical projects?
• Does a relationship exist between personality types and performance in different project roles?

Seminar Outline

1. Introduction to Managing Engineering Projects

• goals and proven benefits of world class systems engineering and management
• key features of world class systems engineering
• key features of world class management
• EIA/IS-632, EIA 632, IEEE 1220, CMMI systems engineering standards
• PMBOK
• pitfalls and pointers

2. Systems Engineering Basics

• systems engineering principles and concepts
• pitfalls and pointers

3. The Systems Engineering Process

• understanding the inputs and the outputs
• defining the problem — requirements analysis
• designing the physical solution
• describing the logical solution — functional analysis
• effectiveness evaluation and decision making
• specification writing
• system integration
• verification and validation
• logistics support analysis (LSA) and integrated logistics support (ILS)
• Workshop: systems engineering principles
• pitfalls and pointers

4. Planning the Engineering Effort

• the plan
• styles of development and relationship to planning
• waterfall, incremental, evolutionary, agile, lean, spiral, concurrent engineering
• engineering for modifications
• cost estimating
• scheduling the engineering effort
• decision analysis and value/cost engineering
• project (work) breakdown structure (PBS/WBS)
• Workshop: developing a PBS/WBS
• pitfalls and pointers

5. Organizing for the Engineering Effort

• the work to be accomplished
• alternative organizational strategies
• using integrated product teams (IPT), and relationship to IPPD/IPPD
• keys to success
• Workshop: designing a project organization
• pitfalls and pointers

6. Engineering Management Controls

• requirements management
• risk management
• configuration management
• interface management
• data management
• knowledge management
• pitfalls and pointers

7. Performance Based Progress Management

• technical performance measurement
• technical progress meetings
• earned value
• pitfalls and pointers

8. Leading and Managing the Project Team

• Roles of Leadership in Complex Projects
• Difference Between Management and Leadership
• Power and the Influencing of Behavior
• Situational Aspect of Leadership Styles and Follower Readiness
• Team-Building and Conflict Resolution Techniques
• Successful Motivation Practices
• Effective Leader Communications

9. What is Needed to Achieve World Class Engineering and Management

About the Alternative Presenters

Clive Tudge

Clive Tudge is a professional Chartered Engineer with considerable national and International experience in senior project management, engineering management, and more recently, training positions in industry and government.

Clive obtained his College Diploma at the College of Electronics, which was then attached to the Ministry of Defence in the U.K. The Diploma qualified him as a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), which is now known as the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Clive has been on the Committee of the IET in Queensland for the last 20 years, and for three of these years was the President.

Prior to arriving in Australia, in Europe Clive held many senior Project Director positions in the aviation sector on projects such as the Tornado, Jaguar and Hawk aircraft. In Germany, he was the Senior Project Director on a unique Fly-By-Wire Flight Control System for the Typhoon Eurofighter Project, and Project Manager on various systems for the European Tiger Helicopter.

In Australia, Clive has worked with many government agencies and industrial companies including Ansett Technologies, Datacraft, Queensland Rail, Brisbane City Council, Telstra, Optus, QANTAS, Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) and Energex, helping to bring projects to a successful conclusion. Clive has founded, and has run, successful software development companies, completing complex software-intensive projects on time, within budget and satisfying customer needs.

Clive has been involved in all aspects of procurement from requirements definition and requirements analysis and through to operational support. He has performed roles from software engineer through to Project Chief Engineer and Project Director on multi-million dollar projects. Key skill areas include: project management, systems process evaluation, risk management, system engineering design and acceptance, systems engineering training, airworthiness analysis, communications systems, engineering change management, flight testing and systems process auditing.

Read more about Clive Tudge.

Robert Halligan

An executive professional manager and engineering practitioner, Mr Robert Halligan is known worldwide for his role in the practice and improvement of major projects. His work was initially with government and major transnational companies. For the last 24 years, he has worked in a consulting and training capacity, delivering an extensive training program on six continents.

Robert worked extensively in the United States and the United Kingdom. He was an Australian delegate to the ISO SC7 WG7 developing the international system life cycle processes standard, ISO/IEC 15288 and was a key reviewer of EIA 632 (Engineering of Systems) and EIA 731 (Systems Engineering Capability Model). He was a member of a small team which updated IEEE 1220 (Standard for Application and Management of the Systems Engineering Process). Robert was a member of the Board of Directors of the 7000-member International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE).

He has worked extensively in the interests of government and industry clients, developing and implementing acquisition and development strategies which focus on cost-effectiveness and risk reduction. Robert has also conducted numerous acquisition-related studies and management audits. He has delivered IPT training and facilitation for over ten years, including very large projects such as Australia’s P3C Upgrade program and ANZAC Ships program.

Read more about Robert Halligan.

For further information on how to register, or to download a copy of the registration form, please click here.

Managing Engineering Projects 2-Day Seminar Schedule

How to Register

There are three simple ways to register to one of our courses.

1. Online. You may register online by clicking the "register online" link next to the course of interest.
2. Fax. Download a registration form by clicking the link above the schedule and fax the completed form to our offices on +61 3 9876 2664 (Australia) or +1 888 772 5191 (North America).
3. Email. Download a registration form by clicking the link next to the course of interest and email the form here.

Upon receiving a completed registration form, a course confirmation letter and invoice will be sent electronically to the email provided within 1-2 business days. Payment can made by credit card or by bank transfer.

If you need any assistance with the registration process or have any queries, please call one of our friendly team members on Australia +61 3 9876 7345, UK +44 20 3286 1995, North America +1 888 772 5174, Brazil +55 11 3230 8256 or email us.