Who should attend

This programme is aimed at middle to senior managers who need to initiate, manage and control IT-intrinsic projects, as well as technical and business professionals leading teams that need to execute work on these projects, or oversee the work executed by the project teams.

In addition, professionals who stumbled upon project management as a career and who would like to formalise their knowledge with sufficient grounding in theory, while mapping out their future development path, will find this intervention highly valuable.

Admission requirements

No tertiary qualification is required. Candidates with three years of IT leadership experience or five years of general management (with exposure to IT) experience may be admitted to the programme.

Faculty profile

• Mr. Martin Butler

Contact person (Enquiries)

How you will benefit

• identify the practices that negatively impact on their organisation’s ability to execute projects successfully and ensure improvement in these success factors;
• measure the project management maturity level of an organisation and define actions to create an environment that enables suitable project management;
• understand the different methodologies and standards in IS projects as well as their benefits and limitations;
• initiate, scope, plan and control an IS project by applying the principles of project management tailored for the project size and complexity;
• deal effectively with all team members and stakeholders;
• mitigate risks on IS projects successfully;
• report accurately on project progress; and
• ensure proper project handover to maximise organisation benefits.

Credits

• Credits towards the MBA or MDevF degree cannot be gained on a group assessment. Therefore participants that are interested in gaining credits for this programme towards the MBA or MDevF of the USB, must either submit the assignment individually or, in addition to a group assignment (60% pass mark), pass an individual 3-hour closed-book examination (50% pass mark).
• Gaining these credits does not automatically allow, nor guarantee acceptance on the MBA or MDevF programme of the USB, nor obviate the application process.
• The writing of the examination and subsequent claim to credits towards the MBA or MDevF can be exercised any time up to three years after gaining the certificate. Completion of this programme also entitles the participant to exemption from the Project Management module in the Senior Management Development Programme.

Certification

On successful completion of the programme, participants will receive a certificate from the University of Stellenbosch. Successful candidates will also automatically become associate members of Project Management South Africa.

Content overview

• ORIENTATION TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT (IS):
  Definition of a project and project management; project management framework and terminology; foundations of project management theory; the relationships between performance, cost, time and proper planning; IS projects versus operations; the IS project life-cycle; project outputs and organisational outcomes
• DELIVERING SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS:
  Project success versus project management success; IS project critical success factors (CSF); IS project key success criteria (KSC); IS project stakeholders and role players; process, technology and people in harmony
• APPROACHES TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT:
  Role players in project management (PMI / APM / IPMA / PMSA / OTG); project management methodology with emphasis on Prince2 and SCRUM; organisation maturity for project management; process; the transition from practitioner to project manager
• PLANNING AND SCOPE FORMULATION:
  The purpose of project planning; IS project planning techniques and approaches; process-intrinsic (SDLC) versus user-intrinsic (Agile/Iterative) planning norms and standards; the performance, quality, cost and time relationship; scope formulation process
• SCOPE MANAGEMENT:
  Project charter; evaluating a project scope; defining a statement of work (SOW); work breakdown structures (WBS); dependencies and estimating; IS activity schedules and impact on project scope; scope creep and scope changes on IS projects
• CONFIGURATION AND GOVERNANCE:
  Project management methodologies; proper project governance; project metrics; the different dimensions of true project status; achieving project delivery via proper communication
• ISSUE AND RISK MANAGEMENT:
  Project risk management; risk evaluation and mitigation; typical information technology risks and mitigation strategies; issue management; IS projects in the business environment and the impact of operations and other projects on issues and risks
• TIME AND COST MANAGEMENT:
  The non-linear relationship between IS project cost and time; measuring IS project activities; the Gantt chart as a management tool; earned value, critical path and critical chain basics
• QUALITY MANAGEMENT:
  Project performance baselines; embedding IS project quality into the WBS; formal assessment of project quality; role of end-users in ensuring project quality
• COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT:
  Project governance; communication; management requirements for project communication; communication objects, methods and events; developing a management summary of the project status
• MONITORING AND CONTROLING PROJECTS:
  Above- and below-the-line activities; role of the project management office (PMO); project progress reports; earned value management; corrective actions
• PROJECT CLOSURE:
  Benefits realisation to ensure organisational outcomes from project deliverables; administrative closure versus contractual closure; categorising of IS project endings (integration, starvation, addition, extinction, etc.); delivering project outputs to derive organisational outcomes

NQF complexity level

Assessment:

A home assignment, to be completed by individual participants, or syndicates with maximum of 5 persons, to be submitted 7 weeks after the course work is completed. Pass mark 60%.

Date and Venue

1 programme (duration 5 days)

• 10 - 14 September 2012

Class times: 08:15-17:30

Fees

R12 900

Fees include programme fees, programme material, lunch and refreshments, and are payable before the commencement of the programme.

Cancellation Policy

It is of utmost importance that USB-ED be formally notified in writing of cancellation 14 days prior to the commencement date of the programme.

A cancellation fee of 10% will be payable for cancelling fewer than 14 days prior to the commencement of the programme.

Please note that programme fees, faculty and dates are subject to change.