Foundations for Project Management

Projects are carried out by people. Therefore, in the first part of the workshop, we will look at the project as a temporary organization. We will also delve into the world of programs and the mindset of portfolio managers. All this is to understand the broader business and social context and learn how to build effective project teams.

We will start by understanding ways to avoid the project manager being left alone with the project. Participants will learn how to build effective project teams and a good environment for their operation. We will also discuss ways to create a team of people who, besides the project, have many other responsibilities and often different priorities. We will devote considerable attention to developing people through projects and building their engagement.

An important topic will also be understanding the perspective of programs. In particular, we will focus on how value is created from collaboration between projects that share a common goal. Participants will also understand the role of project managers when their project is part of a larger whole.

Finally, we will look at the perspective of portfolio managers to better understand their decisions regarding the selection of the right projects, prioritization, and the allocation of organizational resources. This will also be a great opportunity to get to know the Kanban approach, which is useful at every level of management.

In the second part of the workshop, we will start working on the participants’ projects in working groups. Unlike the “classic” approach to projects, where the team focuses on simply delivering products, this workshop is entirely focused on value. Therefore, our first task will be to understand the long-term goals that the projects we will be working on are meant to achieve.

Understanding the purpose of a project not only helps to better define its scope but also completely changes the approach of the team and key stakeholders. That is why we will start by learning how to talk about the value delivered by the project and how to define it well.

Next, we will focus on what should happen after the project to ensure that long-term goals have a chance to be achieved. We will also learn about the factors necessary to ensure the sustainable delivery of value. All of this is to avoid problems after the project and to ensure that the project’s results do not disappear immediately after its completion.

We will end this part by looking at two key roles in the project: the project manager and the sponsor. We will analyze them from the perspective of delivering value and ensuring the sustainability of the project’s results. Participants will also learn the principles of designing governance bodies such as steering committees or sponsor teams.

The next part of the workshop is entirely dedicated to identifying key stakeholders, analyzing them, studying their expectations, and planning appropriate forms of dialogue with them. All of this is to achieve a high level of their engagement and ensure a constructive contribution to the project’s work and the delivery of value after its completion.

First, we will identify the key stakeholders, with an emphasis on those crucial for the sustainable delivery of value after the project ends. These stakeholders are often overlooked, yet they should frequently be a part of the core team.

Next, we will look at the project from the perspective of various stakeholders. We will consider their goals and concerns, and how they might react to the project. Participants will understand the difference between managing stakeholders and engaging them. We will also learn about the factors influencing their resistance or engagement. Participants will also learn the basic principles of effective communication.

The final step will be to build a stakeholder engagement strategy, with particular emphasis on the role of the sponsor as the project’s “guardian angel”.

Now that we know what we aim to achieve and who to involve, we can start working on the detailed scope and strategy for project implementation. At this point, it will be crucial to understand exactly what needs to be done and how much we can predict in advance. This will determine the choice of the project management approach.

We will begin by defining the state we want to achieve at the end of the project. Knowledge of how the sponsor intends to achieve value will be useful for this. It is with the sponsor that the project’s completion criteria will be negotiated.

In the next step, we will work on the project’s requirements and scope, primarily trying to understand how much we can predict in advance. Along the way, we will define the parts that need to be delivered by the project, as well as those that stakeholders should take care of on their own. We will also determine what to do with dependencies on other projects.

Finally, participants will learn about different project management approaches: predictive, iterative, incremental, and adaptive (agile). They will also learn how to combine them within a single project. This knowledge will be used to build the first project roadmap, outlining its stages, streams, and milestones.

We will conclude the workshop with a reflection on team organization, the approach to delegation, and the roles of the project manager and sponsor from this perspective.