Project Management Workshops

ESI's project management workshops are tailored to meet your organization's objectives and the specific needs of your project managers and project team members. You provide the participants. We provide the expertise. Workshops are held at your preferred location.

Choose from Several Workshops

• The Project Advantage^®
• Countdown^®
• Project Management for Executives
• Project Management for Team Members

Countdown^® : A Strategy Game for Project Teams

• Build fast understanding of project management concepts, roles and responsibilities among project team members
• Develop a common understanding of project management among all members of your organization
• Give your new project managers experience from a team member's perspective
• Kick off your most important new projects with a dynamic launch vehicle
• Re-energize existing project teams and uncover ideas to improve value
• Introduce project management concepts within a larger training initiative

Countdown^®: Strategy Game for Project Teams is a one-day, high-energy business simulation that immerses participants in a mission-critical project-the development of a state-of-the-art customer information system, code-named Countdown^®.

In the first five minutes of the experience, learners are plunged into the thick of the simulated project. Within the hour, they are working with a Gantt chart, estimating potential delays and costs, evaluating the critical path, assessing project risks and making decision trade-offs.

No technical knowledge or project management experience is required. In this intensive learning activity, participants walk in and start managing a project! During the simulation, the project team encounters and must overcome many challenges, including changing requirements, new sponsors with new ideas, vendor delays, quality problems, budget cuts, resource constraints, conflicts with other teams working on interrelated projects, trade-offs of time vs. cost and cost vs. requirements, and a CEO who wants it done faster!

During Countdown^®, each team is introduced to a wide variety of processes, tools, behaviors and concepts fundamental to project management, and each experiences differing levels of success. Teams are introduced to a Project Success Model. They learn that success can come in many shapes and may be judged in a variety of ways depending on the project, the driving issues around the project and more. The Success Model is a "holistic" view of project success in organizational life.

Through the Countdown^® experience, participants understand what it is like to be on an effective project team. They've worked with key project management processes and used critical tools. And most importantly, they're better prepared to make important real projects succeed!

Countdown^® was developed by ESI and Paradigm Learning.

Project Management for Executives: Creating an Environment for Successful Project Management

The evolution of project management as the dominant approach to managing complex, time-constrained, cross-functional tasks has been documented extensively by the business press. According to Fortune magazine, "Project Management is evolving from a specialty into the central task of middle managers." For project management to work, organizational leaders must clearly understand its purpose and lexicon, enthusiastically support its concepts and regularly practice its techniques.

Learn the fundamental elements of project management and how to create an organizational culture conducive to its practice. Discover what makes an effective project manager-the specific competencies that differentiate between high and average performers-and how to empower a project manager to do the job.

As the executive with oversight responsibility for all projects in your organization, you'll benefit from expert advice on how to conduct a project review and when to relinquish projects that are not achieving their objectives. This session is highly customized and facilitated by ESI's senior personnel. Subsequent to in-person and/or telephonic interviews, the objectives of this session will be identified. Generally, the focus will be on operational and/or strategic issues that executives face. These include the concepts, tools, techniques and philosophy behind project management-the modern approach to adding value to the business.

Project Management for Team Members

Now that you're a project manager, does your team relate to your direction and leadership? This two-day workshop helps maximize the advantages of a structured project management environment. Designed for the project management team, participants learn the basics of effectively and efficiently managing projects. Turn your team over to ESI experts and we'll get them up to speed.

Through case studies, team members learn about tools and techniques for planning, executing, and controlling complex projects. They'll see how to execute a project from concept to closeout. They'll learn how to identify and sequence tasks, estimate durations and costs of tasks, schedule events and activities, and effectively utilize resources in functional areas and in the entire project. They'll also learn techniques for identifying, analyzing, prioritizing, and responding to risks, as well as when and where to apply those techniques. Special attention is paid to strategies for improving project management support, including working as a team member to define a project's scope.

After mastering the key theories, concepts, and practices, your team will apply this knowledge in practical learning activities. Individual and small group exercises help develop the necessary skills so that when they return to the project environment, everyone can participate fully and responsively in completing a project on time, within budget, and according to specification.