BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management

Managing and Controlling Projects

Learn to Allocate Project Resources
Understand The Various Change Control Procedures
Define Quality and Learn The Various Terms Associated With it
Understand the Relationship between Programmes and Projects
Learn from Certified Instructors
Train from Globally Known Training Providers

Project planning, monitoring and control and change control have always been at the helm of affairs while managing an organisation and the various processes in it. To successfully manage projects in an agile manner current or aspiring Project Managers can enroll for The BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management. This course provides an understanding of the principles of project management, along with those that relate to project planning, monitoring and control, change control and configuration management. Besides, it also helps the delegates to understand effort estimation, quality and risk management and communication between project stakeholders. We, at Pentagon Training, help the delegates learn the course from those who are certified in this course.

Who should take this course

Those who are affected by IT Projects whether directly or indirectly fall under the scope of the program. Also, the course is aimed at delegates who are new to project management and work within an IT project environment.

Prerequisites

The course has no prerequisites but a training with a BCS accredited training provider is recommended.

What Will You Learn

By the end of the course the delegates will have become familiar with the following concepts:

Planning Projects and their purpose
Implementation Strategies
How Products and Activities are related
Resource Allocation
Work Schedules, Gantt Charts
How to Monitor and Control Projects
Change Control Procedures
What is Quality Control and Quality Assurance
Approaches to Estimating
Risk – Identification and Prioritisation
Relationship between Programmes and Projects

Key Learning Points

Courseware

Tutor Support

Course Overview

This course is a suitable addition for individuals alraedy having PRINCE qualification.

At a high level, PRINCE2 provides a framework for projects in terms of what needs to be done, by whom and by when. The Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management provides a range of techniques of how those things can be done. The course provides an explanation and an analysis of various estimating techniques that are available so that a Project Manager or Business Analyst can decide which would be most suitable to use.

Exam

The BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management exam is taken on the afternoon of the last day of the course. The delegates are given a period of one hour to answer the 40 questions. They need to score 26 marks out of 40 to pass this multiple-choice closed book exam. Candidates passing the examination are awarded the BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management.

Projects and Project Work
- The definition of projects, as opposed to other types of work
- Terms of reference for a project
- The purpose of project planning and control
- The typical activities in a system development life-cycle
- System and project life cycles
- Variations on the conventional project life cycle, such as the use of prototypes or an iterative approach (e.g. the creation and testing of a series of versions of a product that converge on the final deliverable) or incremental approach (i.e. the phased creation and delivery of a series of products to users)
- Implementation strategies e.g. parallel running, ‘sudden death’, use of pilots
- Purpose and content of business case reports; the utilization and significance of discounted cash flows in such reports (Note: knowledge of the method of calculation is NOT required)
- Types of planning document: project initiation documents; project and stage plans, quality plan, communications plan, risk plan
- Post implementation review
Project Planning
- Project deliverables and intermediate products
- Work and product breakdowns
- Product definitions (including the identification of derived from, and component of relationships between products)
- Relationship between products and activities in a project
- Checkpoints and milestones
- Lapsed time and effort required for activities
- Activity networks (using ‘activity on node’ notation)
- Calculation of earliest and latest start and end dates of activities and resulting float
- Identification and significance of critical paths
- Resource allocation, smoothing and levelling, including the use of resource histograms
- Work schedules and Gantt charts
Monitoring and Control
- The project control life cycle: including planning, monitoring achievement, identifying variances, taking corrective action
- The nature of, and the purposes for which, information is gathered
- Collecting progress information
  - Timesheets,
  - Team development meetings
  - Error and change reports etc
- Presenting progress information
  - Content of progress reports
  - Graphical presentation of progress information e.g. accumulative resource charts (also known as S-curve charts)
  - Use of earned value analysis, including where it would be applied in project life-cycle (Note: it is not expected that candidates be able to calculate and interpret earned value figures)
- The reporting cycle
  - Reporting structures in projects
  - Timing, personnel and purpose of different types of reporting meetings
- Corrective action
  - Tolerance and contingency
  - Exception reports and plans
  - Management procedures involved in changing plans
  - Options, including extending or staggering deadlines, increasing resources, reducing Functionality or quality requirements, cancelling the project, etc.
- Change Control and Configuration Management
  - Reasons for change and configuration management
  - Change control procedures
    - Role of change control boards
    - Generation of change requests
    - Change request evaluation (e.g. its impact on the business case)
    - Change request authorisation
  - Configuration management
    - Purpose and procedures
    - Identification of configuration items
    - Product baselines
    - Configuration management databases: content and use
  - Quality
    - Definitions of the term ‘quality’ e.g. ‘fitness for purpose’
    - Quality control versus quality assurance
    - Defining quality: definition and measurement
    - Detection of defects during the project life cycle
    - Quality procedures: entry, process and exit requirements
    - Defect removal processes, including testing and reviews
    - Types of testing (including unit, integration, user acceptance, and regression testing)
    - The inspection process, peer reviews
    - Principles of IS0 9001:2000 quality management systems
    - Supplier evaluation
  - Estimating
    - Effects of over and under-estimating
    - Effort versus duration; relationship between effort and cost
    - Estimates versus targets
    - Use of expert judgement (advantages and disadvantages)
    - The Delphi approach
    - Top-down estimating
      - Identification of size drivers (e.g. function points etc)
      - Identification of productivity rates (e.g. function points per day)
      - Need for past project data to establish productivity rates
      - Factors affecting productivity rates (e.g. staff experience)
      - Estimation of effort for new projects using productivity rates and size drivers
    - Bottom-up approaches to estimating
    - Use of analogy in estimating
  - Risk
    - Definition of the term ‘risk’; components of risk: risk events (or triggers), probability, impact
    - Ways of categorising risk, e.g. business versus project
    - Identification and prioritisation of risk
    - Assessment of risk exposure (i.e. combining consideration of potential damage and chance of loss)
    - Risk responses and actions: risk prevention, reduction, acceptance, transfer and contingency planning
    - Typical risks associated with information systems development
    - Assessment of the costs/benefits of risk reduction activities
    - Maintenance of risk registers and risk logs
  - Project Communications and Project Organisation
    - Relationship between programmes and projects
    - Identifying stakeholders and their concerns
    - The project sponsor
    - Establishment of the project authority (e.g. project board, steering committee, etc.)
    - Membership of project board/steering committee
    - Roles and responsibilities of project board, project manager, stage manager, team leader
    - Desirable characteristics of project manager
    - Role of project support office
    - The project team and matrix management
    - Reporting structures and responsibilities
    - Management styles and communication (including same time/same place; same time/different place, different time/same place, different time/different place)
    - Team building (including phases of team cohesion e.g. forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning)

Team dynamics

About Colchester

Colchester is a large historic city and the main settlement within the Colchester region in Essex country. During 2011 census, it had 121,859 population which was a substantial rise from the preceding survey and with considerable growth since 2001 and continuing structure plans, it has been called as one of Britain's wildest emerging towns. The Colchester is involved to be the oldest town in Britain. It was for a time the capital of Roman Britain and is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network.

Colchester is some 50 miles northeast of London and is associated with the capital by the A12 road and the Great Eastern Main Line. It is understood as a popular town for commuters and is less than 30 miles away from Stansted Airport and 20 miles from the nearside ferry port of Harwich.

Colchester is home to Colchester Castle and Colchester United Football Club. It has a Traditional Member of Parliament, Will Quince, who was chosen in the 2015 General Election. The correct demonym is Colcestrian. The River Colne goes through the town.

Climate:

Colchester is in one of the driest areas of the United Kingdom with average annual precipitation at 635 mm, although among the wetter places in Essex. Colchester is usually stared as having an Oceanic weather like the rest of the United Kingdom. Its easterly position within the British Isles makes Colchester less prone to Atlantic despairs and weather facades but more prone to lacks.

This is due to the fact that the most areas in South-East England, Colchester's weather is prejudiced more by Mainland weather designs than by Atlantic weather systems. This leads to a dry climate likened to the rest of the UK all year round and chance excesses of temperatures during the year and quite a few nights below freezing during the winter months. Any rainfall that does come from Atlantic climate systems is typically light, but a few heavy showers and thunderstorms can take place during the summer. Snow falls on average 13 days a year during winter and early spring.

Governance:

The Member of Parliament for Colchester is Will Quince. Colchester Borough Council is the local authority. Control of the borough council has approved between the Traditionalists and Liberal Democrats or has been under no general power, in new years. The political configuration of the board as of the 2015 election:

The town is also branded on Essex County Council, covering six County electoral divisions. Villages within the area are meant by various parish councils. The urban area of Colchester includes only one parish council with the rest of Colchester Town being unparished.

The seat of local government is Colchester Town Hall, a late-Victorian baroque edifice by John Belcher. It is the latest in a sequence of local government structures to have erected on the same site since the 12th century. The 162-foot clock tower was obtainable by James Paxman; it is surpassed by a figure of St Helena, who is related by legend to the town.