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 Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes also abbreviated as MK is a large town located in Buckinghamshire, England. It was designed as a new town on 23 January 1967 and also an administrative centre of Borough of Milton Keynes. It is located 45 miles that is 72 km away from north-west of London.

Various another town like Bletchley, Wolverton and Stony Stratford exist here along with other 15 villages and farmland. Milton Keynes took its name from existing “Village of Milton Keynes “that is few miles away from the planned centre.

History of Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes has a rich history with proof of human settlement that was found before starting the construction of this city in 1960’s. When UK government decided to establish Milton Keynes, most of the area was farmland, and undeveloped villages and the earlier history was incredibly rich. Until the 10^th century, there was no evidence of occupation in villages. During middle age, 18 villages were present that still form the heart of Milton Keynes districts. With the arrival of London and Birmingham Railway and Grand Junction canal in late 18^th and 19^th century, the area went through many changes and the new town of Wolverton, and New Bradwell emerged.

The greatest change in the history of Milton Keynes was when it was chosen to solve housing problems in London. Milton Keynes was planned as biggest towns and have an area of 89 square kilometres that became home to around 250,000 people. In the beginning, no building was allowed to be tall than the tallest tree, and later Milton Keynes Partnership changed it. Tallest building in Milton Keynes is 14 floors high. Its population will double by the year 2026.

Milton Keynes offers a broad range of opportunities to people to learn new things and get a better education. Bletchley Park code breakers brought innovation to the city in second world war. This team cracked secret codes of Germans. Milton Keynes is a destination that is always passionate about developing minds. It contains some of the best schools and colleges. Milton Keynes College offers a wide range of courses in different domains. It is one of the fastest growing college in the United Kingdom.

Open University offers contemporary learning where degree level education is provided to everyone. The headquarters of the university is located at Walton Hall in Milton Keynes. There is also University Centre Milton Keynes ( UCMK) which is a hub for higher education with new facilities and exciting courses in the middle of the city. This town also contains a solar-powered house that plays a significant role in the development of electric transport. Various courses, classes and opportunities are offered by Milton Keynes Theatre Creative Learning department to young people and adults to explore theatres including makeup, drama, acting and much more.

Sport

Milton Keynes has various professional teams in football, in ice hockey and in Formula one. It is also home to Xscape indoor ski slope, Formula Fast Indoor Karting Centre, Airkix Indoor Sky Diving facility and National Badminton Centre.

Economy

At Borough level, data of Milton Keynes economy, demography and politics is collected. Milton Keynes is one of the most successful economies in Southeast along with gross value added per capita index which was 47% higher than the national average. According to 2015 data, average wages place it in top five nationally.

Just 0.6% of businesses employ people more than 250 which include Open University, Volkswagen Group, Mercedes-Benz and Network Rail. Remaining enterprises around 81.5% employ near about 10 people. Milton Keynes professional, technical and scientific sector contributes large employment. Milton Keynes has a high number of business start-ups in England and start-up levels remained high even during the period of recession 2009/2010. Most of the population is younger. 22.6% of Borough population is under 16, 12.1% are aged 65+. According to 2011 census report, Milton Keynes Urban area comprises of 8.7% South Asian, 78.4% white, 3.5% Mixed Race, 7-5% Black, 1.2% Chinese, 6.7% other ethnic group and Asian.