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 Reading

Located in Berkshire, Reading is a large and historically significant town. It was an important center of trade as well as religion in the medieval period. The Reading Abbey, still has its 12th century abbey gateway and significant ruins intact. Due to the English Civil War the town was damaged severely, causing a significant loss in trade. Reading also played an important role in the Revolution of 1688. It is where the revolution's only significant military action was took place. The Great Western Railway , the brewing business, baking and seed growing all happened in 19th century. Now,Reading boasts of being a major commercial centre, that involves information technology and insurance. Reading has, despite its nearness to London, a net inward traveler flow.

Reading came up as a settlement way back in the 8th century. It had become the largest town in Berkshire by 1525 and had a population of around 5000 in the early 17th Century. It was in the 18th century that major iron works in the town came up and the city saw the growth of the brewing business for which Reading is known till date. It was in the 19th century that Reading saw the growth of manufacturing business also.

Economy

Reading is a vital commercial centre in the Thames Valley and Southern England. It is home to the headquarters of many British companies and UK offices of foreign multinationals. It is also a major retail centre. Daily Reading has an inflow of 30,000 commuters as compared to 24,000 departures. Large companies such as Microsoft and Oracle have their headquarters in Reading. Other businesses in Reading are Prudential, PepsiCo and Wrigley. In 2007, an independent poll placed Reading 16th in a league table of best performing retail centres in the UK.

Culture

Reading is known for its Reading Beer Festival which was first held in 1994 and is now known to be one of the largest beer festivals in the UK. It takes place at King's Meadow for the five days immediately preceding the May Day bank holiday every year. Reading Pride also takes place at Reading, an annual LGBTA festival in Kings Meadow.

Museums

The Museum of Reading contains galleries that showcase the history of Reading . The museum is also home to the excavations of Calleva Atrebatum. It also houses a full-size replica of the Bayeux Tapestry, an art collection, and galleries relating to Huntley and Palmers.

Located in East Reading, The Museum of English Rural Life,is dedicated to the changing face of rural England. It also has collections of public value. It is not only owned but also managed by the University of Reading. The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, the Cole Musum of Zoology and the Harris Botanic Gardens are also under the same management. All these museums can be found on the university's Whiteknights Campus.

There is also a small Riverside Museum at Blake's Lock which tells one about Reading's two rivers, the Thames and the Kennet. The Museum of Berkshire Aviation houses a collection of aircraft and other aviation accessories.