Professional Services Overview

The consultants at OfficeWork Professional Services are experts in project management, both from training and application perspectives.  Our training and consultations have the benefit of years of hands-on experience with what really works.

Courses We Offer:

Project Management Training	Successful Project Estimating Training

The most common requests we receive from our clients are for solutions that address an environment dealing with:

• Mid to Large-scale projects with personnel in different locations
• Multiple demands on managers' time, and a lack of time to get the job done.
• The need to identify factors that cause project failure early on.
• The need for a consistent project management (PM) process and common language
• The need to develop project managers and ensure they have a strong, fundamental skill set.
• The need for an easy to use PM process or methodology with supporting tools.
• The need for PM to really make a difference in the operation of the company or organization.
• The need to bring real, current projects into the training sessions - enabling a more effective training session
• The need for accurate information on project progress, issues, and risks.

To address these needs we offer the following courses:

Project Management for Technical Professionals (2 Days)

Project Management Overview (1 Day)   

Successful Project Estimating

These courses deal with the pernicious issues that come up in just about every project.  We address them at their root so that students are equipped with the ‘whys’ as well as the ‘hows’ in managing your company’s projects. 

Courses cover the following:

1. Project Definition

How to define a project in concrete terms (what is the problem to be solved) without assuming a solution.  It's hard to chart a course if you don't know the target.  Yet, so many times projects start with an unclear objective, or an assumption that a certain solution is the answer.  This is getting the solution before the requirements; with the common result of significant rework and overruns of schedule and budget. 

Effective project definition is the key to managing scope, and ensuring that project goals will be met, and that clients satisfied.

2. Defining roles and responsibilities, including key stakeholders and how to involve them appropriately in the process

Projects fail when the team does not understand or agree to their role on the project.  These must be defined and agreed to if their participation will be effective.  The project structure must be properly configured in order to keep everyone involved.

Roles and Responsibilities must include adequate project facilitation, including responsibility matrices.

The planning process must follow a deliverable or results oriented process.  Also those involved in the work should be involved in the planning.  This gives the most comprehensive plan.  It also averts the biggest flaws in estimation accuracy.  Components of a work plan include a project definition document, a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that properly divides the project into meaningful deliverables, required skill sets, resources, and rationally based estimates

4. How to prepare accurate estimates

Project definition and planning are the pre-requisites to estimating.  Without these prior steps, the estimates are not worth the paper on which they are printed. A survey of systems development organizations revealed 70% of all projects underestimated by over 167%.  An analysis of project estimation reveals the same problems over and over again.

Successful estimation requires a process that adequately factors in where the project is in its lifecycle - since better estimates are more likely later into the project.  But estimates early on set expectations as to how the project will be staffed.  Sizing vs. Estimate.

Also consider the importance of the basis for an estimate.  Many times the estimate is only a wish.

5.  How to identify, reduce and manage possible risks to a project

Risk management is an essential component of project management.  It involves the process of risk assessment (identification and quantification) and risk planning (managing to mitigate risks from becoming real problems or reducing their damage).  Failure to examine the project's assumptions is the most common root cause for project failure.

6. How to manage change requests and control "scope creep"

The project's scope must be properly defined and agreed to in advance, or scope creep will prevail.  A statement of what is NOT in scope is also critical.  Even so change must be assessed in a controlled, disciplined manner, as it may be beneficial.  They key is that it must be managed.  Change must be assessed for impacts to requirements, design, budget, estimates, and schedules.  If these are not rationally addressed for meaningful trade-offs of cost, schedule, and scope, then change is not being managed.  They project runs the likelihood of missing its targets.

Changes to the project cannot be made on the fly, regardless of who is requesting them.

7. How to schedule

Scheduling is a fairly mechanical step once planning and estimation have been properly addresses.  Minus these pre-requisites, the schedule is not worth the paper it's printed on.  Critical Path, slack, lag, float can be useful scheduling concepts, provided the concepts are understood.  Be sure to pick a scheduling solution that matches your requirements.  Some solutions are so time consuming that the project may complete before the schedule is published!  Tools such as Microsoft Project can be very useful in the scheduling process, but it is wise to understand their limitations.

8. How to (finally!) complete the project

How do we bring closure and completion to the project?  How do we plan for and implement passing on from the implementation team to the maintenance team? 

Most projects have no specific plans or resources allocated to move a new system from implementation to management, so it stays in the hands of the implementation team that doesn't have the resources or talents to maintain it.  It also keeps the implementation/project team from moving on to the next project.

OfficeWork's courses address this problem with comprehensive implementation and transition planning.  It is essential to obtain agreement at the beginning of the project for successful completion and acceptance criteria.  When this step is not adequately defined and agreed to by the necessary stakeholders the project will not be perceived as successful.

9. How to measure to success of the product

Measures for project and product success must be determined at the beginning of the project.  What are appropriate metrics?  What is the business problem being solved?  What is the value of the solution?  While these measures may change during the life of the project, these questions must have measurable answers at the time of project approval. 

10. Tools, Techniques, and Processes

In our Project Management courses we give students tools that they can take away and use for immediate results.  Students will receive practical guidelines, checklists, and templates.  We even offer Microsoft Project templates that allow the project a quick start.

About OfficeWork Professional Services

OfficeWork Professional Services – a division of OfficeWork Software – is comprised of a staff of world-class practitioners in project management and information technology.  To transfer our success to your company we have developed methodology, templates, guidelines, processes, and tools that really work. Also, having run systems development organizations for large corporations, we have first-hand, practical knowledge of what works and what doesn't.  We can guarantee that your company will be suited for success.