Teaching the Fine Art Of Project Management
Doug Sinclair of Atlantic Information Systems explains how project management can be learned, and the payoff is huge.
BEST’S REVIEW: Many people just think in terms of tasks and goals and not necessarily project management. So why the focus on project management?
DOUG SINCLAIR: Well, because good project management flat out works, and if done correctly, it works elegantly. Adopting good project management causes a dramatic decrease in the frequency and the size of budget and schedule overruns. It also significantly increases the likelihood of projects completing as specified. Improved project performance results in improved project portfolio performance, which in turn positively impacts the enterprise’s overall financial performance. By far, the single best and most cost-effective way to implement good project management is through training.
BR: AIS offers a best practices based training course for project managers. What is it about the course that makes it unique?
SINCLAIR: We actually offer quite a number of courses for project managers. The course I believe you’re referring to, “Microsoft Project Real World Best Practices,” is indeed unique. First, it teaches Project Managers best practices that will enable them to spend less time managing their project plans and more time managing their projects. Second, where other Microsoft Project training focuses on teaching the tool, this course teaches Microsoft Project from the Project Manager’s point of view, that is, from the standpoint of actually managing a project. Third, it is based on best practices that have been proven to add significant value in the real world cauldron of project management. And for now, I’ll end by saying that this course has been specifically designed to address and incorporate each company’s unique requirements.
BR: On your site you refer to a Project Manger’s Toolbox and a Project Management Companion, along with some other items. What are those?
SINCLAIR: All students receive these in class. The Project Manager’s Toolbox is a Microsoft Project add-on that assists in managing risk, contingency, estimates and more. The Project Management Companion is a set of step-by-step, “how-to” checklists that also provides references back into the student workbook for the associated lessons. This, coupled with copies of the actual class files, enables students to practice new techniques in a safe sandbox prior to applying them to live production plans. Also, we provide a Student Support Webinar that runs 30 days after training concludes. All of these tools are intended to ensure that students can successfully apply lessons learned back at the workplace.
BR: What other services does AIS offer?
SINCLAIR: AIS offers three primary service domains: project management training, project management consulting and on-demand project management, where we actually provide PMs to our clients to manage projects for them when they don’t have the requisite skills set available at the time of need. The proverbial bottom line, if you will, is that at AIS we work to help our clients leverage the investments they’ve already made to manage their projects to better conclusions and with less demand on time. Doing so provides them with a significant sustainable long-term competitive advantage.
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