Recognized by Financial Times as Top 3 in the World for Executive Education Open Programs
Executive Education
12–13 April 2016
Arlington, Virginia
Project Management
for Executives
In the last few years, project management has changed from a
tools-and-methods approach to a holistic, contextual, behavioral
and technical competency-based discipline. In fact, at a
societal level, project management principles are being diffused
throughout the public, private and industrial sectors.
Organizations increasingly rely on professional project or
program managers to drive complex projects that are critical
to the firm’s financial health and success. Quite often, those
leading project teams have little or no project management
experience.
Project Management for Executives
provides the
language, philosophy and tools necessary to lead even more
complex projects from inception through completion.
At a Glance
When considering stakeholders, the speed of communications and data flow, and enterprise-wide integrated systems and processes, the science of project management is becoming more complex. Virtually all businesses today run projects that are becoming extremely challenging due to increased product complexity and the need for cross-functional expertise. Challenges to effective project management include managing and mitigating risk, defining and managing project scope and expenses,
successfully navigating uncertainty, and aligning and motivating multinational project teams.
Customers demand greater functional integration in their products along with a reduction in size, weight and energy consumption. Project management methodologies provide structure to planning activities, utilizing resources and minimizing risks. Professionals conceptualizing and managing projects must be skilled in the methods and tools that support project management. In this course, you will acquire the knowledge and skills to approach projects with confidence.
Participants
This course is designed for leaders who manage complex projects but are not technical project managers (or PMI professionals). Those who work in cross-functional teams, manage multiple initiatives or are responsible for delivering results on defined strategies will benefit from this course.
The Program
During two days of meetings, we will consider project selection and portfolio management, planning and
organization, scope and requirements determination, control, network analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation for project risk analysis. Topics covered will include resource allocation, project monitoring and project contracting, the goal of which is to prepare participants for the planning and execution of large-scale projects. The instructors will lead discussions on the continuum of project management frameworks from traditional to agile and the many interactions in between; the challenges of managing projects as an entrepreneur; and the challenges associated with managing global, multinational projects, including how to manage an entire portfolio. Finally, we will raise your awareness of behavioral decision-making biases that come to play in project settings. Using vibrant, interactive, case-based discussions, we will address these topics from a strategic and decision-oriented perspective using a broad set of industry domains, such as construction, website and software development, new product development, pharmaceuticals and event planning.
Schedule & Topics
• Introduction to Project Management • Complexity
• Portfolio and Selection Analysis
• Stakeholders, Risk, Failure and Recovery • Global Project Management
• Planning Fallacies and Behavioral Biases
12 – 13 April 2016
Where You’ll Excel
The course will provide a deeper understanding of:
•Fundamentals of Project Management: lifecycle, project management continuum (traditional to Agile), setting project objectives, scoping a project, scheduling projects (fundamentals of networks), resource allocation optimization and heuristics, project control, overview of project management tools.
•Organizing Projects: conceptual design, estimating and scheduling, and contracts.
•Risk and Uncertainty: risk identification and uncertainty theory, assessment for international projects, risk mitigation strategies, managing trade-offs in a high-risk environment, planning schedule and costs in light of uncertainties, momentum, failure and recovery.
•Portfolio and Project Selection: Portfolio > Program > Project. Project selection and coordination and linkage to business strategy. •Project Planning and Human Behavior: human behavior biases,
psychological safety and behavioral operations, the planning fallacy and its possible remedies.
•Agile Planning and Estimation: the need for an iterative process, the Agile and Kanban methods, implementing Agile in a global, multinational setting.
•Competencies for PMs: project management competencies, leadership personality factors, performance-based competencies, global performance-based competencies. •Leadership and the Project Manager:
project champions, stakeholder theory, how the project manager leads, building and motivating teams, managing multinational and public/private project teams.
•Leading Complex Virtual Teams
•Global Issues: managing multinational teams, global risk, success factors for global teams and a survey of unique project management methods.
Outcomes
• The ability to take an idea, develop a scope of work or determine
requirements, estimate the cost and schedule, and complete a risk analysis. • Exposure to a suite of professional project management tools and
techniques available to help control the project from design through delivery. • The ability to evaluate risk, as well as to organize, track and reasonably report on progress towards predetermined milestones.
• An understanding of the diverse nature and interest of project stakeholders, how to determine who are the project champions and how to communicate and coordinate their participation.
• An understanding of why certain projects are selected and others rejected and how these decisions relate to an organization’s strategy.
Take yourself and your organization
to higher levels of performance
through Darden Executive Education
at the University of Virginia. Thanks
to its founder, Thomas Jefferson,
U.Va. is the cradle of independent
and innovative thinking in America.
We believe great leaders never stop
learning and that great organizations
never wait to move forward.
Through our custom and
open-enroll-ment programs in Charlottesville,
Virginia, Washington, D.C., and around
the globe, we equip you and your
team for the higher-level strategic
thinking and decision-making
necessary to imagine tomorrow and
take the bold actions required to
create what’s next.
YAEL GRUSHKA-COCKAYNE
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Grushka-Cockayne’s research and teaching activities focus on forecasting, project management, strategic and behavioral decision-making. Her research is published in numerous academic and professional journals, and she is a regular speaker at international conferences in the area of decision analysis, project management and management science. She is also an award-winning teacher, winning the Darden Morton Leadership Faculty Award in 2011, the University of Virginia’s Mead-Colley Award in 2012 and the Darden Outstanding Faculty Award in 2013. Yael teaches the core decision analysis course and an elective she designed on project management. Before starting her academic career, she worked in San Francisco, California, as a marketing director of an Israeli ERP company. As an expert in the area of project management, she has served as a consultant to international firms in the aerospace and petroleum industries. She is a U.Va. Excellence in Diversity fellow and a member of INFORMS, the Decision Analysis Society, the Operational Research Society and the Project Management Institute (PMI). She is also currently the secretary/treasurer of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society.
GERALD D. STARSIA
Senior Associate Dean and Chief Operating Officer
at the Darden School of Business
Starsia has been at the University of Virginia for almost 14 years, initially as the senior associate dean for administration at the McIntire School of Commerce and currently in a dual role as the senior associate dean and Chief Operating Officer with both the Darden School of Business and the Darden School Foundation. His academic credentials include a Master of Business Administration from the University of Connecticut and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Virginia. His portfolio includes finance, audit and accounting, human resources, facilities and grounds, hospitality, and risk management and compliance with an enterprise operating budget of $110 million, an endowment valued at over $425 million, and a staff of over 400.
In addition to his administrative duties, he teaches leadership and project management in the
undergraduate, graduate and executive programs at both McIntire and Darden, teaches an online course titled “Leadership and Management” at McIntire, and in the spring of 2015 is leading a Global Business Experience course titled: “Leading Complex Global Projects.” His academic interests are in the areas of leadership, project management and strategy. Prior to his tenure at U.Va., he spent over 20 years in the real estate and construction industries in roles including project manager, project executive, principal and consultant, and for over a decade, founder and CEO of a real estate development company located in the northeastern U.S. specializing in medical design-build projects.
www.darden.virginia.edu/executive-education
[email protected]
+1-877-833-3974 U.S./Canada
+1-434-924-3000 Worldwide
Executive Education programs are offered by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted entirely to the welfare of the Darden School of Business. The Darden School Foundation fully supports equal opportunity in employment and access to educational opportunities. Information is subject to change without prior notice.
