Organizations run projects for several reasons. These can be for making new products, gaining a technological advancement, complying with a regulation, etc. No matter what the reason is, successful project delivery is key to a sustainable business. And, successful project delivery can be achieved by organizing successful corporate project management training programs to train project and non-project people in the organization.
There are three main alternatives for enterprise project management training in an organization:
- Technical/Certification Training (PMP, Agile, CSM, Leading SAFe, etc.)
- Tools Training (MS Project, Excel, Jira, etc.)
- PM Foundations for Business People
Let’s explore each option one by one now:
Corporate Project Management Training
Projects are initiated, executed, and completed to sustain the business of an organization. There are severe consequences of poor project management in organizations. For instance, if there are lots of failing projects in an organization, it might impact the planned revenue and bring a financial loss, project overruns, and can even cause the bankruptcy of the organization in the long run. Therefore, organizations invest in their employees to improve their project delivery competence to ensure successful project delivery. Corporate project management training programs are organized and decided by project management officers or senior employees in a project management office.
When we surveyed the 425 participants who attended our corporate training programs, schedule delays, incompetent resources, and project cost overruns are the most common issues in project delivery organizations.
These results reveal two important points:
- Almost every organization suffers from project overruns
- The top two project management issues in organizations are project overruns and incompetent resources.
Actually, project overruns and incompetent resources are cause-and-effect related to each other. The incompetent resources in an organization most probably cause project overruns.
Organizations mainly run three different corporate project management training programs to train their employees to ensure successful project delivery. Technical or Certification training programs are organized to increase the technical knowledge of the resources. Tools training programs are organized to increase the software competence of the resources using PM software or tools. Many organizations avoid training non-project people. However, successful companies train fundamental project management to non-project (operations) people in the organization as well. We will discuss each of these training options one by one now.
Technical/Certification Training
Every project team member must receive some technical training. It is especially important for the project managers or the team leads to build their technical project management knowledge and skills. This helps them in running day-to-day operations effectively as well as completing the projects successfully. Organizations often organize technical or certification training programs for their employees. And, since they know the importance of these programs, their employees receive several training courses from time to time.
If you possess excellent general management skills but have few technical project management skills, you will face some difficulties during the planning and executing of the project. For instance, when lacking technical skills, you will not be able to understand the specificities of the product or the project requirements. It will be harder for you to find the best solution to a problem. You won’t be able to add creativity to the project. Hence, acquiring technical training or certification is surely a necessity for the project teams as it helps them deliver the project successfully, taking it easily through all the ups and downs that come down the road.
When talking about corporate project management training, you can learn a whole lot of technical skills from these trainings. For instance, technical training will teach you how to estimate costs accurately during project planning. You will learn how to use certain techniques to estimate activities or resources correctly. Similarly, when working with project scope or dealing with risks, you will need to possess certain skills to ensure effective and realistic project management results. You will also need to know how to forecast the project cost or schedule. These are some of the few things that you need help with, and the technical training will make you competent in such matters.
Agile training
Technical skills training is not the only training that your employees might need. There are, many other types of training that could also be arranged for the employees. For example, someone may want to learn how to create project management plans or how to monitor projects. Or organization departments may need to learn advanced things such as change management, Agile, Lean Six Sigma, business analysis, earned value management, or more.
Let’s talk about Agile training specifically. How will it help your organization’s project management practices or the project directly? Well, Agile project management training is a way to improve the performance of your project by teaching the concepts of Agile project management. The Agile training will help your team to have increased adaptability and visibility. Being Agile, you will have more alignment with the customer requirements and can ensure increased product quality. In turn, you ensure customer satisfaction and better growth of the business.
If you attend Agile training, you will learn about different Agile project management methodologies like Scrum, XP, etc. You will learn how to define project scope and goals. You will also learn how to plan the projects in pieces and how to monitor them accordingly. Furthermore, you will learn how to integrate Agile into your project. Since Agile projects deliver value early and frequently, the customers are more satisfied as they get to see completed deliverables weekly or bimonthly instead of at the end of the project.
Master of Project Academy offers Agile and Scrum training courses. You can choose from our large catalog of offerings and get certified as an Agile Practitioner (PMI ACP) or Scrum Master. Follow this link to find out more about these great training courses
Benefits of technical corporate project management training
Likewise, these technical corporate project management training and certification programs are highly useful in today’s dynamic, advanced, and technology-driven workplaces. Moreover, as there are so many different things going on in the project, there is no limit on the technical corporate project management training options that you can use to grow your employee’s knowledge and help you out in your day-to-day project work. With the help of technical training or certification course, you can also become a good leader. If you take training in leadership, for instance, you can become a good leader who can lead the team to achieve the best results. Attending technical training, you can also learn how to use emotional intelligence or how to win a contract with your negotiation skills, or how to effectively resolve a conflict.
- Learn more about Master of Project Academy’s Leadership Program where your leaders will get instructive and hands-on training through interactive exercises, case studies, templates, and techniques that can be customized to your organization’s specific needs.
So, you see, there is no limit to technical project management training options. The more technical knowledge and skills you acquire, the easier it will be for you to deliver successful projects. If you decide to take one corporate project management training, then plan for more trainings in the future. This journey should never end as there are always countless opportunities available for you to grow.
Who can receive technical project management training?
Anyone can receive technical project management training. However, technical project management training is most suitable for project managers, team leaders, or other responsible managers. This training is equally beneficial for other roles too. For example, engineers, scientists, business analysts, R&D professionals, etc. can also benefit from such enterprise project management training programs.
Going one step further, getting certified in a relevant skill is even better. Once you have decided to take corporate project management training, why not put a little bit more effort and prepare for the certification? There will be many benefits if you decide to take a technical certification. For instance, it will enhance your professional credibility. Your CV will stand out among others if you list that you have earned a few certifications, Furthermore, certifications serve as portable proof of your abilities. The employers would know that you have learned skills and passed the certification exam. Not just that but, if you earn technical certifications, you enhance your self-image and reputation among friends, family, and peers. Career opportunities, a pay rise, and promotions are also some of the major benefits that you can gain from your technical certification.
Enterprise Project Management Tools Training
Organizations use different project management tools or software applications. E.g. MS Project Training, MS Excel, Jira, PPM. Employees who are using these tools must have to know how to use them. Hence, organizations plan these enterprise project management tools training programs to train their employees.
Different industries use different project management tools or software applications. Often, there is no way out other than using such an application to fulfil the project management needs. For instance, if you are working in the construction industry, you will need to schedule hundreds or thousands of project activities. It is impossible to schedule these activities using word processing applications such as Microsoft Word. For scheduling purposes, there are many software applications organizations use. Some of these include Oracle Primavera and Microsoft Project.
These scheduling software applications would help you not only schedule the activities but also plan, monitor, and report on project resources, costs as well as activities. When you are working on a project, you have fixed data and a budget to complete your project. And, without using such applications, you can never plan, execute and control your project.
How can corporate project management training help you improve your project scheduling?
Well, corporate project management training on Oracle Primavera will teach you how to create a project and develop a perfect work breakdown structure. Moreover, you will learn how to add relationships between the activities and include lag and lead to them. The training will also cover thoroughly resource planning. You will learn the ways to optimize resources and perform resource leveling to the over-allocated resources. Furthermore, in the training, you will learn tips and tricks to create a realistic, cost-effective, and optimized project plan.
Tools and Applications for IT industries
Moving forward, if we talk about IT industries, there is also a need for such tools and applications. Particularly in IT organizations, it becomes very difficult to deliver software products without first having the tools that are needed in software development. There are many software applications available in the market that help in software designing, development, testing, and transition. The enterprise project management training programs enable the IT teams to equip themselves with the knowledge that they need to use those tools and software applications. In fact, without these trainings, achieving the IT project objectives can be very hard.
Some of the commonly used software applications and tools that software houses use includes Jira, Github, Docker, Linx, Atom, and many other such applications. These applications help IT teams automate their work, create data repositories, share data, etc. Let’s take an example of the Jira software application. This software helps the IT team in bug tracking, issue tracking, and project management. So, for instance, if a software tester finds a bug in the software, he/she will create a ticket on Jira and assign it to the concerned person. That person will be notified of this and will start working on that work. The person who created the ticket can track the status of the ticket. An enterprise project management training would then enable the Jira users to understand the software and get the most out of it.
Other industries
Likewise, all other industries, whether it be Civil, Mechanical, Oil & Gas, all need to use different project management tools or software applications to do their day-to-day jobs easily and effectively. And this is only possible when the resources are trained on these software applications and the tools.
A little constraint with these tools or applications is that you cannot just install them and start using them right away. You need training first. That is the reason organizations arrange corporate project management training programs for their employees. And these programs also include training in such software applications and tools. Since organizations know that these tools have become project necessities, they spend money on such training programs.
When organizations spend money on software and tools training for their employees, they know that the employees will become more organized and more productive as a result of the training. Hence, the training always benefits both the trainees and the organization. And, to achieve the best results, organizations must assess the training needs of their employees, set training objectives, and arrange regular software applications and tools training. Enterprise project management tools training programs are often arranged in-house but can also be arranged outside of the organization as well as online.
PM Foundations for Business People
There are several causes for project overruns caused by non-project people or business people. Harvard Business Review analyzed several corporate company projects on this topic. The budgets and projected performance benefits of 1,471 projects were compared to the actual costs and outcomes. Based on this Harvard Business Review (HBR) research, the average overrun was 27%, but that figure hides a far more alarming figure. When the budget overruns of the projects are graphed, there is a “fat tail”—a large number of gigantic overruns. One out of every six projects analyzed by HBR was a black swan, with an average cost overrun of 200 percent and a schedule overrun of nearly 70 percent.
What does ‘competence’ mean?
Competence has several aspects. A sales manager must be skilled in sales, a software developer must be skilled in technical aspects, and a project manager must be skilled in project management. However, there is a certain fact that every role in an organization must have a fundamental level of project management knowledge.
If a sales manager is ignoring some of the technical requirements, they must be aware that it can cause project overruns. When a business analyst doesn’t analyze the project’s requirements in depth, they should expect delays when it comes time to explain those requirements later on in the project. When an HR employee delays approval or permission for a project team to enter the premises, they must be mindful that they could be causing project delays and cost or schedule overruns.
Enterprise-level project management awareness is essential for project delivery success. That is why we have created PM Core™ – Project Management for Business People Training program to educate non-project or business people about project management.
Summary
Any business should commit to allocating financial resources for the development and growth of its employees. Since the employees are the driving force of any business, they should attend regular corporate project management training to grow their skills and competencies. Many employers find it hard to spend money on such training programs. However, they should consider the benefits that come from this training. Some organizations hire extra resources to get the job done quicker or better. However, if they train the existing resources, they too can become more productive and perform better than before.
Why corporate project management training is important?
When the employees gain new knowledge and skills, it, in turn, helps the business grow. Moreover, technical projects have their own specific needs and challenges. These need to be looked at with a technical mindset. When you possess technical project management knowledge, it helps you deal with the processes and procedures of the project without being too stressed out. You will have enough skills to deal with technical challenges in the project whenever you face them. You start to develop your work practices. You start to see less friction in the work. There are also fewer issues and conflicts arising in different work areas. Hence, if your employees are more knowledgeable and skillful, they would surely bring more to the table. Furthermore, you can expect fewer issues and more positive results.
Furthermore, through corporate project management training, you uncover the weaknesses in the resources, identify them and help your resources improve. In turn, you enable better performance in your business. By utilizing trained resources, you will also identify more opportunities for improvement in your business and make efforts to capture them and reap the benefits.
Regularly involving your organization’s employees in the enterprise project management training will help them keep up with the industry trends. Since every industry and the markets are constantly changing, businesses must also make sure they are not lagging behind. In addition to the changing markets and industries, often the government or organizational policies and laws also change. The enterprise project management training will ensure that your employees stay up to date.
How corporate project management training is different than typical training?
Well, corporate project management training focuses on your unique organizational requirements. It will also be customized to address your learning needs. By participating in corporate project management training, you will enhance your skills and increase your knowledge. The training will not only help you in your current projects, in the organization but will also improve your competencies to manage successful projects in the future.
There are also several benefits of obtaining corporate project management training. For instance, the corporate project management training would address the strengths and weaknesses of the resources. The training provider will listen to your real-world project issues and try to address them during the training. So, say if you were to get training on Oracle Primavera, your organization would have the training provider customize the training content that will address the real project scenario as well as make the resources become more competent in using the software.
Conclusion
Corporate project management training is a must-have development activity in every organization. As more and more organizations are starting to use the project management standards and principles, the need to train and develop the project resources has also increased. In this post, we have explained the reasons why corporate project management training programs should be organized. We also explained the benefits of such enterprise project management training programs. If you are convinced by the benefits of corporate training, now is the time to request the training and watch your business grow supported by your trained and competent resources.
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