Internal News

Check out this year’s range of workshops and hear directly from the experts from our project controls community.

See list of some of our speakers and their topics:

In addition to our two day programme, we are also conducting three EXTRA workshops on Tuesday 9th April. Details as follows:

1 - Prendo’s SCHOLA simulation
By: Richard Palczinsky, Simon Taylor and Niall Faris from Th3rd Curve.
This simulation will provide a risk -free experience of planning and controlling a project.
Developed with Cranfield School of Management, the simulation brings to life many challenges of project management including:

• integrating the key tools of planning & control
• managing risk & balancing stakeholder interests
• project teamwork & decision-making

• project & program managers
• project controls specialists
• project team members
• project sponsors
• students of project management

• scheduling: critical path analysis, gantt charts
• earned value analysis and project controls
• budgeting & cashflow
• resourcing & time, cost, quality trade-offs
• decision-making & teamwork in a project scenario

Why simulate?

• Makes learning more fun, efficient and memorable
• Discovering is more effective than “being told”
• Experiences are transparent: users see cause and effect
• Helps reduce the risk of making mistakes in the real world
• Provides a chance to apply theory and practise skills
• Makes skills and tools easier to transfer to the workplace
• Better than words: more effective than just talking…

2- [Almost] Everything you need to know to prepare for a transformational AI/data driven project delivery future.
By: Martin Paver
Advanced data analytics is beginning to transform large swathes of society and has the potential to transform project management forever. This workshop will attempt to separate the hype from the reality and explore the impact that data science will have on project delivery. We will delve into what advanced data analytics is all about, what is currently happening and how it could impact your organisation, your role and your career. We’ll explore the methods and tools, including the barriers to successful implementation. It’s not something that can be bolted on; it needs a fundamental change in approach, capturing the exhaust from project delivery and using this to shape future decision making. Martin set up the London Project Data Analytics meetup in Dec 2017 and it now has ~1300 members. He also established the first Project: Hack. He has published 3 articles on the subject in the APM Project magazine. He is helping to shape thinking and is on a mission to help the P3M profession to react positively and proactively to the opportunity (and threat) ahead of us.

3- Earned Benefit
By: Kik Piney and Steve Wake
The Benefit of Benefits Mapping - Ensuring Project and Program Success Continuing on the theme of Romeo and Juliet chosen for the Synergy conference, we address Romeo’s plaintive question: ”What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In our environment, this is not true: we deal with a number of names: project, program, portfolio and the smell of success for each one is different. One reason projects are considered to fail is that they are judged like programs. The reason most programs fail is that they are run as projects.
Too many project justifications are based on the “hype” element of hypothesis. What is required instead is a clear, measurable strategic business objective and a complete, verifiable, quantified path linking this strategic end-point to the project components required to achieve it. This is the role of the Benefits Map: it is the basis for the key technique that is missing from current program management and benefits realization literature – Earned Benefit Management.
This session guides you through building a typical Benefits Map and illustrates how to apply the Earned Benefit technique to plan and track from project execution right through to benefits realization in a consistent and objective manner.

Participants will receive a copy of Kik's book Earned Benefit Program Management
Cost: £300ex VAT standalone or £250 ex VAT if attending EVA24 event.
Venue: TBC (but close to EVA event venue)
Date: Tuesday 9th April