Loyola University Chicago

Loyola conducts training for organizations interested in training groups of their employees. Several options exist, from completely customized programs to tailoring existing curricula for one to five day programs, and materials are compliant with PMI's latest PMBOK updates. Some of the more frequently requested programs include:

• Project Management Certificate Program
• Reducing Project Failure through Project Leadership
• I.T. Portfolio Management
• Project Planning for Teams
• Senior Management Briefing

Project Management Certificate (five days)

• Day One: Project Initiation (with Team Building) - Identifying the project players and their roles and responsibilities along with the project's initial concept is a head start to a successful project. This process discusses roles, responsibilities and team development. Developing effective communication skills and understanding team motivations is also a part of project initiation.
• Days Two and Three: Project Planning - This phase involves defining the project scope, quality, resources, time frames, and budget. It clarifies what needs to be accomplished by through which resources, when they are needed, and what budget and time-frames are necessary to achieve the goal. This includes addressing quality issues and developing appropriate responses to risk.
• Day Four: Project Execution and Control - Create and manage the project with the intent of meeting and exceeding customer/sponsor expectations. This involves assuring quality, tracking progress, making appropriate decisions and managing changes as required.
• Day Five: Project Closeout - This phase, when properly established, is a foundation for future project success. It involves closing the project, summarizing, reviewing and evaluating learnings.

Reducing Project Failure through Project Leadership

Strategic Business Value of Project Management

• Ensuring everyone (top down) understands the business value of the project
• Where the project fits within business strategy
• Handling resistance from project managers about business strategy
• Prioritizing from a strategic perspective as well as changing priorities; communicating changes
• Project selection derived from strategic benefits
• When to kill the project

Project Management Office - Framework for Your Organization

• PMO: project-oriented vs. enterprise-oriented
• Project v. enterprise functions
• Evolution and implementation of PMO

Managing Project Conflicts

• Managing conflict in business
• Exploring conflict styles and approaches
• Identifying underlying needs
• Creating choices
• Managing your emotions
• Creating strategies to manage the differences

Situational Leadership

• Understanding different leadership or influence styles and their impact on employee performance
• Analyzing the readiness of employees for different responsibilities
• Correlating the above to project teams

Change Leadership in Projects
Project management involves constant change in the organization, in teams, and in processes. This session will describe:

• The change curve
• Successful vs. unsuccessful change
• Organizational resilience
• Supporting change and handling failure

Project Team Challenges

• Building team relationships
• Selling ideas internally
• Managing team meetings
• Motivating in the face of scarce resources
• International/Cultural team issues

Team Presentations

Teams will present on their project management issue: How they resolved the issue, the strategy used (or that will be used), and the anticipated outcome including recommendations to their organization.

I.T. Portfolio Management (three days)

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, US businesses spend an average of 38% of their annual capital budgets on Information Technology. Unfortunately, various studies show that 30% to 60% of all I.T. investments fail to return an economic profit. This means that each time you make an IT investment, you are just as likely to destroy shareholder value as you are to create it.

The I.T. Portfolio Management program is designed to help your organization build the I.T. investment management skills it needs to respond effectively to these pressures.

Topics covered include:

• Analyzing the business value of an IT investment
• Analyzing the alignment between business goals and IT investment benefits
• Analyzing the risks associated with an IT investment
• Gauging the affects of risk on an IT investment’s projected financial performance
• Constructing and analyzing IT investment portfolios
• Managing IT investment portfolios
• Measuring returns on IT investments

Project Planning for Teams (two days)

This workshop takes the fundamentals of Project Management as endorsed by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and focuses on the development of a project team's ability to:

• Understand the project and its objective - what they have to accomplish
• Define important challenges which could affect their project's success and agree on objectives to overcome those challenges
• Identify and plan for critical milestones and activities
• Build relationships and understanding of roles and responsibilities within the team

To achieve these objectives, participants work on a current, real-life project that they have been assigned prior to the 2-day workshop. In addition to learning the project planning process, participants will have accomplished between 12-14 hours of work on their project plan.

Senior Management Briefing (one day)

Senior management must be clear on leadership roles and responsibilities in order to effectively support project management. They must lead change, prioritize projects, ensure realistic focus and clear and complete project definitions, assure quality components are in place, resolve legal issues, and facilitate communication and planning efforts. The Senior Management Briefing provides an overview of Project Management that reviews:

• The common language of Project Management terminology, roles and responsibilities
• The 5 Phases of Project Management (PMBOK-compliant)
• What Senior Management as Sponsors should expect and how they should measure success
• Change management and team motivation

Program Fees
Fees are based on the level of customization, development and delivery time, and vary by project.

Contact Us
For more information about our organizational programs, custom programs and organizational retreats, please contact us at: 312.915.6781; or e-mail: executive-ed@luc.edu.

To request additional information online, please click here.

Program Hosting
Programs can be conducted in our Executive Education classrooms or at your organization.