Outsourced IT Project Management: Successfully Managing External Project Factors    (OITPM-001)
Update your PMP® with 18 PDUs

This three-day course targets project and program managers operating in an outsourced IT project environment. You will learn techniques to plan and manage the relationships with your vendors and suppliers across the IT project lifecycle - from project initiation through project closure. Learn how to integrate tools, techniques and timing within your fundamental project management skills in order to effectively manage external suppliers and vendors of technology, applications and services on strategic projects.

This course addresses the components and challenges project managers face with outsourced IT projects. Enhanced techniques encompassing multiple facets of outsourced IT projects are defined and applied, focusing on quality management, risk management, procurement methods, project scope definition and control, change control and effective communication. The course lecture is supplemented with hands on group exercises that reinforce the course concepts.

Facets of Quality, Risk, Procurement, Scope, Time, Human Resource and Communication Management that are necessary to effectively manage vendors and outsourced relationships on IT projects are addressed across the PMBOK project phases: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Control, Closure. Course lecture is supplemented with hands-on group exercises to reinforce course concepts, focused on effective methods and techniques for managing projects. Attendees develop a hypothetical outsourced IT project from concept to closeout using a methodology based upon the PMI® process groups and Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Models.


Summary of Course Topics

Understand the Project Managers Sphere of Control

• Evaluate your current outsourcing arrangements and project structure
• Analyze the level of responsibility, authority and accountability of your program and project managers, including the areas of procurement, contracting, financial, human resources, project planning, and relationship management.
• Define the project scope and its measure of success.
• Build baseline for continuous risk identification and management during your project.
• Map out the project environment and define authority and accountability structures for outsourced management of your current and future project team.

Lay the Groundwork for Effective Relationship Management

• Determine methods for change control, scope control and risk management.
• Build and execute an effective project management framework – plan to manage your vendors throughout the project lifecycle.
• Analyze your project requirements and needs relative to your vendors.
• Define and implement the project management processes for managing projects in an outsourced model, build effective tracking and reporting templates.
• Create and implement your communication plan, decision-making architecture and change management processes.
• Use structured, effective negotiation and communications skills to create a working and effective project team that incorporates and leverages your vendors and suppliers.

Validation and Verification of Contractor Work Packages and Cost Estimates

• Understand contracting and finance fundamentals and how to use them in your working relationship with the vendors on your project team.
• Learn to leverage the contract management process to the benefit of your outsourced IT project team across the project lifecycle.
• Understand the use of contracts as legal controls to manage the risks inherent in outsourced IT projects, with supplier and vendor goods, services and performance.
• Learn and apply effective cost estimation methods, planning and scheduling, work breakdown and definition and allocation of resources to outsourced projects.
• Accurately identify project phases, deliverables and milestones.
• Develop accurate cost estimation and validation methods for your vendors.
• Understand the fundamentals of financial accounting for your project, including cash flow, direct and indirect costs, time value of money, pricing basics and profitability.

Controlling Outsourced Projects

• Use basic and advanced tracking techniques, such as variance and earned value, to quantify performance measures and monitor project performance across multiple vendors.
• Defining the baseline, measure progress and control performance for your project.
• Use basic and advanced tracking techniques, such as variance and earned value, to quantify performance measures and monitor project performance across multiple vendors.
• Apply tracking and oversight techniques to develop and implement responses to change.
• Use templates for communications and decision making across your project framework as tools to effectively manage your vendor relationships.

Enhance Project Quality

• Build quality into your planning and procurement efforts by using configuration management and tracking metrics.
• Project planning and execution techniques to incorporate and manage the vendor tasks, activities and deliverables that are components of your project processes and contribute to your project’s success.
• Understand environmental, legal and financial constraints.
• Use inspections and walkthroughs to enhance project and product quality while reducing cost and time to delivery.
• Methods and techniques to validate and verify project outcomes, including acceptance criteria and test results.

Project Administration and Closure

• Use contractual and administrative closeout tools and techniques.
• Invoice and payment management.
• Effective contract administration – what are some best practices and tactics.
• Dispute and issue resolution management tactics.
• Records, files and documentation requirements.
• Importance of lessons learned.

Teamwork Challenges

• Understand and apply team-building strategies on outsourced IT projects.
• The leadership paradigm of outsourced IT projects.
• Dealing with human resource issues within outsourced project teams.
• Working effectively with contractors/subcontractors and developing disparate groups into teams.
• Relationship management: how to manage vendor relationships as part of your project team.

Who Should Attend?

Experienced project managers learn skills that reinforce their existing knowledge base and develop new skills to successfully lead and manage their projects. Incorporating lessons learned on projects in order to transfer knowledge to the organization is developed. Effective project estimating tools are practiced.

New project managers learn the best practices needed to get a proper start in their project management career. Effective modern tools and techniques are presented to build and execute a project plan. Interpersonal skills are offered to enable the new project manager to negotiate for effective resources within the organization. Best practices for today's rapid development environments are addressed.

Sample Exercises for Skills Development

Identify the major deliverables and how the constraints of the organization effect the implementation. The "project team" must identify how the to make the project run efficiently within the organizational structure that is imposed upon it. The environmental constraints must be taken into account. Project teams examine the case study to identify the phase deliverables and develop milestones at which the deliverables will be completed.

Enhance project success through the use of quality tools. Quality considerations are frequently overlooked during project planning and are ignored during construction. Tools such as configuration management and tracking metrics are developed for the case study.

Implementing inspections and walkthroughs. These tools have been shown to enhance product quality while reducing cost and time to delivery. Perform a walkthrough of a project document.

Use a business case and project charter. The business case and charter are used to develop the project plan. Effective planning skills are reinforced while the project requirements are created.

Produce project estimates. Use analogous and parametric estimating techniques through rolling wave planning to develop estimates for the project. Apply the metrics to schedule project resources and develop baselines.

Respond to unexpected changes. Project environments change. Apply tracking and oversight techniques to develop responses to change.

Methods of effective closeout. Transfer the product to the production environment. Use contractual and administrative closeout tools and techniques to implement lessons learned practices.

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