professional development courses


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Financial Sector Portfolio and Project Management Masterclass

Why do some big and famous companies from various industries manage to deliver successful products and services to the markets year after year? And why are the majority of other organisations unable to replicate this success no matter how hard they try? Recent studies indicate that only 32% of our projects can be considered successful, while 44% are challenged (i.e. grossly over the budget and/or late) and 24% are outright failures (i.e. cancelled by the customers before they are even completed). Further research shows that the lion’s share of this lack of success can be attributed to poor requirements elicitation, insufficient planning and inadequate project control. This workshop is dedicated to the complicated and somewhat enigmatic topic of delivering successful products and services to the marketplace by selecting the best projects for implementation, proper assessment of the company’s throughput capacity and having a good grasp on project and portfolio management.

Turning 'Theory' into 'Practice'?

For every organisation which dedicates significant resources to projects this training is MUST DO! This course will demonstrate to the participants how to perform these tasks properly and efficiently by giving them skills, tools, techniques and economic principles that transcend various company structures, environments and project management philosophies. Using the historical case studies and the best practice examples you’ll learn how to achieve a proper project portfolio balance and how to deliver exceptional project results.

Who should attend?

The course is designed for senior executives, project management and marketing professionals from financial companies: • CEOs, COOs, CTOs, CIOs etc. • Vice-presidents • Project and program managers • Functional department directors and managers • Directors of Project Management Offices • Project directors • Portfolio Managers, etc.

Key areas to be covered in the programme and documentation

How to Deliver Exceptional Project Results on Financial Projects?
In this module we will assess the overall success rate of the projects in the industry and try to explain
the high failure rate of the endeavours undertaken by various companies. in the process of this session
we will derive a formula for the delivery of exceptional project results and conduct a high-level overview
of project and portfolio management.
• Historical Case Study – “The Virgin Lands Project in USSR”
• How to deliver exceptional project results?
• Project management vs. portfolio management in the financial sector
• Group Case Study – “Mobile Phone Company”
• Why bad things happen without PPM at the financial companies?

The Art Of Estimation
We will try to understand why we are constantly late and over the budget on almost all of our financial
sector endeavours. in addition some key misconceptions about project estimation will be defined
and analysed.
• Historical Case Study – “You Are Not an American, Are You?”
• Individual Exercise – “Are we good at estimating in general?”
• Group Exercise – “Estimate the number of coins/bills”
• “Cone of Uncertainty” – What is it?
• Individual Exercise – “Is padding of the estimates acceptable?’
• How do we improve our estimation efforts in the financial sector?

Are We Supposed to Negotiate?
Just as the titles claims, are we expected or even allowed to negotiate with our customers and senior
managers about the scope, timelines and budgets of our projects? What are the best techniques
for obtaining the additional degrees of freedom?
• Historical Case Study – Operation “Husky”
• What Is a Negotiation?
• How to Negotiate?
• Using Investigative Negotiations on the financial sector projects
• Inventing Options For Mutual Gain on financial sector projects
• Individual Exercise – “Shopping Mall”
• Presenting Multiple Offers on financial sector projects
• Group Exercise – “e-Merchant 5.0”

How to Define Project Scope?
Are you planning on building a bicycle, a family sedan or a Formula One car? Defining the proper scope
is absolutely essential for the project success; it impacts the schedule, the budget, the resources required
and the potential risks that may arise in the project lifecycle.
• Why bother with requirements on financial sector projects?
• What is the cost of the mistake on financial sector projects?
• What is the general requirements elicitation approach on financial sector projects?
• What should you be looking out for when eliciting the requirements?

Customer Walkthroughs, Technical Inspections and Peer Reviews
How can we improve quality and minimize the number of defects on our endeavors? When is
the optimal time to invest in the documentation reviews? What is the cost of mistake throughout the IT
project lifecycle? These and many other issues shall be examined in this session.
• Historical Case Study – “Lost at Sea”
• Why bother with reviews on the financial sector projects?
• Types of reviews and things to watch out for

Why Should You Manage Scope and Customer Expectations
This section is dedicated one of the most challenging and intimidating aspects of project management:
how does one keep the project budgets and schedules in check while keeping the customers and the
management happy? What can the project manager do to prevent the project scope from ballooning
into something scary and unmanageable?
• Historical Case Study – the story of “Le Grand Hotel”
• Why should we manage expectations?
• Why do changes happen?
• How much do things change on the financial sector project?
• How to manage requirements?
• How to assess the impact of the change?

How to Maximize Your Financial Project Portfolio Value?
The first pillar of project portfolio management - we will examine several project value assessment
models including financial methods (NPV, Bang-for-Buck, etc.) as well as the scoring techniques (DuPont
scoring model, EXFO scoring model, best practices scoring model, etc.). Advantages and shortcoming
of each approach will also be discussed in this session.
• Overview of the project portfolio management process
• Who should participate in portfolio reviews?
• Financial methods – descriptions, advantages and concerns
• Scoring models – descriptions, advantages and concerns
• Discussion - points to ponder about the value of the projects at your organization

How to Balance Your Financial Project Portfolio Mix?
The second pillar of project portfolio management - why should a company seek a balanced portfolio?
What dimensions should be considered? How can bubble diagrams assist the management in assessing
the health of their project portfolios? These and several other important topics will be examined in this
module.
• Historical Case Study – “The Battle of Crecy”
• Why seek balanced IT portfolio?
• What dimensions should you consider?
• What types of bubble diagrams are used in the IT and SD industry?
• What are the most popular bubble diagram dimensions?
• Discussion - points to ponder about balancing your portfolio mix

How to Link Portfolio to Strategy?
The third pillar of project portfolio management – can we link all of our company projects back
to the overall strategy? Can our executives answer a seemingly simple question, “Why are you doing this
project?” We will examine top-down and bottom up approaches of linking project to strategy as well
as their strengths and weaknesses.
• Historical Case Study – “The Aswan Dam Project”
• What are the prime goals of the market leaders?
• What is strategic linkage?
• What are the linking approaches?
• Discussion - points to ponder about your company’s strategy and linkage to projects

How to Implement Project Portfolio Management?
This capstone section of the workshop will be dedicated to summarizing all of the information learned
in this course and providing the attendees with hands-on practical steps that should be undertaken
when implementing project portfolio management at a given company. We will also discuss potential
implementation-related dangers, issues and possible solutions to these problems.
• Historical Case Study – “The British Navy in the Age of Sail”
• What are the market leaders doing?
• Where do we start?
• How to estimate your firm’s resource capacity?
• What are the key steps in implementing project portfolio management?
• Discussion – what are the next steps?

Benefits to you

• Recognizing the combined importance of both portfolio management (i.e. the selection of the right projects) and project management (i.e. the disciplined delivery of the selected projects)
• Understanding why project portfolio management is essential to the success of your businesses
• Learning about the art of project estimation
• Finding out about effective negotiation techniques with customers and management
• Learning efficient creativity cultivation techniques for your project team
• Finding out about great stakeholder and scope management methods
• Understanding how document walkthroughs, inspections and peer reviews can save you money and time on your projects
• Understanding how to maximize the value of your project portfolio
• Discovering how to achieve a proper project portfolio balance
• Finding out how to link your project portfolio to the overall company strategy
• Learning how to implement an effective portfolio management framework at your organization

Companies already benefiting include:

Duration of Course

2 Day Course

Course details

This course is currently only available as an in-house option. For more information, and a quote, contact our team on +44 (0)20 3002 3057, or by email at ProfessionalTraining@iihc.org

Looking to train larger teams in this subject?

dzingim@marcusevansuk.comTailored in-house/in-company training courses and bespoke strategy workshops designed and delivered on-site throughout Europe according to your specific requirements.

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Testimonials

"This course will allow my company to develop its existing strategies to a much greater and hopefully profitable level."

Managing Director, Tarmac