BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management

On this accelerated BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management course, you will learn to understand the principles of project management and techniques to support industry good practice complementary to PRINCE2®.

In just 2 days, you’ll learn to demonstrate and execute an understanding of the principles of project management in their organisation, including an understanding of:

• Project planning Monitoring and control
• Change control and configuration management
• Effort estimation
• Quality and risk management
• Communication between project stakeholders

At the end of this course, you’ll sit the BCS exam, and achieve your BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management certification.

Through Firebrand’s Lecture | Lab | Review methodology, you’ll get certified at twice the speed of the traditional training and get access to courseware, learn from certified instructors, and train in a distraction-free environment.

Audience

This course is ideal for:

• Anyone involved in or affected by IT projects; this extends to users, buyers and directors.

Module 1: Projects and Project Work

• The definition of projects, as opposed to other types of work
• Terms of reference for a project
• The purpose of project planning and control
• The typical activities in a system development life-cycle
• System and project life cycles
• Variations on the conventional project life cycle, such as the use of prototypes or an iterative approach (e.g. the creation and testing of a series of versions of a product that converge on the final deliverable) or incremental approach (i.e. the phased creation and delivery of a series of products to users)
• Implementation strategies e.g. parallel running, ‚Äòsudden death‚Äô, use of pilots
• Purpose and content of business case reports; the use and significance of discounted cash flows in such reports (Note: knowledge of the method of calculation is NOT required)
• Types of planning document: project initiation documents; project and stage plans, quality plan, communications plan, risk plan
• Post implementation review

Module 2: Project Planning

• Project deliverables and intermediate products
• Work and product breakdowns
• Product definitions (including the identification of derived from, and component of relationships between products)
• Relationship between products and activities in a project
• Check points and milestones
• Lapsed time and effort required for activities
• Activity networks (using ‚Äòactivity on node‚Äô notation)
• Calculation of earliest and latest start and end dates of activities and resulting float
• Identification and significance of critical paths
• Resource allocation, smoothing and levelling, including the use of resource histograms
• Work schedules and Gantt charts

Module 3: Monitoring and Control

• The project control life cycle: including planning, monitoring achievement, identifying variances, taking corrective action
• The nature of, and the purposes for which, information is gathered
• Collecting progress information - Timesheets, - Team progress meetings - Error and change reports etc
• Presenting progress information - Content of progress reports - Graphical presentation of progress information e.g. accumulative resource charts (also known as S-curve charts) - Use of earned value analysis, including where it would be applied in project life-cycle (Note: it is not expected that candidates be able to calculate and interpret earned value figures)
• The reporting cycle - Reporting structures in projects - Timing, personnel and purpose of different types of reporting meetings
• Corrective action - Tolerance and contingency - Exception reports and plans - Management procedures involved in changing plans - Options, including extending or staggering deadlines, increasing resources, reducing Functionality or quality requirements, cancelling the project etc.

Module 4: Change Control and Configuration Management

• Reasons for change and configuration management
• Change control procedures - Role of change control boards - Generation of change requests - Change request evaluation (e.g. its impact on the business case) - Change request authorisation
• Configuration management - Purpose and procedures - Identification of configuration items - Product baselines - Configuration management databases: content and use

Module 5: Quality

• Definitions of the term ‚Äòquality‚Äô e.g. ‚Äòfitness for purpose‚Äô
• Quality control versus quality assurance
• Defining quality: definition and measurement
• Detection of defects during the project life cycle
• Quality procedures: entry, process and exit requirements
• Defect removal processes, including testing and reviews
• Types of testing (including unit, integration, user acceptance, and regression testing)
• The inspection process, peer reviews
• Principles of IS0 9001:2000 quality management systems
• Supplier evaluation

Module 6: Estimating

• Effects of over and under-estimating
• Effort versus duration; relationship between effort and cost
• Estimates versus targets
• Use of expert judgement (advantages and disadvantages)
• The Delphi approach
• Top-down estimating - Identification of size drivers (e.g. function points etc) - Identification of productivity rates (e.g. function points per day) - Need for past project data to establish productivity rates - Factors affecting productivity rates (e.g. staff experience) - Estimation of effort for new projects using productivity rates and size drivers
• Bottom up approaches to estimating
• Use of analogy in estimating

Module 7: Risk

• Definition of the term ‚Äòrisk‚Äô; components of risk: risk events (or triggers), probability, impact
• Ways of categorising risk, e.g. business versus project
• Identification and prioritisation of risk
• Assessment of risk exposure (i.e. combining consideration of potential damage and probability of loss)
• Risk responses and actions: risk prevention, reduction, acceptance, transfer and contingency planning
• Typical risks associated with information systems development
• Assessment of the costs/benefits of risk reduction activities
• Maintenance of risk registers and risk logs

Module 8: Project Communications and Project Organisation

• Relationship between programmes and projects
• Identifying stakeholders and their concerns
• The project sponsor
• Establishment of the project authority (e.g. project board, steering committee etc.)
• Membership of project board/steering committee
• Roles and responsibilities of project board, project manager, stage manager, team leader
• Desirable characteristics of project manager
• Role of project support office
• The project team and matrix management
• Reporting structures and responsibilities
• Management styles and communication (including same time/same place; same time/different place, different time/same place, different time/different place)
• Team building (including phases of team cohesion e.g. forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning)
• Team dynamics

There are no prerequisites for this accelerated course, although the candidate is expected to have basic working knowledge of IT.

At the end of this accelerated course, you’ll sit the following exam at the Firebrand Training centre, covered by your Certification Guarantee:

BCS Foundation Certificate in IS Project Management exam

• Duration: 60 minutes
• Format: 'closed book' with 40 multiple choice questions
• Number of questions: 40
• Passing score: Pass mark is 65% (26/40)