Client:
Royal Bank of Scotland
Desired learning outcome:
Fast-track understanding of how to manage complex projects in a commercial environment.
Requirement:
Cost-effective programme module that could be run four times a year.
The module needed to be:
- designed so that it could be run over one day or a series of days
- follow Prince 2 principles
Solution:
LD created The Project Management Experience simulation which takes participants through the 4 stages of project management.
Method:
This multi-media programme simulates the project management of the entry of a simulated, but realistic, bank into the Chinese market.
The simulation enables teams of up to 6 to act as a project management team and takes them through the 4 stages of project management.
Teams are scored on their performance throughout the simulation so that it can be run competitively to encourage engagement
Result:
The programme takes teams of participants, competing to be the best project management team, through the 4 phases of project management:
Start Up, Planning, Execution and Close-down.
Tools and frameworks included in the simulation are:
- Start-Up
- The Business case – why you are undertaking this work
- Scope and strategy
- Roles and responsibilities
- Critical success factors
- Identifying risks
- Planning
- Balancing budgets, time and quality
- Work breakdown structure
- Resources
- Managing risk
- Stakeholder expectations and management
- Scheduling the work.
- Execution
- Managing the team and client expectations
- Controlling the project
- Managing stakeholders
- Managing conflict
- Managing change.
- Close-down
- Resolving outstanding issues
- Sharing learning from the project
Each phase of the simulation is scored by facilitators and input into a software scoring programme.
Scoring of the Execution Phase is based on a wide range of issues that occur during the execution of the project including project team issues, ethical issues, changes in client expectations and issues that impact on time, quality or budget.
“This high-energy simulation provides our young graduates with a whole range of tools that they can apply to any project or complex task. I only wish someone had given me this experience when I was first joining the workplace. It would have saved me a lot of time and stress if I had understood that getting the start-up and planning right prevents so many problems in the execution phase of any project.”
