Classroom Prep & Training

"MJS offers a proven project management development program for you
and your organization"

Project Leadership & Communication

Class Length: 3 days

Learn How To

  • Lead project teams through more effective communication
  • Identify motivational value systems to improve productivity and collaboration
  • Recognize the role of business and personal ethics in leadership
  • Describe predictable change stages and identify appropriate leadership strategies for each stage
  • Utilize a powerful four-stage collaborative negotiation process
  • Create a Leadership Development Plan to implement when you return to work

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Project Risk Management
Class Length: 3 days

Learn How To

  • Use a practical, seven-step process to manage IT project risk
  • Identify threats and opportunities and weigh their relative value in your project
  • Develop practical response strategies for common IT project risks
  • Overcome stakeholder and team member roadblocks to risk strategy implementation
  • Make risk and opportunity integral components of your next IT project plan

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Managing IT Projects in Organizations
Class Length: 3 days

Learn How To

  • Determine the differences between a project and a program
  • Master fundamental project management skills, concepts and techniques
  • Determine, document, and link project goals and objectives to clear, compelling stakeholder needs
  • To initiate, plan, execute, control, and close a project
  • Assess and analyze risk
  • Develop work breakdown structures
  • Communicate with team members, stakeholders, and management.
  • Set realistic, measurable objectives and ensure positive results
  • Estimate project costs and schedules using simple, proven techniques
  • Establish a dependable project control, monitoring, and configuration management system

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Project Management Certification

Class Dates:

March 7th - April 4th, 2020

Day: Saturday
Time:8:30 am - 5:00 pm

Location:

DeVry University
8800 Governors Hill Drive #100
Cincinnati, OH 45249

Registration:

Pre-Registration Nov 1 - Dec 31, 2019 $900  
Regular Registration Jan 1 - Feb 15, 2020 $1295  
Late Registration Feb 16 - Mar 1, 2019 $1398  

 

Learn How To

  • Reduce your study time in half by focusing only on relevant exam topics
  • Develop a personal study plan based on three highly successful techniques used worldwide
  • Use the five-step elimination process to help answer any question correctly
  • Turn double negatives into simple statements easily
 



Quality in Project Management
Class Length: 3 days

Learn How To

  • Develop a quality management program
  • Implement quality concepts at the process and project levels
  • Identify customer requirements and determine appropriate quality assurance standards
  • Develop a plan for the project quality program
  • Develop a quality assurance plan
  • Use proven quality control tools and techniques to collect and measure performance data
  • Assess performance measurements and determine ways to implement process improvement
  • Use Audits to improve the quality of your projects

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Project Leadership & Communication

Course Synopsis

Project Communication and Leadership is an interactive course designed to provide a solid foundation in key communication and leadership competencies and to afford you the opportunity for a truly transformational leadership experience. As a participant, you will complete a self-assessment of your leadership skills, then master the basics of these leadership competencies: setting direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring, leading teams, communicating, building relationships, facilitating ethical conduct, negotiating, and leading change.

After you assess your skills, you’ll create and refine a personal leadership vision and work on strengthening your leadership competencies as you develop your personal Communication and Leadership Development Plan. You'll learn how to empower yourself and other team members through more effective negotiation based on an understanding of the differences between competitive and collaborative negotiation approaches — and you’ll gain an appreciation of the importance of a collaborative “win/win” negotiation process. You'll also gain a clear understanding of why communication is so important - regardless of how a project is organized. And you’ll discover how business and personal ethics can influence your leadership style,  personality, and the way you manage projects.


Working with other professionals and an experienced instructor/facilitator in an interactive classroom environment, you’ll engage in revealing case studies, lively discussion and practical exercises.
Project managers, leaders, coordinators, and business professionals who need to increase their leadership skills will find Project Communication and Leadership to be extremely valuable as they master important skills to get the most from their most valuable project management resource — their people!

 

Course Topics

  1. Leading Others
    1. What is leadership?
    2. Challenges in Leading Project Teams
    3. Managers versus Leaders
    4. Role of Leadership in a Corporate Environment
    5. Situational Leadership® Model
  2. How To Manage Organizational Dynamics
    1. Stages of Adjusting to to Change
    2. Fundamental Principles of Change
    3. Leadership Strategies for Managing Change
  3. Understanding Team Dynamics
    1. What is a team?
    2. Difference between Functional and Cross-Functional Teams
    3. Characteristic of Successful Teams
    4. Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation - Behavior Model
  4. The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
    1. Team Size and Communication Paths
    2. How Non-Verbal Communication Effects Project Success
    3. Relationship Awareness Theory®
    4. Steps for Effective Communication
  5. How to Manage Team Conflict
    1. Major sources of conflict on project teams
    2. The five modes of handling conflict
      • Competing
      • Avoiding
      • Accommodating
      • Collaborating
      • Compromising
    3. The difference between competitive negotiation and collaborative negotiation
    4. Conflict scenarios and strategies for initiating conflict resolution
    5. Power bases used in typical organizations
    6. How to plan and conduct collaborative negotiation

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Project Risk Management

Course Synopsis

The unique challenges of IT projects make it mandatory that a successful IT project manager be a skilled risk manager. Risk will always exist in IT projects given the need to deal with challenging requirements and expectations, complex and ever-changing technologies and business needs, and aggressive schedules and budgets to support business success.

However, it is not inevitable that risk management will be an impossible task that will result in your being viewed as reactive, or worse, unresponsive. In Risk in Project Management, you’ll learn to look at risk management as a way to seize opportunities, minimize threats and achieve optimum results. You’ll work through the proactive approach to threat and opportunity—based on a clear understanding of the powerful nature of both qualitative and quantitative approaches to risk management.
Risk in Project Management examines threat and opportunity from the perspective of MJS’s proven eight-step risk management process. Using effective tools, including MJS’s highly regarded risk assessment model, you’ll learn how to evaluate and respond to risk at the project and task levels. You’ll apply these tools from the course material to analyze and classify risks, determine how to establish an acceptable level of risk and develop a practical risk response plan.

You’ll leave this course prepared to face the challenges and opportunities of risk management with new practices to apply in your environment and new insights on the implications and advantages of applying risk management well.

Course Topics

    1. Risk Management Overview
      1. What is Risk & the Risk Management Process?
      2. Risk in the Project Life Cycle
      3. Types of Risk
      4. Characteristics that Distinguish Risk
    2. Risk Management Plan
      1. What is the Risk Management Plan?
      2. Contingency Planning
      3. Reserve Planning
      4. Types of Risk Responses
    3. Risk Management Activities
      1. Delphi Technique
      2. Nominal Technique
      3. Brainstorming Technique
      4. Crawford Slip Technique
      5. Conducting a Risk Identification Session
    4. Quantitative and Qualitative Risk Analysis
      1. Risk Probability and Impact
      2. Economic Value Added
      3. Net Present Value
      4. Expected Monetary and Decision Trees
    5. Formulate Risk Response
      1. Risk Response Planning Process
      2. Tools and Techniques for Risk Response Development
    6. Monitor and Control Risk
      1. What is Monitoring and Controlling Risk?
      2. Tools and Techniques for Monitoring and Controlling Risk
      3. Evaluating Project Risk Event Results
      4. Assessing Project Risk in Organizations

 

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Managing IT Projects

Course Synopsis

This is a 3-day interactive course covering the project life cycle.  You will get a solid understanding of project management methods with this comprehensive introductory course.  Upon completion of the course, attendees will be prepared to successfully pass the Organizational Project Management (OPM™) Certification test.

The course is built around the latest insights from the Project Management Institute's "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® 4th Edition), which incorporates information critical to project success.  You'll learn project management skills through case studies, hands-on exercises and practical experiences, that can immediately be applied to your role as a project manager, project leader, or project coordinator.

Gain practical experience in proven project management techniques and discover a wealth of valuable, flexible tools that you can use immediately to ensure the success of any project in any type of department, division, or organization.  And if you're interested in pursuing a masters certificate in project management, there is a full suite of modules to achieve your Master Certification in Project Management (MPM®).
Reminder: Professionals taking this course should not take Project Management for the Support Center Professionals.

Course Topics

  1. Exploring Project Management in the Organization
    1. The economic importance of project management
    2. What are "programs" and "projects?"
    3. Project request management
    4. The project life cycle
    5. Influences on a project environment
    6. Identify direct and indirect stakeholders
    7. Functionalized versus projectized organizations
  2. Initiating a Project 
    1. Defining business needs
    2. Identifying customer needs
    3. Project selection
    4. Project charters
    5. Importance of the project kickoff meeting
  3. Planning a Project 
    1. Scope management
    2. Why project planning?
    3. Techniques for handling project uncertainty
    4. Why negotiation?
    5. Risk management planning
    6. The work breakdown structure
    7. Quality planning
  4. Executing a Project
    1. Importance of team development
    2. Communication channels
    3. Tasks and characteristics of the project manager
    4. Roles and responsibilities
    5. Defining authority
  5. Monitoring & Controlling a Project
    1. Status reporting
    2. Configuration management
    3. Change request and orders
    4. Management by exception
    5. Variances
  6. Closing a Project
    1. What to account for at closing?
    2. Premature project closing
    3. Sunk cost
    4. Importance of scope verification
    5. Lessons learned

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Project Management Certification

Course Synopsis

Beyond academic credentials, certification by the Project Management Institute (PMI®) as a project management professional (PMP®) shows the world that you’ve mastered essential project management skills and knowledge. To earn PMI’s PMP® credential, you must demonstrate the required "long-term commitment" to project management professionalism and pass a rigorous, 200-question exam covering the five project management processes and nine knowledge areas in PMI’s project management body of knowledge (PMBOK®).

Improve your chances of passing the grueling PMP® certification exam on the first try with this well-proven and successful course. You’ll find out exactly what components of your project management background will be tested so you know where to focus your attention during the vital weeks of preparation. You’ll become familiar with the makeup and format of the exam itself, thanks to MJS’s exclusive PMP® Exam: Practice Test and Study Guide, featuring hundreds of multiple-choice questions and fully referenced answers. Plus, you’ll get a chance to explore the rationale behind each answer with your instructor, a certified PMP®.

Learn from the project management experts at MJS how to make the most of your limited study time.

Course Topics

  • Project Management Introductions
  1. What is a Project?
  2. What is a Program?
  3. What is Portfolio Management
  4. What is the Role of a Project Manager
  • Project Management Processes
  1. Initiating processes
  2. Planning processes
  3. Executing processes
  4. Monitoring and Controlling processes
  5. Closing processes
  • Project Integration Management
  1. Develop a Project Charter
  2. Direct and Manage Project Execution
  3. Perform Integrated Change Control
  4. Close Project or Phase
  • Project Scope Management
  1. Collect Requirements
  2. Define Scope
  3. Control Scope
  • Project Time Management
  1. Define Activities
  2. Estimate Activity Resources
  3. Develop Schedule
  4. Control Schedule
  • Project Cost Management
  1. Estimate Costs
  2. Determine Budget
  3. Control Costs
  • Project Quality Management
  1. Plan Quality
  2. Perform Quality Assurance
  3. Perform Quality Control
  • Project Human Resource Management
  1. Develop Human Resource Plan
  2. Acquire Project Team
  3. Manage Project Team
  • Project Communications Management
  1. Identify Stakeholders
  2. Plan Communications
  3. Distribute Information
  4. Report Performance
  • Project Risk Management
  1. Plan Risk Management
  2. Identify Risk
  3. Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis
  4. Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis
  5. Plan Risk Response
  6. Monitor and Control Risk
  • Project Procurement Management
  1. Plan Procurements
  2. Conduct Procurements
  3. Administer Procurements
  4. Close Procurements
  • Professional Responsibility
  1. Ensuring individual integrity and professionalism
  2. Contributing to the project management knowledge base
  3. Enhancing individual competence
  4. Balancing stakeholders' interests
  5. Interacting in a professional cooperative manner
  • Studying For and Taking the Exam

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Agile

Agile management or agile project management is an iterative and incremental method of managing the design and build activities for engineering, information technology, and new product or service development projects in a highly flexible and interactive manner. It requires capable individuals from the relevant business, with supplier and customer input. It involves whole team aspects where the "customer" is not the one who pays the bill, but the one who really uses the system.

MJS offers two agile courses:

Agile projects are successful three times more often than non-agile projects, according to the 2011 CHAOS report from the Standish Group. The report goes so far as to say, “The agile process is the universal remedy for software development project failure. Software applications developed through the agile process have three times the success rate of the traditional waterfall method and a much lower percentage of time and cost overruns.” The Standish Group defines project success as on time, on budget, and with all planned features. They do not report how many projects are in their database but say that the results are from projects conducted from 2002 through 2010. The graphs on the Services home page show the specific results reported.

 

 

Agile Project Management

Course Synopsis

This is a 2 - day interactive course that answers  the question What is Agile? The Agile Project Management™ course aims to address the needs of those working in a project-focused environment who want to be Agile. Based on the proven fundamentals within DiPD™, the course provides the ability to deliver agile projects in organizations requiring standards, rigor and visibility around project management, while at the same time enabling the fast pace, change and empowerment provided by agile.

 

The course will:

  • Explain how to lay the foundations for successful agile projects
  • Explain how an agile project is managed
  • Clarify the different management styles needed for successful agile projects (compared to "traditional" projects)
  • Provide integration with DiPDTM

Benefits for Individuals:

  • Develop a more advanced, applied level of knowledge to gain an understanding of agile and the ability to apply relevant project management methods, leading to successful agile projects.
  • Clarify different management styles needed for successful agile projects compared to traditional projects and be able to tailor these to the situation.
  • Actively promote trust and close co-operation between the business and developers and gives the business ongoing visibility into what is happening.
  • Combine knowledge of more traditional management methodologies with agile to better adapt to a changing business environment
  • Improve time-to-market and project success rates while simultaneously accelerating results by encouraging stakeholder involvement, feedback and effective controls.

Benefits to Organizations:

  • Deliver change faster, at a lower cost and with lower risk by continually validating project milestones against business objectives.
  • Complements and works with existing corporate processes such as DiPDTM quality and audit processes which improves rigor and visibility around project management, leading to a proven track record of successful delivery in a corporate environment.
  • Simply adopt a tried and tested approach rather than developing and integrating a company-specific agile management process.
  • Achieve better communication and control over projects and adapt project plans without disrupting the project budget, timescale and scope.
Recommended Reading
Agility IterativelyTM Book buy now		 If you are interested in gaining expertise in Agile Project Management, click the
register button.



Certified Agile Practitioner Exam Preparation Workshop

Course Synopsis

Welcome all the MJS PMI-ACPSM Certification Workshop. It is a great pleasure to note the agile enthusiasm in the Greater Cincinnati Metropolitan Area. You will join other agilists by attending a 3-day interactive course that will prepare you to become a Certified Agile Practitioner. The course covers the content in Mike Griffiths book, PMI-ACPSM Exam Prep, Premier Edition, released January 2012.

 

 

Course Topics

  • Agile Framework
  • Value Driven Delivery
  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Boosting Team Performance
  • Adaptive Planning
  • Problem Detection and Resolution
  • Continuous Improvement
  • Prometric Test Experience

The workshop will include hands-on exercises that you can take back to your organization and implement immediately.

Who Can Sign Up?

  • This class is geared to certified and un-certified scrum masters, certified and un-certified project managers, business analysts, software development engineers, anyone who is interested in running agile software development project teams, and anyone interested in achieving the PMI-ACPSM certification.

What Is My Commitment?

  • Attend all sessions. This is mandatory to meet the 21 contact hour requirement. This is also for the benefit of other attendees as all learn together and from each other.
  • Meet all prerequisites, and take and pass the PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACPSM).
Recommended Reading
Agility IterativelyTM Book buy now		 If you are interested in obtaining your PMI-ACPSM Professional certification, click the register button.

 

Agility IterativelyTM
A Practitioner's Guide for Agile Transformations for Realistic
& Disciplined Agile Project Management


Agility IterativelyTM is a book that not only discusses agile concepts, terms, and best practices; it also provides a guide to beginning agile transformations in a traditional information technology environment using a traditional software development project methodology. The book defines a way in which companies can seamless move the pendulum from a very bureaucratic, document-heavy project management process toward a more product-owner, whole team and value-driven centered way of delivering emergent software development projects.

 

Working in the information technology environment, specifically in software development, one has, at some time in their career, been a project manager, or has had the role of leading team members in creating something that solves a business problem. That role has, undoubtedly, been challenging, to say the least, and has been rewarding. Leading a team of IT professionals toward a goal of creating a new, or enhanced, product that benefits a company, increases revenue, improves employee and customer morale, and profits, is enjoyable.

 

Agility Iteratively provides you with a template that can be used to more consistently deliver benefits, increase revenue, improves employee and customer morale, and ultimately increase profits for your company. It highlights how to start an agile transformation, how to introduce the best practices and techniques that can add value to your delivery and bring about project success.

 

Agility Iteratively empowers you to lead and drive an agile transformation so that not only your transformation moves toward success it also begins the process of empowering your transformation team to perform in ways that bring about project success! Order your copy of Agility IterativelyTM today!

 

Recommended Reading
Agility�IterativelyTM Book buy now		 If you are interested in obtaining your copy of Agility � IterativelyTM click the button.



Project Quality Management

Course Synopsis

Quality in Project Management is not just about quality—it brings to the forefront the essentials of quality management both in the product and the project and how they are linked to business success,  with a focus on the essentials for an effective quality management process that works for your organization and project, regardless of your industry. It traces why quality is important and why it is imperative to be a  world-class quality organization.  It prepares the project manager to be a positive force, a change-agent, if you will, in using quality management programs and processes to help ensure product, project, and business success. As the world economies become global, more and more businesses today are realizing that in order to ensure timely delivery, cost, scope, customer satisfaction and competitive in the marketplace, they must institute quality concepts, tools and techniques into their organization. This includes defining business quality standards, determining performance measurements, and continuously improving and learn how to translate these concepts into specific actions that are key to successful improvement efforts. You will practice concepts, tools, and techniques using an integrated case study that requires application of skills learned.

You’ll learn about the PMBOK® groups and principles of quality management and learn how to translate the 'science' described in the concepts into specific actions, or 'art', that are key to successful improvement efforts. You will practice concepts, tools and techniques using an integrated case study that requires application of skills learned.

Course Topics

  1. Why Deliver Project Quality
    1. What is quality management
    2. Key trends and indicators
    3. Whose responsible for quality
    4. Key principles and best practices
  2. Commitment to Quality Management
    1. What is the quality management principle?
    2. Characteristics of a quality organization
    3. Plan for quality
    4. Project manager best practices to quality
    5. System centered quality project management
    6. The 85 / 15 Rule
  3. Customer Focus
    1. What is the quality management principle?
    2. Supplier involvement in quality management
    3. Customer requirement sources
  4. Process Orientation
    1. Different approaches to process orientation
    2. Prevention vs. Inspection
  5. Customer Process Improvement
    1. Process improvement concepts
    2. Measurement best practices
    3. Continuous process improvements tools
  6. Quality Team Concepts
    1. What are teams
    2. Characteristics and functions of teams
    3. Preparing a team charter
    4. What is P.A.C.E.R.

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Organizational Project Management

Course Synopsis

This is a 3-day interactive course covering the project life cycle.  You will get a solid understanding of project management methods with this comprehensive introductory course.  Upon completion of the course, attendees will be prepared to successfully pass the Organizational Project Management (OPM) Certification test.

The course is built around the latest insights from the Project Management Institute's "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® 4th Edition), which incorporates information critical to project success.  You'll learn project management skills through case studies, hands-on exercises and practical experiences, that can immediately be applied to your role as a project manager, project leader, or project coordinator.

Gain practical experience in proven project management techniques and discover a wealth of valuable, flexible tools that you can use immediately to ensure the success of any project in any type of support center department, division or organization.  And if you're interested in pursuing a masters certificate in project management, there is a full suite of modules to achieve your Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

 


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Course Topics

  1. Exploring Project Management in the Organization
    1. The economic importance of project management
    2. What are "programs" and "projects?"
    3. Project request management
    4. The project life cycle
    5. Influences on a project environment
    6. Identify direct and indirect stakeholders
    7. Functionalized versus projectized organizations
  2. Initiating a Project
    1. Defining business needs
    2. Identifying customer needs
    3. Project selection
    4. Project charters
    5. Importance of the project kickoff meeting
  3. Planning a Project
    1. Scope management
    2. Why project planning?
    3. Techniques for handling project uncertainty
    4. Why negotiation?
    5. Risk management planning
    6. The work breakdown structure
    7. Quality planning
  4. Executing a Project
    1. Importance of team development
    2. Communication channels
    3. Tasks and characteristics of the project manager
    4. Roles and responsibilities
    5. Defining authority
  5. Monitoring & Controlling a Project
    1. Status reporting
    2. Configuration management
    3. Change request and orders
    4. Management by exception
    5. Variances
  6. Closing a Project
    1. What to account for at closing
    2. Premature project closing
    3. Sunk cost
    4. Importance of scope verification
    5. Lessons learned
  7. Project Management knowledge areas:
    1. Risk Management
    2. Quality Management
    3. Communications Management
    4. Cost Management

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