Recently The Performance Institute held a Project Management training in Arlington, VA. This 5 day training touched on vital facets in the world of the project management, in particular the work breakdown structure and earned value management (EVM).

Now that Earned Value Management (EVM) is a policy requirement of the Office of Management and Budget for federal agencies, its importance has grown tremendously. As more and more IT investments are outsourced, tracking the value produced for each dollar spent is essential. EVM enables managers to anticipate and identify project budget threats and respond with appropriate action. It informs the decision and can thwart undue costs or project failures.

A main challenge to the mandate is the investment requirement of human resources to plan and schedule projects. It’s a practice that requires detailed tracking of costs versus project progress, including time and resources.

The Project Management for Results course also went through a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). WBS is a key project management technique and it defines and organizes the total scope of a project, using a hierarchical tree structure. The first two levels of the WBS define a set of planned outcomes that collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the project scope. At each subsequent level, the children of a parent node collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the scope of their parent node.

A WBS gives teams a “visual map” that assists in clearing up any confusion that team members may have about a task. Members visually understand what the appropriate steps are and the timeframe for their start and completion.

The next Project Management for Results course will be December 10-14, 2007.