This intensive 10-day course offers complete guidance for managing all types of projects, including the complexity of commercial and business relationships. It explores how to ensure projects deliver outcomes that are client-focused, contractually appropriate, and organizationally relevant.
This course covers key aspects of project definition, planning, control, and handover to ensure relevant quality within time, budget, and resource constraints. It explores in detail what a contract does (and does not) require each party to do and the consequences for both parties of any failure. It also tackles team leadership, stakeholder management, and project communication.
This course will feature:
- Introduction to the world of contracts and project management
- Project definition, planning & control, leadership, stakeholder management & communication
- Differences in approach between different legal & contracting systems
- Risk allocation in contract management & dispute resolution in contractual disputes
- Protecting your company’s interests when contracting in an international context
Objectives
- Develop project plans focused on delivering sustainable benefits
- Lead project teams in the use of contracts and delivery of projects
- Manage relationships with project stakeholders and contractual partners
- Improve their understanding of the role of contracts within a business
- Apply the latest international thinking in dispute resolution
Content
Day One
What are contracts, and how are they created?
- The need for contractual relationships
- What is needed to create a valid contract? Ingredients and formalities
- Authority and agency
- The tender process
- Alternative sourcing
- Making contracts enforceable – with particular emphasis on the international context
Day Two
The Structure of contracts
- Form of Agreement
- Hierarchy of Terms and Conditions
- Different contractual structures?Traditional and new
- Risk and Title (ownership) in international trade. When does it transfer?
- Notices and other formalities
- Which law and which courts?
Day Three
Collateral documents
- Securitising performance obligations
- Bonds and guarantees
- Parent company guarantees
- Letters of intent, comfort or awareness
- Insurance policies
- Assessing the need for financial security
Day Four
Change and variation
- Changes to Contract documents
- Assignment/Novation explained and distinguished
- Variation clauses and alterations to the scope of work
- Claims – what they are and how they arise
- Delay and disruption
- Force majeure
Day Five
Resolving Disputes
- Conflict avoidance and tiered dispute resolution clauses
- Negotiation
- Litigation
- Arbitration
- Mediation, ENE and new best practices in dispute resolution and management
- Final questions and review of the course
Day Six
The World of Project Management
- What is a project?
- Mature project management
- Selecting projects to meet organisational goals
- Managing programmes and portfolios
- Uncertainty in project selection decisions
- Project data, information and knowledge management
Day Seven
Project Planning, Scheduling and Budgeting
- Strategic, tactical and operational planning
- The contents of a project plan
- Level of detail in scheduling
- Network logic and dependency analysis
- Project uncertainty and risk management
- Fundamentals of budgeting and cost control
Day Eight
Project Resourcing, Monitoring and Control
- Resource allocation
- Expediting a project
- The Critical Chain approach
- Designing the monitoring cycle
- Performance indicators and control mechanisms
- Designing the change control system
Day Nine
The Project Manager’s Roles and Responsibilities
- Selection of the Project Manager
- Project Team-building and empowerment
- Delegating with confidence
- Communication within the project team
- Project team leadership
- Conflict handling
Day Ten
Project Evaluation, Reporting, Closure and Handover
- Evaluation criteria and project auditing
- Analysing project performance
- Progress reports and records
- Determinants of project success
- Successful project handover
- Lessons learned and creating a learning culture
