Primavera P6: optimising and managing multiple projects

Part 1: project management and planning

• Understanding general concepts

  • What is a project?
  • Organisational culture and projects.
  • Project life cycles and types.
  • General project concepts.
  • The organisation's projects.
  • Key project stakeholders.

• Organising the project systematically

  • Identifying the project type.
  • Describing phases and key milestones.
  • Risk analysis.
  • Formalising and communicating objectives.
  • Structuring the project through a work breakdown structure.
  • Defining responsibilities and resources.
  • Involving all stakeholders.

• Developing precise specifications

  • Defining the expected deliverable or service.
  • Clarifying objectives.
  • Deciding the required level of detail.
  • Identifying constraints.

• Building the project schedule methodically

  • Schedule development methodology.
  • WBS and OBS: roles and uses.
  • The importance of effective calendar management.
  • Activity types and characteristics.
  • PERT networks and Gantt charts as visualisation tools.
  • Early and late dates: calculation and interpretation.
  • Free and total float: meaning and impact.
  • Critical path identification and monitoring.

• Managing project phases and progress effectively

  • Progress measurement methods and indicators.
  • Change management procedures and tools.
  • Identifying, incorporating and controlling risks.
  • Implementing and monitoring specific controls.
  • Schedule update frequency and content.
  • Schedule stabilisation techniques and best practices.
  • Closing phase stages and deliverables.

• Optimising project timelines strategically

  • Cost and time trade-offs: criteria and decisions.
  • Schedule optimisation and resource management.
  • Performance measurement and monitoring tools.

Part 2: the Primavera P6 environment

• Understanding Primavera fundamentals

  • The database: general principles and operation.
  • Using menus and displays.
  • Project structure: levels and relationships.
  • Project access arrangements and permissions.
  • Customising the environment: preferences and settings.
  • Good user habits.
  • Multiproject and multi-user management: features and benefits.
  • Understanding user rights: roles and permissions.

• Mastering the enterprise project structure

  • Breaking down an EPS: levels and criteria.
  • Managing OBS responsibilities and RBS resources.
  • Relationships and dependencies between ATS packages and the WBS breakdown.

• Using Primavera codes effectively

  • Primavera codes: definition and purpose.
  • Defining project, activity and resource codes.
  • Creating, editing and deleting codes.

• Creating custom reporting layouts

  • Creating layouts: elements and settings.
  • Using columns and filters to display data.
  • Organising data through grouping and sorting.
  • Selection criteria and methods.
  • Gantt and PERT visualisation settings.
  • Inserting images, text and tables.

• Managing project calendars effectively

  • Defining and sharing calendars: types and permissions.
  • Defining non-working periods and assigning calendars.
  • Creating shift-work calendars: settings and rules.
  • Communicating obligations: notifications and reminders.

Part 3: project scheduling, planning and control

• Initiating a project methodically

  • Creating a new project.
  • Defining project attributes.
  • Breaking the project down into a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
  • Defining stakeholder responsibilities.
  • Creating project activities.
  • Defining activity properties.
  • Presenting project data.

• Managing project timelines precisely

  • Configuring project activities.
  • Defining durations and date constraints.
  • Using PERT networks and activity relationships.
  • Managing float and identifying the critical path.
  • Understanding activities, activity records and activity types.
  • Managing detailed activity records.
  • Locating and organising activities in the Gantt chart.

• Establishing an effective logic network and relationships

  • Building the activity logic network, relationships and constraints.
  • PERT and Critical Path Method (CPM) calculations: forward and backward passes.
  • Driving relationships and their use.
  • Managing open-ended activities.
  • Formatting relationship lines.
  • Tracing logic and managing loops.
  • Managing unlinked activities.

• Assigning resources and costs appropriately

  • Defining project resources and costs.
  • Assigning a resource hierarchy.
  • Assigning a cost centre hierarchy.
  • Configuring project resources.
  • Resource organisation and types.
  • Managing detailed resource records.
  • Assigning costs to activities.

• Managing project resources effectively

  • Defining resource workloads.
  • Analysing resource consumption.
  • Developing the resource loading plan.
  • Detecting resource overallocations.

• Creating a project baseline for monitoring

  • Creating a baseline project.
  • Comparing the current project with the baseline.
  • Backing up and restoring a project.

• Managing progress and rescheduling

  • Updating the project according to progress.
  • Calculation options for updates.
  • Recording project progress.
  • Recording resource and cost progress.
  • Updating project milestones.
  • Managing activity suspension.

Part 4: advanced features

• Optimising project control

  • Creating project baselines.
  • Time-based and workload-based management.
  • Rescheduling the project.
  • Monitoring actual dates, resources and activity status.
  • Introduction to Earned Value Management.
  • Visualising variances.
  • Creating progress curves.

• Managing multiple projects effectively

  • Multiproject configuration.
  • Creating cross-project relationships.
  • The cross-project critical path.
  • Multiproject resource management.
  • Mapping project portfolios.
  • Defining project characteristics.
  • The project portfolio management process.
  • The portfolio steering committee.
  • Information-sharing rules.

• Using additional features

  • Managing global changes.
  • Creating project summaries.
  • Document management.
  • Managing alert thresholds.

• Managing reports and outputs

  • Exporting report data.
  • The benefits of output formats.
  • Importing and exporting data.
  • Creating monthly activity calendars.
  • Editing reports.
  • Managing scheduled services.

• Reviewing project management with Primavera

  • The tool's limitations.
  • Overall conclusions.
  • The value of a decision-support tool.