Project Management Fundamentals for New Project Managers Training Course

Course overview

New project managers are often asked to deliver work before they have a reliable way to define scope, sequence activities, estimate effort, control change, or report progress. The result is familiar: unclear ownership, optimistic dates, late surprises, stakeholder disagreement, and status updates based on opinion rather than evidence. This five-day course gives new project managers a practical operating model for planning and controlling small-to-medium projects across business, operational, technology, and change initiatives.

Participants learn how to turn a business need into a project charter, scope statement, work breakdown structure, schedule, budget baseline, risk register, stakeholder plan, and communication cadence. They practise estimating work, building dependency-based schedules, assigning responsibility with a RACI matrix, identifying critical risks, managing issues and changes, and using earned value concepts to interpret project performance. The course also develops the judgement needed to escalate decisions, manage competing stakeholder expectations, and keep a project aligned to its approved objectives.

Instruction combines facilitated teaching with a running project case study, Microsoft Project scheduling exercises, Excel-based tracking templates, Jira examples, and structured team workshops. Each participant applies the methods to a realistic project scenario and leaves with a completed Project Management Toolkit: a charter, WBS, schedule, RAID log, stakeholder map, communications plan, change log, and project status-report template. These documents can be adapted directly for use on the participant's next assignment.

The course is suited to professionals who have recently been assigned project responsibility, coordinate cross-functional work, or need a disciplined foundation before progressing to advanced project controls, Agile delivery, or formal certification preparation.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Create a project charter that defines objectives, success criteria, assumptions, constraints, governance, and approval authority
• Develop a scope statement and work breakdown structure that translate deliverables into manageable work packages
• Build a dependency-based project schedule using milestones, activity estimates, network logic, and critical-path analysis
• Construct a responsibility assignment matrix (RACI) for project roles, decisions, and deliverable ownership
• Prepare a risk and issue register using probability-impact scoring, response actions, owners, and escalation triggers
• Establish a stakeholder engagement and communications plan matched to influence, information needs, and reporting cadence
• Control scope changes through a change request log, impact assessment, approval route, and baseline update process
• Produce an evidence-based project status report using milestones, RAID items, budget data, schedule variance, and next actions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• New Project Managers — who need a repeatable method for planning, coordinating, and controlling their first projects
• Project Coordinators — who support schedules, reporting, actions, and governance and are moving into delivery ownership
• Team Leaders — who lead cross-functional initiatives alongside their operational responsibilities
• Business Analysts — who translate requirements into deliverables and need stronger project planning discipline
• Operations Supervisors — who deliver process-improvement, rollout, or service-change projects
• Subject Matter Experts — who have been appointed workstream leads and must manage dependencies and stakeholder commitments

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic workplace experience and be comfortable using spreadsheets, calendars, email, and shared documents. Familiarity with common business terms such as objectives, deadlines, budgets, stakeholders, and deliverables is helpful. Participants will benefit most if they can bring a current or recent project example, although this is not mandatory. No previous project management qualification, formal methodology training, Microsoft Project experience, or Agile certification is required. Complete beginners can attend, but should expect to work with practical planning documents and numerical schedule and budget examples throughout the week.

Training methodology

The course uses a single running case study so participants experience the connected decisions involved in managing a project from initiation through closeout. Instructor-led sessions introduce each method, followed by guided work on charters, WBS structures, network schedules, RACI matrices, RAID logs, and status reports. Participants use Microsoft Project and Excel templates to test planning assumptions, review peer outputs in small groups, and practise sponsor-facing decisions. The final session includes an application-planning workshop that converts the toolkit into actions for a real workplace project.

Course outline

Day 1: Project initiation and scope definition

• Project life cycle phases and governance decision gates
• Business case, benefits, and measurable success criteria
• Project charter components and sponsor approval authority
• Scope statement boundaries, exclusions, and acceptance criteria
• Requirements traceability from need to deliverable
• Work breakdown structure decomposition techniques
• RACI matrix design for project roles and decisions

Workshop: Participants create a charter, scope statement, initial WBS, and RACI matrix for the course case-study project.

Day 2: Planning time, resources, and cost

• Work package definition and activity sequencing
• Precedence relationships and dependency mapping
• Duration estimating using analogous, parametric, and three-point techniques
• Critical-path method and float interpretation
• Milestone planning and schedule baseline approval
• Resource assignment and capacity constraint checks
• Cost estimating, contingency, and budget baseline concepts

Workshop: Participants build a dependency-based schedule in Microsoft Project and identify the critical path, milestones, resource conflicts, and baseline dates.

Day 3: Risk, stakeholders, and communication

• RAID log structure for risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies
• Probability-impact scoring and risk heat maps
• Risk response strategies and contingency actions
• Issue management, escalation thresholds, and decision logs
• Stakeholder analysis using power-interest mapping
• Communications planning by audience, channel, frequency, and owner
• Facilitation methods for project meetings and action capture

Workshop: Participants produce a prioritised RAID log, stakeholder map, and communications plan, then conduct a simulated risk review meeting.

Day 4: Monitoring, reporting, and change control

• Project baselines for scope, schedule, cost, and performance measurement
• Status collection methods and progress validation
• Schedule variance and milestone trend analysis
• Earned value fundamentals using planned value, earned value, and actual cost
• Dashboard design and red-amber-green reporting criteria
• Change request logging and impact assessment
• Change control board decisions and baseline maintenance

Workshop: Participants analyse a project recovery scenario, prepare a status report, calculate basic variances, and submit a change request with impact analysis.

Day 5: Leading delivery and applying the toolkit

• Project governance forums and sponsor reporting
• Decision-making under time, cost, scope, and quality constraints
• Managing stakeholder conflict and competing priorities
• Vendor and internal dependency coordination
• Quality planning, acceptance, and handover readiness
• Lessons learned capture and project closeout activities
• Ninety-day project management application planning

Workshop: Participants present their completed Project Management Toolkit and produce a 90-day application plan for an active or upcoming workplace project.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel, Jira, PMBOK Guide

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions