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Given the constant demands on project managers and teams, who has time for training? One practical solution is the single-point lesson — an informal, standalone session that focuses on one concept, idea or skill, and can be conducted in under an hour over lunch.
Project management offices play an important role in training and sharing best practices with project managers within the program or organization. A PMO should be staffed with resources possessing the technical and administrative expertise to coach and mentor novice project managers on effective application of project management processes like schedule development, integration management, and program management. Given the constant demands for a project manager’s time, who’s got time for training?
One solution to finding time in a time-crunched world is using single point lessons. Actively used in manufacturing environments, single point lessons are short, standalone training workshops that focus on a single concept, idea, or skill. Instead of spending four days away from the job, a single point lesson can be conducted within an hour during a morning meeting or “Lunch and Learn” session.
Single point lessons don’t require bulky training manuals or participant guides. They are intended to be short presentations that convey the concept or idea in a simple 1-page format. They don’t require a corporate trainer or a professional facilitator. Meaningful single point lessons come from the actual project management practitioner performing the work and using the processes. However, the presenter will need to prepare for the single-point lesson by reviewing lecture notes, preparing a summary sheet, or building a brief presentation.
A PMO can take advantage of this format since the single-point lessons are easily communicated, require little time to implement, and don’t necessarily require a formal meeting. Single point lessons can be distributed via email, posted on a website, communicated in a staff meeting, or tacked to the lunchroom wall.
Aside from the time saving benefits, single-point lessons also help project team members develop a single skill quickly. Management likes single-point lessons as well since it provides relevant on-the-job training without depleting the training budget and straining resources. When project managers leave work for a three- or four-day training class, they end up spending another few hours upon returning to catch up on project work and respond to outstanding issues.
Potential single-point lesson topics include:
1. Setting MS-Project Options 2. How to Baseline the Project Schedule 3. Renumbering your WBS in MS-Project 4. Duration X Units = Work 5. Communicating Team Assignments 6. Publishing Your Project Schedule to MS-Project Server 7. Issues Management: Easy as 1-2-3 8. Need Resources? Initiate Your Project! 9. Balance the Project Checkbook
The single point lessons can be gathered over time and each project manager within the organization should be encouraged to provide a project management knowledge nugget to share with project teams. The single point lessons can be posted on the PMO website and distributed to new project managers or team leaders responsible for project delivery. Single point lessons can conveniently be delivered during a “lunch and learn” session.
Learning doesn’t always require a classroom or off-site training. Single-point lessons help PMOs implement training in bite-size chunks that take less than an hour to absorb. Assess your training needs within your organization and start using single point lessons as a tactical tool for training.
Here is an example of a single-point lesson on “How to Baseline the MS-Project Schedule.” The key is to focus on a single lesson that can be communicated quickly and easily.
How To Baseline Your Project MS-Project Schedule
What: A baseline is a set of original project estimates (scope, time, resources)
Why: The project baseline is used to track actual progress against original planned dates and costs. Project Managers need to measure what they are trying to manage. How: 1) Select Tools – Tracking – Save Baseline, 2) Select Entire Project or Selected Tasks, 3) Click Ok Pre-Baseline Checklist __ Have all activities been defined? __ Has activity sequencing been completed with identified predecessors, lag and lead time? __ Have duration estimates been developed? __ Has each task been assigned resources? __ Have all resources been leveled? __ Have project calendars and resource calendars been updated to reflect vacation/holiday time? __ Have all constraints been considered? __ Have all milestones been defined?
Remember: You can always rebase line tasks or the entire plan following an approved formal change request.
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