Background

John Driessnack lectures, that is I run a class workshop, at UMD Project Management Center of Excellence, American University, Defense Acquisition Univ, and a tailor workshop at Olde Stone Consulting, LLC using an artifact-based approach using a simple excel based notebook with a scheduling model (MS Project or ProjectLibre) to teach fundamentals of Project Management to a wide base of students and clients. The approach utilizes PMI’s Standard for Earned Value Management, ANSI PMI 19-0006-2019) along with an expanded SMART Building example based on the standard’s example. Professor Driessnack has used this approach tailored for clients in various venues outside the classroom.

The workshop approach can be used to jump start any type of team starting to plan a stand-alone project or one that is a part of a larger Program or Portfolio. Key to the approach is using a Lean Thinking with an artifact-based structure, such as the Charter, WBS, RAM, milestone list, resource list, stakeholder analysis, etc. The approach also uses Professor Driessnack Challenge Management approach using his CAIRO (constraints, assumptions, issues, risk, opportunity) framework.

Class Requirement Matrix

You can see the approach by examining the course requirements matrix.

Lean Notebook

The basic course uses a excel workbook which I call the Lean Notebook. The excel sheets in this “notebook” help the team pull together a Charters, the WBS, an OBS/RAM/RACI matrix, list their Challenge by CAIRO (constraints, assumptions, issues, risks and opportunities), resources and items to procure, and a rough cost estimate. Most of this content in these artifacts is then transferred to a resource loaded schedule (MS Project or ProjectLibre is what I use, other tools can also be used) to demonstrate how one can pull together the programmatic of a project into a model, so one can do Model Based Programmatic (MBProg)

Send me an email at John.Driessnack@OldeStoneConsulting.com to request copy of any of my course materials. They are all in the Creative Commons and available for your use at no cost.