E-Learning modules from PSMJ Resources, the global leader in business and project performance improvement resources for the A/E/C industry, make it easy to acquire new skills and enhance existing ones. Choose from 20 interactive courses that teach the hacks, formulas, and processes used by the most profitable architecture and engineering firms.
PSMJ Resources' interactive and expert-led E-learning courses for Architecture and Engineering firm staff put powerful professional development at your fin.gertips. Built on over 40 years of training over 40,000 A/E/C PMs, these interactive online classes are the perfect solution when in-person professional development isn't an option.
Now, whether you're training one PM or over a hundred, it’s easy to make sure your team has critical skills that drive better project outcomes and greater profitability! Get the complete Best Practices in A/E/C Project Management E-learning package, specific suites, or choose individual courses to attack your firm's isolated skillset deficiencies
Complete Set:
SAVE $400
1.3 Anticipating and Managing Project Risks
1.4 Contract Terms and Conditions
1.1 Business Development for Project Managers
1.2 Negotiating Win-Win Solutions
Complete Suite 1:
Setting the Stage
2.1 Critical Success Factors
2.2 Scheduling the Project
2.3 Organizing the Project Team
2.5 Developing A Project Management Plan
2.4 Preparing the Project Financial Plan
Complete Suite 2:
Planning the
Project
3.3 Managing Project Change
3.2 Controlling Budget & Schedule with Earned Value Management
3.4 Managing Project Quality
3.1 Project Startup
3.5 Wrapping Up the Project
Complete Suite 3: Managing the Project
4.4 Team Leadership
4.2 Personal Productivity
4.3 Effective Communications
4.6 Financial Fundamentals
4.5 Managing Client Relationships
4.1 Today's Project Manager
Complete Suite 4:
Project Leadership
PSMJ's A/E/C Enterprise E-Learning option is the smart way to get your entire team up to speed on the best ways to manage projects, clients, budgets, schedules, and more. With Enterprise E-Learning, any or all of our training modules are available either on our portal or for upload to your LMS. And with attractive volume discounts, the more you train, the more you save!
Let's talk about how to apply our e-learning courses to improving project and financial performance through a comprehensive firmwide training program.
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E-Learning Module 2.1:
FREE SAMPLE COURSE
Critical Success Factors
Before you can finalize a scope of services, you must understand both the client’s critical success factors and those of your firm. And you must be able to quantify them. Once this is done, you can prepare a scope of services that defines exactly what you need to do. If you fail to link the scope of work to the client’s critical success factors, you’re likely to end up with an unhappy client.
The work breakdown structure is a breakdown of that scope in the form of a task outline. The organizational breakdown structure defines who is responsible for each task. The accounting breakdown structure determines how you will collect the costs on the project.
Topic covered include:
For alternative packages and pricing options, please contact us
E-Learning Module 1.1:
Business Development for Project Managers
Turn Your A/E/C PMs into New Business Generators!
By interacting with your clients and hearing their concerns, your PMs are perfectly positioned to identify issues, spot cross-sell opportunities, and unlock your firm's next big revenue stream. In fact, they usually know about upcoming opportunities long before anyone else in your A/E/C firm, and if properly trained, they can get it into your pipeline quickly and minimize the risk that the work goes elsewhere.
But while PMs should play a key role in developing new business, too many don’t have the marketing, sales, or client management skills and confidence they need. That means your firm could be leaving hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of dollars, on the table. Don't let this happen!
This all-new two-hour on-demand training module from the global leader in A/E/C business success education shows PMs how to become more effective seller-doers, generate new business from existing clients, and accelerate their career growth through the quickest path to executive leadership... generating NEW revenue! They learn:
E-Learning Module 1.2:
Negotiating Win-Win Solutions
With the preliminary contract in hand, it’s time to get to the real task of creating business relationships — negotiating and closing the deal!
Being present in the negotiating session provides the A/E/C Project Manager with critical information regarding risk, insurance, and compensation terms of the contract. And since the Project Manager is involved in preparing the proposal and is the person in the firm most familiar with the scope of work and the level of effort required to complete the project, can be invaluable in explaining budgets and negotiating potential modifications to the original scope.
Negotiating contracts requires a unique set of management skills. This course teaches architecture and engineering professionals:
E-Learning Module 2.1:
Critical Success Factors
Before you can finalize a scope of services, you must understand both the client’s critical success factors and those of your firm. And you must be able to quantify them. Once this is done, you can prepare a scope of services that defines exactly what you need to do. If you fail to link the scope of work to the client’s critical success factors, you’re likely to end up with an unhappy client.
The work breakdown structure is a breakdown of that scope in the form of a task outline. The organizational breakdown structure defines who is responsible for each task. The accounting breakdown structure determines how you will collect the costs on the project.
Topic covered include:
E-Learning Module 2.2:
Scheduling The Project
The Work Breakdown Schedule (WBS), or task outline section, of the project management plan has been completed, and the team is convinced that it covers the scope of services in the contract. The various tasks have been or need to be planned—sequenced in the most efficient order for completion by the team members, and to reflect the priorities of the client and the firm. This course describes the most commonly used scheduling methods and how to select the most appropriate one for each of your projects.
Topic covered include:
E-Learning Module 2.5:
Developing A Project Management Plan
Starting each project with a well-defined plan is important to succeed in any business—but critical in the design industry.
But what is planning anyway? Simply put, planning is nothing more than the most efficient sequencing of all the activities the project team must complete to accomplish the scope of work. “Efficient sequencing?” Yes, this means each activity is identified and planned for in the most logical order so that as each is started, all the necessary inputs are completed. Thus, a primary focus of planning should be proper and efficient sequencing!
In this course we’ll cover how to document them in a Project Management Plan (PMP) and use the PMP to help you manage the project. We’ll also provide you with some simple templates to help you efficiently prepare PMPs for small and midsize projects.
Topic covered include:
E-Learning Module 1.4:
Contract Terms and Conditions
Contract terms and conditions are part of a firm’s overall company risk management program. The purpose of the company risk management program is to ensure that the assets of the business are preserved, and that the company has the wherewithal to continue its operations even after it might have claims against it brought by clients or other stakeholders.
Well-written contracts must define the parameters of success for the project manager and the project team. Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 2.4:
Preparing The Project Financial Plan
Once you’ve completed the work breakdown structure, established a project schedule, and selected the key members of the project team, it’s time to prepare a financial plan for the project. In this chapter, we’ll describe how to accomplish this in a way that allows you to meet the client’s and your firm’s critical success factors.
We also provide information that helps project managers understand how their project finances fit within the overall financial management of their firm. Price, cost, budgets, estimates, fees, revenues, etc.—there always seems to be confusion about these terms. Are they the same thing or different? If they are different, what is the difference?
This course will not attempt to make the project manager into an accountant; however, a basic understanding of these terms is vital to establishing the project budget. Assuming that the PM has completed the planning and scheduling phase, it is now time to align the project budget to the tasks in the project management plan.
Topic covered include:
E-Learning Module 2.3:
Organizing The Project Team
Why do we have so much trouble leading and working on project teams? With the possible exception of sports, most educational situations call for individual performance, not team performance. So, with at least 16 years of being rewarded for individual rather than group performance, our engineers and designers are assigned to a project team and expected to cooperate with each other. Keep this common paradigm in mind as you form your project team.
Once you’ve completed the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and determined the scheduling constraints, it’s now time to complete the assignment of the team, including any design consultants, and prepare to start up the project. In this course, we’ll describe how to accomplish this in a way that allows you to meet the client’s and your firm’s critical success factors.
Topic covered include:
E-Learning Module 1.3:
Anticipating and Managing Risks
The process of identifying and managing the various types of project risk has become especially important in today’s business environment where all parties jump to legal action as the first step in resolving any dispute. Unfortunately, the design firm is in the center of almost every dispute—even the ones in which they hold no contractual responsibility. There are three fundamental elements to limiting the firm’s liability for project risks:
This chapter offers suggestions for identifying, assessing, and managing the risk of professional liability associated with professional design/consulting practices. Topic covered include:
E-Learning Module 3.2:
Controlling Budget And Schedule With Earned Value Management
Leading the project team and controlling the project rests solidly on the shoulders of the project manager. Other managers of the firm may market the work and negotiate contracts. Others may even create the initial project budget and schedule for a project. But when it comes to managing and controlling the project, the project manager, and no one else, has full responsibility. With this in mind, it is critical that each project manager develop the project control skills required to complete each project successfully.
Earned Value Management (EVM) is one of the best ways to control project budget and schedule as well as to manage project risks and keep architects and engineers out of trouble. When used properly, EVM introduces an added level of transparency with respect to project scope, timeframe, and budget. After completing this course, you will have an understanding of the fundamentals and application of EVM for managing architecture, engineering, and construction projects.
Topics covered include:
FREE E-Learning Course
E-Learning Module 4.1:
Today's Project Manager
Today's most successful A/E/C firms are really committed to making the project management process their primary method of delivering services to their clients.
This interactive e-learning course describes the challenges of being a project manager and gives you proven techniques to meet these challenges head-on.
Course Outline:
Wrapping Up The Project
Some things never change-like trying to finish a project. Visit any design firm and you’ll always hear the same comments: “We can’t seem to finish the projects-they drag on forever.” This causes problems with reassigning staff to other work. Invoices are held for final drawings to be submitted. Expense accounts continue to accumulate against open job numbers. Gross profits that once were great are now continuing to decrease month by month. Why can’t we seem to close out a design project?
This course describes the elements of a successful project close-out, including specific suggestions that will not only make your current project more successful but help you avoid the same pitfalls on future projects.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 4.5:
Managing Client
Relationships
Doing business in the design industry means that firms deliver a service to clients in exchange for compensation. Delivering service is different than selling a product. The relationship that exists between the design firm and the client becomes more critical due to the greater degree of involvement of both parties during the process of exchange.
According to PSMJ research, it costs 10 – 15 times more to get a dollar of revenue from a new client than from an existing one. This module describes some proven techniques that firm leaders and PMs use to effectively manage and build long-lasting relationships with their clients.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 3.4:
Managing Project Quality
One definition of “quality” is the degree to which outcomes meet requirements. There are two kinds of requirements in this equation—explicit and implicit. Explicit requirements are typically written down, such as in codes and standards. Implicit requirements are subjective, not necessarily written down or even stated, but expected by the client.
This course is a brief primer on understanding the role of quality in architecture and engineering. Participants will gain an understanding of the basic steps that must be established to ensure client satisfaction, beginning with getting project planning right. Above all, participants will see that “quality” is not something that can be “added” to project design and delivery, but is the foundation for successful project.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 4.4:
Team Leadership
Why do we have so much trouble leading and working on project teams? With the possible exception of sports, most educational situations call for individual performance, not team performance. So, with at least 16 years of being rewarded for individual rather than group performance, our engineers and designers are assigned to a project team and expected to cooperate with each other.
This course covers some proven techniques that project managers have used to make their teams more effective. Leading a project team can be one of the most rewarding experiences in any professional career. At the same time, it can be full of stress, frustration, and even distress. The biggest challenges are associated with leadership and motivation—not the routine administrative tasks like budgets and reports. This course reviews some proven techniques that project managers have used to make their teams more effective.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 4.3:
Effective Communication
Successful projects thrive on communication. Effective communications are a key component in leading project teams and managing client relationships to ensure that everyone operates from the same agenda. Real and potential problems arise from misunderstandings caused by ineffective communication.
It is the responsibility of the project manager to establish both the culture of communication and the methods. If you fail to communicate well, expectations may not be met, resulting in problems that take time and money to correct. In addition, clients can be lost.
Project communications have been transformed in the past decade with the emergence of e-mail, texting, videoconferencing, blogs, and social networks. Now, the development of mobile technology, such as smart phones, computer tablets, and cloud computing, is unleashing another sea change in the industry. This course covers how you can improve communication: written, verbal and body language, and how you can reinforce one form with at least one other.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 3.3:
Managing Project Change
Frank Stasiowski, founder of PSMJ Resources, defines project management as “the art and science of leading a group of stakeholders through a series of changes we call a ‘project.’” Changes aren’t just events that interrupt the smooth flow of a project, they are an inherent part of the project development process. And so, it is safe to say that nearly every project will undergo changes before it is completed.
These changes are usually associated with scope of work or schedule revisions. It is imperative that the contract agreement with the client be amended to reflect the changes. This course covers the most common types of changes that occur on A/E/C projects, how to recognize them, how to plan for them, and how to manage them.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 4.2:
Personal Productivity
Your time is your most valuable personal asset. It’s one of the few things that can’t be purchased. By definition, there is also a limited amount—no matter who you are, there are only 24 hours in a day. Therefore, how you allocate this limited personal resource will determine your success in both your personal and professional life.
Before you can lead others, you must first be able to manage your own time efficiently. This course covers some of the biggest time management challenges for today’s project managers, and presents some proven ways to improve your personal productivity.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 4.6:
Financial Fundamentals
Project managers typically deal only with the financial aspects of their projects. But to be really valuable to their firm, and to accelerate their careers, they need to understand some key aspects of financial management in the A/E/C industry. This course presents some of these important concepts, and details how project financial management can affect the firm’s financial performance.
A PM is assigned to each project, not only to manage the project team and to ensure that the project budget is met, but also to ensure:
In a nutshell, the PM is responsible for the project’s financial management in two primary areas: cash flow and profitability. This means the PM must be familiar with the monthly financial reporting cycles and have the ability to plan, track, and evaluate the fiscal performance of a project. He or she must understand how the project’s total gross revenue relates to the project direct labor and project expenses, including consultants. Plus, the PM must also understand how the planned and actual project performance contributes to the overall profitability of the firm.
Topics covered include:
E-Learning Module 3.1:
Project Startup
Studies of unsuccessful projects indicate that those that start on the wrong foot never recover—the project team spends most of their project execution phase playing catch up. At the end of the project, neither the project team nor the client is satisfied with the results. So why do many projects start poorly? There are many issues, but a few stand out as quite common:
