What I learnt during my Project Management Workshop

Since joining Think Productive a month ago today (happy anniversary TP!), I’ve had the pleasure of attending lots of our workshops. It’s been the best way to dive into my new role as Learning Success Manager, where I get to support our superstar clients plan learning programmes for their teams.

After 19 years as a teacher, trainer and facilitator, it’s wonderful to sit at the other side of the table (well, laptop) as a participant in Ninja Russell’s online Project Management Training.

Project Management 101 is a relatively new addition to the TP catalogue. The session overview promises to help me “Be the Project Manager that Wows the Rest!”. This sounds juicy and I can not wait to test it out. Can Russell really get me understanding and applying impactful tools and techniques in 6-hours?

6 hours later

He did it. I am now a happy cocktail of drained, motivated, empowered and very hungry.

What I liked about Russell’s approach is that the day was centred around a real-life project that each of us was working on.

Russell took us on a journey that began with our ‘Project Aim’. Sounds simple in theory, but it took us a few tries until we successfully applied SMART targets and got to the essence of what our projects were intended to achieve.  

The next stop was the ‘Success and Failure Criteria’, where we got to pen our non-negotiables. The Gantt Chart proved to be a crowd-pleaser as we all got to visually see our project’s tasks, contributors and dates in a tidy visual. This made me happy for two reasons:

1. It made my project go from overwhelming to achievable.
2. I really like colourful charts!

Russell then moved us on to milestones, risk management, stakeholder mapping and engagement. Through each stage, participants were moved into breakout rooms for discussions and had ample time to practise and apply the principles. Russell was generous with his knowledge – but also shared templates that we can use in the future. And of course, the famous TP Workbook means that all my learning is captured for me to refer to later.

I was one of 9 participants – all of us from different industries – and the model worked for all our projects. There was a real buzz of excitement and a genuine willingness to share ideas and problem-solve together. They were a great bunch.

If I have piqued your curiosity and you’d like to chat about helping your team with their Project Management skills, get in touch with me at deane@thinkproductive.co.uk and we can schedule a slot to get together over a cuppa.

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