Den folgenden Bericht erstellte ein teilnehmender
Personalentwickler (Reuters/ Genf) 

... Local Management will need to be fully briefed and available for steering committee reviews on the third day. There should be a full buy-in by management and group leaders. Each day is expected to require a strong commitment from the attendees and will not allow any parallel activities. That is attendees will not be able to carry on any professional work during the day. Days are expected from 9:00 to 19:30.

What is this training …?
It is not a generic project management training,
it rather puts general principles in the context of the company environment; without going into too much details but still covering all important aspects (e.g. managing scope, planning, team working, controlling risk, presentations, acceptance, debriefings)

It is not a training based upon power point,
about 75% of the time is hands-on team work under supervision and guidance of the trainers. The remaining time is used to interactively explain principles and putting them into the context of why they are important for a project, a team and the company.

It is not a training that follows a rigid agenda,
it is more a framework that the trainer uses to specifically address development opportunities of the attendees. A comprehensive set of techniques ('tool box') is available to choose from, when a group (or the trainer) feels a demand for going into more details on a specific subject. This covers both methodology and soft skills (e.g. time management, setting priorities, and delegation of work packages, dealing with conflicts, organizing and running meetings, presentations).



How is it structured …?
First Day Morning -
Setting of scope, expectations and content of the training; it is made clear
right in the beginning that TOP-Management will be present at the third day. Basic principles of project management are developed interactively; this covers organizational aspects, communication and project management culture, methods and processes.

First Day Afternoon -
The attendees form two or three groups to start developing and planning a
project by using and applying what was developed in the morning. These projects have to be in a 'real life' context of the attendees responsibilities
('building a house' projects rule out). Focus is on scoping the project.

Second Day Morning -
Work on the projects continues, with focus on work-break down structure, risk management, resourcing and organisation

Second Day Afternoon -
Work on the project continues, with focus on profitability.

Third Day Morning -
Work on the project continues with focus on stakeholder analysis, specifically cover dependencies on internal and external systems and organizations

What makes it special …?
The attendees have to develop a project for about 15 hours,
knowing that their management will assess their work in front of the group.
This creates an atmosphere of importance (even stress) so that people take it seriously.

As the attendees have to define and plan a 'real life' project (related to
their own environment and work), TOP-Management gets a very good understanding about the extent to which their staff are able to apply what they learned. This also is a good opportunity to collecting valuable ideas that come 'bottom up' and to identify “potentials”.

When a project is approved to 'go ahead', this is not an academic 'goals of the training achieved', but rather a concrete management 'order' to deliver the presented project; which demonstrates to the attendees that their management takes their work seriously, and results in additional productivity and motivation.