Curriculum

The Stanford Advanced Project Management Program China consists of three core courses plus three electives, as follows:

Converting Strategy into Action
This foundation course provides the conceptual framework for all of the other courses in the program, introducing proven approaches and emerging concepts for aligning an organization's project and program initiatives with its strategic objectives. You will learn why traditional "project management as usual" practices don't work in today's complex, fast-paced business environments -- then acquire a comprehensive organizational mastery model that does work. You'll emerge with a firm grasp of what it takes for an organization to be focused and successful with projects and programs that consistently execute business strategies.

Learn how to:
• Align project initiatives with strategic objectives.
• Select, prioritize, and manage a portfolio of projects in a product development or other fast-paced business environment. Complete projects faster, with more efficient resource deployment.
• Use new tools to support planning and execution, thereby shrinking time to market.
• Address "crisis mentality" and use time more effectively.
• Champion advanced project management with both co-located and virtual teams.
• Close the gap between knowing and doing.
• Customize a best-practices-based organizational mastery model for direct application in your organization.
• Build a stronger project-based matrix organization that is capable of consistently high performance.

Mastering the Integrated Program
Learn best-practice approaches to meeting the complex challenges of managing programs made up of multiple projects. Recognizing that it is not enough to approach programs simply as big projects, this course develops a unique set of management skills based on a comprehensive five-step process model. You will acquire proven techniques for initiating, defining and organizing, planning, tracking and managing, and closing out programs of any type and size. You'll also learn how to manage the project interfaces that are crucial to program success.

Learn how to:
• Grow the program team, starting with a small initial team.
• Review program background, success measures, and strategic risks; confirm program alignment with business objectives.
• Define and plan the program.
• Set up program infrastructure, including program processes and a program management office (PMO).
• Conduct a simple and effective integration of program scope.
• Integrate the program schedule through effective interface management.
• Optimize the program plan.
• Generate risk management plans.
• Promote organization-wide consistency of terminology and methodology.
• Set up tracking processes to ensure performance to key measurements.
• Develop fact-based data for effective decision making.

Mastering the Project Portfolio
In this core course, you will learn an industry-proven approach to the high-challenge, high-stakes, and high-payoff undertaking of ensuring that the organization is investing in the right projects, giving those projects the right resources, and getting them completed at the right time. The course offers a complete, best-practices-based methodology for project selection, prioritization, and oversight -- plus mentoring in how to resolve real-world implementation concerns.

Learn how to:
• Establish effective governance over a project portfolio or multiple project portfolios.
• Evaluate the inherent value -- and risk -- of projects in the portfolio.
• Align projects with strategic objectives.
• Make trade-offs between several desirable opportunities when faced with insufficient resources to accomplish them all.
• Customize, implement, and institutionalize a portfolio management process that will work for your organization.
• Apply good sense in managing the day-to-day details of the portfolio.
• Reduce the negative impact of organizational politics.
• Integrate the portfolio management process with other business processes.
• Promote organization-wide consistency with regard to portfolio management objectives, processes, roles, and responsibilities.
• Effectively work with clients or customers to help them organize their project portfolios.
• Evaluate existing projects against new projects while managing a dynamic pipeline in which projects are constantly added, closed out, and rescoped.
• Effectively estimate resource capacity against resource demand.
• Better understand project interdependence.
• Effectively handle the requests of project and functional managers for more time, money, and resources.
• Promote organization-wide consistency with regard to portfolio management objectives, processes, roles, and responsibilities.

Leveraging the Customer Relationship
This course develops skill in managing customer relationships, whether internal or external. You will acquire proven communication and negotiation techniques for handling the challenging dynamics of customer interaction. You'll learn how you can be most effective at diagnosing customer problems, selling ideas internally, managing customers' changing needs and wants, facilitating decision making, ensuring customer satisfaction, and following through on opportunities for business development.

Learn how to:
• Increase customer satisfaction without compromising your organization's values and goals.
• Balance competing objectives.
• Employ optimal communication techniques when interacting with key project stakeholders.
• Facilitate decision making.
• Conduct principled negotiations that bring project goals and financial requirements into alignment.
• Effectively manage change as you define and negotiate customer needs and wants.
• Take gender and cultural differences into consideration when interacting with customers.
• Recognize and capitalize on opportunities for business development inside and outside the customer's organization.

Learn how to: 
 • Design an organization capable of aligning its project and program activities with its business strategy, in real-time.
• Successfully resolve the range of "people issues" that can impede responsiveness and flexibility.
• Develop the capability to respond quickly, fully, and seamlessly to global customers' expectations.
• Expand your organization's capability to execute by building high-functioning alliances with the right vendors.
• Identify and create the optimal matrix structure for your organization.
• Come to grips with the cultural issues that stand in your organization's way.
• Increase your effectiveness as a change agent within the implementation environment.

Learn how to:
• Leading decision-making and communications in strategic execution planning.
• Ensuring strategic alignment and organizational "fit."
• Assessing and planning for organizational execution risks.
• Building collaborative partnerships through sponsorship and alliances.
• Planning and leading changes induced by new strategies and portfolios.

Leadership for Strategic Execution
This course addresses the key leadership challenges facing those with responsibility for executing their company's strategies through organizational change and portfolio, program, and project implementation. The course focuses on the skills and competencies that leaders require for guiding their organizations, in addition to offering innovative tools for engaging others in meaningful collaboration. It includes such critical topics as:

Designing the Organization for Execution
An organization's ability to execute strategy in a rapidly changing world is widely acknowledged to be the ultimate and the ultimate challenge - in today's dynamic, global business environment. This course will enable you to be an effective contributor in shaping an organization that is ready to stand up to the challenge. You will be prepared to design and implement the structure, culture, processes, and tools that optimally align your project, program, and business unit-level organization with a set of strategic objectives that is continually changing in response to market demands.