Define project scope and boundaries clearly enough to say what work is excluded as well as included.
Project Management
Project Management Fundamentals for Accidental Project Managers
A fundamentals course for the accidental project manager: people handed responsibility for a project without formal training, covering scope, schedule, budget, stakeholders and risk from day one.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Many people become accidental project managers: a technical specialist takes on a system rollout, an operations manager inherits an office move, a marketing lead is asked to coordinate a product launch, all without formal training or a shared method. Scope drifts, deadlines slip, and stakeholders hear about problems too late. This fundamentals course gives first-time and informal project leads a working method they can use immediately: defining what is and is not in scope, breaking work into a schedule that can actually be tracked, building a budget that survives contact with reality, and setting up reporting that keeps sponsors and team members aligned. Each session works through the documents a project actually needs, such as a one-page charter, a work breakdown structure, a RAID log and a status report, and the decisions behind them, rather than abstract theory. Discussion draws on situations typical of a first project: an unclear sponsor request, a schedule with no slack, a stakeholder forgotten until it was too late. By the end, new project leads have templates adapted to their own project, a realistic schedule and budget, and a plan for the stakeholder conversations their project needs in its first month.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Build a work breakdown structure and translate it into a schedule with realistic task durations.
Construct a project budget that accounts for contingency, resourcing and likely cost drivers.
Identify stakeholders, map their interests and plan communication suited to each group.
Set up a RAID log to track risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies throughout delivery.
Run status meetings and write progress reports that surface problems while they are still fixable.
Close a project formally, including handover, sign-off and a record of lessons learned.
Who Should Attend
Technical specialists and subject matter experts newly responsible for delivering a project.
Team leads and supervisors asked to coordinate a project alongside their regular role.
Administrative and support staff moving into a project coordinator or officer position.
Small business owners and department heads managing internal improvement projects.
Graduates and early-career professionals given their first project to run.
Anyone who has taken on project responsibility without formal project management training.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Setting Up a Project That Can Be Controlled
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Clarifying Objectives, Deliverables and Boundaries
- Translate a sponsor's request into a written objective, a list of deliverables and explicit exclusions.
- Draft a one-page project charter that names the sponsor, objectives, scope and success criteria.
- Distinguish project outputs from the outcomes and benefits the organisation actually wants.
- Agree acceptance criteria for each deliverable with the sponsor before planning begins.
Session 2Building a Work Breakdown Structure and Baseline
- Break a project objective down into a work breakdown structure of manageable, assignable tasks.
- Sequence tasks by dependency and identify which activities determine the overall finish date.
- Estimate task duration using team input and comparison with similar past work.
- Set a baseline schedule and budget that later progress can be measured against.
02Planning Budget, Resources and Risk
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Building a Realistic Project Budget
- Cost a project by labour, materials and third-party spend, and separate fixed from variable items.
- Add contingency reserve sized to the level of uncertainty in the estimate.
- Match tasks to available people and flag where resource conflicts will delay the schedule.
- Set up a simple cost-tracking sheet that compares actual spend with the budget baseline.
Session 2Identifying and Tracking Project Risk
- Run a risk identification session with the team and score each risk by likelihood and impact.
- Assign an owner and a response, such as avoid, reduce, transfer or accept, to every significant risk.
- Set up a RAID log to capture risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies in one place.
- Review and update the risk log on a fixed schedule rather than only when problems appear.
03Leading Stakeholders and Team Communication
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Mapping and Engaging Stakeholders
- Identify project stakeholders and map them by influence and level of interest.
- Plan communication content, channel and frequency suited to each stakeholder group.
- Prepare for a sponsor conversation that sets expectations on scope, time and budget trade-offs.
- Recognise early signs of stakeholder disengagement and plan a response before it affects delivery.
Session 2Running Meetings and Status Reporting
- Structure a project status report that separates facts, risks and decisions needed from the sponsor.
- Chair a progress meeting with a fixed agenda that closes with clear actions and owners.
- Escalate a blocked decision to a sponsor with options and a recommendation, not just a problem.
- Give the team feedback on missed deadlines in a way that keeps them reporting problems early.
04Managing Change and Closing the Project
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Controlling Scope and Change Requests
- Assess a change request for its impact on scope, schedule, budget and risk before approving it.
- Use a simple change log to record every request, decision and the reason behind it.
- Decline an unfunded scope addition while offering the sponsor a workable alternative.
- Re-baseline a schedule and budget when an approved change makes the original baseline obsolete.
Session 2Closing the Project and Capturing Lessons
- Confirm each deliverable against its acceptance criteria before requesting formal sign-off.
- Plan handover of documentation, access and ongoing support to the receiving team.
- Run a lessons-learned review that captures what to repeat and what to change next time.
- Close supplier contracts, release resources and archive project records for future reference.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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