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IPMO-Foundation

Start your PMO Journey

Course Description

The AIPMO Foundation level certification course brings the latest in academic research and best practices together into a PMO lifecycle framework. The AIPMO Lifecycle framework describes: how to build a service-oriented PMO that delivers capabilities matched to projects, programs, and portfolio’s needs; your role(s) in running, monitoring, and controlling a PMO; what exactly is PMO success; what is PMO maturity; and how are factors connected to influence project success.

You will learn: To view PMOs in terms of services and the associated supporting capabilities How to design and deliver a core set of PMO services The personal competencies that enable service delivery Key tools and techniques (T&Ts) that enable, support, and extend personal competencies Insights covered in the course materials are those being collated to form AIPMO’s upcoming AIPMO Body of Knowledge (BoK). The AIPMO BoK will be comprised of several books that each address a particular aspect of the elements of a successful PMO. Course graduates will have a head start in understanding and using the framework of capabilities, linked techniques, and tools. To stand out as an excellent PMO professional, you need to know what is of greatest value to each unique project. A capability gained from experiencing project’s first-hand knowledge is hugely accelerated by prior explanation of how the complex factors that exist in all organizations affect the projects, their stakeholders, and project controls.

This course both immerses you in the world of PMO service delivery and also in the worlds of project control over product development lifecycles. By using the course’s case study, you will see and practice the implications of your PMO’s actions on project success, team moral, and business results. The use of the case study makes this course hands-on. Attendees work on the day-to-day operational aspects of PMOs by meeting the challenges to improve the running, monitoring, and controlling of a PMO using PMO Best Practices.

AIPMO's "PMO Services and Capabilities" Book

This book is for every PMO professional who would like to understand how to define and deliver a PMO service strategy. Big part from the course material is from this book and the questions in the exam as well. It is highly recommended for all of the participants to have the book before the course start.

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What We Do

As always, students grow with us!

Certification

Consulting

Business

Digital

Teaching Approach

The training approach includes

1

Lecture

2

Team exercises

3

Group discussions

4

Case study

5

Personal coaching

6

Exam

Your instructor: Laurent Kummer

DBA(c), PM² and PMO Consultant, Coach, Author of “The Lean Project Manager”

Laurent Kummer is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in leading projects and project teams. Consultant and entrepreneur, he is also involved in academic research on Project management methodologies. He is one of the key contributors to PM², the official project management methodology of the European Institutions, which has been released to the public in 2016. As a teacher, he has been sharing his passion for project management through countless classes, lectures, and seminars over the last ten years and keeps current by leading several projects at the highest level of the European Commission.

He has developed a deep expertise in EU-funded development and research projects. Laurent used to represent the Belgian project management community at the International Standard Organization and has participated at the making of the ISO 21500 standard family on project management. Before this, he spent over a decade leading quality and IT infrastructure programs for General Electric in France, Eastern Europe, and Middle East. During his time in various sectors (banking, aviation, energy, oil & gas), Laurent earned a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification and since then has been a pioneer and active promoter of Lean project management, and, in 2017, he authored his best seller “The Lean Project Manager". Laurent holds an engineering degree in Computer Science from the French National School of Electronics and several project management (PMP, PM²) and Agile certifications (Scrum, PM² Agile).

Laurent Kummer

Education

  • EINSEIRB 1999
    Engineering degree, Computer Sciences, Bordeaux (FR)
  • ALMA MATER EUROPAEA
    2020-2023
    Doctoral Program on Project Management, Maribor (SI)


Contributions to leading practice

  • PM² Guide version 2.5 – European Commission 2016 – co-author
  • The Lean Project Manager – 2017 – author
  • “The Lean Project Manager: Applying principles from Lean manufacturing to the project management practice” – 2017 – Proceedings of Society of Project Management International Conference, Munich.
  • PM² Guide version 3 – European Commission 2018 – editor
  • PM² for EU funded Development Projects – European Commission 2019 – co-author
  • PM² Guide – French version – European Commission 2021
  • Sustainability and project resilience (Thesis WIP – 2022)


Modules

  • Course outline
  • AIPMO
  • Introductions
  • Certification path, Different levels of exam & Sample foundation questions
  • Dangers of Underestimating Uncertainty
  • Project Failure – Some Facts
  • Why Projects Fail -Leadership and governance , management
  • Complexity and its Link to Project and Program Failure
  • Complexity of Projects and Programs - Perspectives to other professions
  • PMO's direct and indirect influence on project, program and portfolio success
  • PMO Confusion
  • Case for Action
  • Exercises and a module retrospective.
  • What is a PMO and what is PMO Management
  • Overview of AIPMO's PMO Life-cycle Framework and PMO Services Life-cycle Framework
  • Exploring the framework's components
  • Understand the Organization’s Mission & Vision to define the PMO’s Mission & Vision
  • Projects and programs deliver the Organization’s objectives (Vision) and portfolios within constraints (Resource constraints in “P”)
  • Alignment, Improvement, Management, Governance, Leadership & Stakeholder care
  • Group Service Catalogue, PMO Service catalogue, Procedural Handbook, Success Factors, Staff competencies (Other docs in “P”)
  • Importance of Techniques with tools in the context of the services delivered
  • Case study, exercises and module's retrospective.
  • What is a Project and Program and Portfolio’s focus
  • Types of success – Investment Success vs Project delivery
  • Success Criteria and Success Factors helping success
  • Project Success, What is it?
  • Project and Project Management Success
  • Type 1 and Type 2 Errors Impact on Success
  • PMOs Direct and Indirect Impact on Portfolio, Program and Project Success
  • Project and Product life-cycle basics (Waterfall/ Procedural and Iterative/ Principle Based)
  • (Some) Project Communication Structure choices
  • Authority and the hierarchy view of roles (Sponsor to PM & SM & Coach, Team member, Product Owner, Suppliers, Assurance, PMO)
  • Project control deliverables used by the roles across time and hierarchy
  • Being agile, Doing agile, Agile teams, Agile at scale
  • Approval process in the Portfolio and program with Gate reviews and decision support (Qualification, Approval/ Sanction, Product Acceptances, Closure)
  • Process to create baselines across hybrid approaches – Role of software tools – (Bulk in “P”)
  • PM Soft skills and management of change
  • Case study, exercises and module's retrospective.
  • Unique insights from research of the diversity of PMOs
  • ‘Initiative specific’ PMO versus ‘Departmental PMOs’
  • Permanent ‘Organizational PMOs’ at various levels (Department, Enterprise)
  • PMI’s labels for degrees of authority (Support, Control, Direct)
  • Range of PMO charter purposes
  • Case study, exercises and module's retrospective
  • A PMO analyst’s week (irrespective if it’s in an agile/traditional/hybrid environment)
  • Reporting basics
  • Product control (Configuration control)
  • Collecting time-sheets, pitfalls, aggregating, gaps, analyzing
  • Burn-charts and basic status determination
  • Format and presentation of status information
  • Including Schedule, budget and forecasts e.g., fault queues in reporting
  • Baselines & status determination and fiction versus scales–spotting troubles
  • Info presentation in agile and waterfall for flat and hierarchical needs
  • Basics of a R-A-I-D register/AIPMO registers creation and maintenance – risk and assumption management cycle, Interfaces/dependency, decisions/action tracking
  • Escalations - issue and change process in hybrid environments
  • Insights into AIPMO upcoming books on techniques and tools basic techniques, chains of techniques, categories of techniques
  • Case study, exercises and module's retrospective.
  • Steps to consider service identification, design and pilot
  • Identify and map Service stakeholders business needs
  • AIPMO’s book on PMO services and capabilities
  • Service catalogue of requirements, service level targets, Service procedure design, SIPOC & Swim-Lane
  • PMO management plans, service design and service capacity planning/ sizing – PMO Staff sources and training PMO service cost benefits and approval
  • Service pilot and refinement, roll-out, monitoring, reporting PMO service refresh or retirement
  • Case study, exercises and module's retrospective.

PMO Success

  • How to view and measure PMO success
  • Difference between PMO Performance, benefits and value

PMO Maturity

  • What is PMO maturity and why is it important?
  • Why PMO success is needed to measure PMO maturity
  • AIPMO's PMO maturity model from empirical research

Frequently Asked Questions

You Ask, We Answer

Each of the certification categories serve a difference purpose. The first category “PMO Core Certifications” shows that you have the competencies to design and build a service-orientated PMO with services that are needed by your project community. At the top-level (Expert) certification, you will have to show that you have the competencies to design and build one or more PMOs (called PMO topologies) within an integrated PMO Services topology. The second category of courses, called “Foundational certifications,” comprise of three certifications that are needed by everyone irrespective of whether you are a PMO or project team member or a PM/O director. The foundational courses are the techniques and tools of a trade, so they are needed by everyone including project professionals. The third category of certifications is called the “Specialist” certifications because they directly relate to the ability to offer PMO services. If a PMO service is planned, then the PMO needs to have the capability to offer them. There are over 20 specialist courses at the time of writing. These courses are also needed by project team members.

These three certifications are part of the PMO core certifications. IPMO-F (Foundation) is for the PMO and project team members and covers topics around working in a PMO, and also working in a project team. It covers the lower part of the AIPMO Strategic Lifecycle framework.

IPMO-P (Practitioner) is for the PMO managers, project managers, and senior PMO and project team members. It covers topics on how to identify the need for a PMO and design, and how to justify and build a PMO and its services.

IPMO-E (Expert) is not for everyone. It is the top-level certification for PMO directors and consultants who are managing, consulting, or designing enterprise PMO topologies and PMO Service topologies.

For now, it is best to ask one of our professionals. You can either call or chat online. They will be able to provide you expert advice to plan and advance your career.

Short answer, yes. There are bundles shown on the website, but you can also call to ask if you can get a special discount. If you join as a group to the course, then this will also be taken into consideration.

Who should attend

  • PMO/Project/Program/Portfolio team members 
  • Junior PMO or project managers 
  • Project team members involved in the PMO-related activities 
  • Project/program/portfolio managers with some experience in PMOs 
  • Any project or PMO stakeholder wishing to better understand how to run, monitor, and control services in a high-performing PMO setting

Key takeaways

Understand how PMOs fit into the world of projects, programs, and portfolios

Understand the benefits of viewing PMOs in terms of services Know what are PMO capabilities, and how they are constructed in terms of competencies, tools, and techniques

Understand the AIPMO framework and the phases and processes carried out by a PMO team member

Learn about the key PMO tools and techniques, including templates you can take back to your organization before they are published in AIPMO’s upcoming book on tools and techniques

Understand what are the key documents uses to establish, run, monitor, and control PMO and PMO Services

Be confident knowing what to do in common organizational PMO configurations

Prerequisites

  • Ideally 1 year plus experience in projects and PMO management 
  • Educated at degree level or similar 
  • At least one year of business experience

Exam

The online exam is run by AIPMO, and moderated by a proctor from AIPMO at the end of the course.

  • Open book exam, 50 multiple choice questions 
  • Duration: 1 hour

Attendees are notified by email of the results of the exam

I found the IPMO-F course very interesting. The instructor was great at delivering the course. I didn't have much knowledge of PMOs before starting this course. Now I have a lot more understanding of technical side of building a PMO. I will surely apply this knowledge to my work.

Julia KIng
Project Support Officer (HR), Marie Curie

I found the IPMO-F course very valuable! Case studies were very helpful. Kudos to the trainer for being such a wonderful instructor and being so approachable. 

Anna Chabloz
PMO, Ferring Pharmaceuticals

The IPMO-F course was a nice mix of theory and discussion! It was easy to ask questions in the class. It was nice to understand how the PMO is developed. Very interesting course indeed!

Holly Messines McDade
Project Support Officer, Marie Curie

I can definitely use the learnings from the IPMO-F course in my current role. I got every thing I needed to learn from this course. I would strongly recommend the course for all PMO professionals.

Ziad Baz
PMO, Nesma United Industries

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