The Association for Project Management (APM) Project Fundamentals Qualification is a practical starting point for aspiring project managers. The course is also useful for anyone who wishes to gain an overview of and understand the principles of project management. This includes business analysts, solution developers, change professionals, business architects and business managers.

Gain a solid grounding in the fundamentals of project management. This introductory course explains, in a clear and relatable way, the core principles, practices and techniques used by today's project managers.

The APM Project Fundamentals course is based on the APM Body of Knowledge 7th edition, a repository of project management best practice.

To give you more of an idea of what you’ll learn and how the course will help you, here’s a quick guide.

• The APM Project Fundamentals course manual is a clear, comprehensive, step-by-step guide through every stage of the course.
• Delegates find the printed manual useful for reference and for taking notes.
• If you’re attending a virtual course, you will be sent a hard copy by post beforehand.
• An electronic version of the manual is provided as standard.

Yes. During this two-day course, you will receive all the training you need to prepare for the APM Project Fundamentals multiple-choice examination, which is a one-hour test with 60 questions. This examination is taken online, following the course.

The next step on APM’s project management development path is the APM Project Management Qualification, this course is also offered by AssistKD.

APM Project Fundamentals Qualification (two-day course)
Course content

The project environment

• Definition of a project and project management
• The project management process
• Projects versus business-as-usual
• Project management in IT projects
• Projects and programmes
• Programme management and portfolio management
• The concept of a project lifecycle and lifecycles compared

Project concept

• Importance of starting a project properly
• Understanding the business context
• Engaging stakeholders
• Roles and responsibilities in projects
• Project governance
• Analysing and managing stakeholders
• Relating roles to tasks/deliverables

Defining and delivering business benefits

• The business case
• The business case in the project lifecycle
• Contents of a business case
• Cost/benefit analysis
• Financial aspects of the business case (payback, DCF/NPV, IRR)
• Benefits management and benefits realisation
• Critical success factors and key performance indicators

Project planning

• The planning process
• Work breakdown structure and product breakdown structure (WBS and PBS)
• Types of product or deliverable
• Product flow diagrams and work packages
• Cost breakdown structure (CBS) and cost planning
• Organisational breakdown structure (OBS)
• Scope management

Estimating

• Estimating accuracy
• Bottom-up (or analytical) estimating
• Comparative (or analogous) estimating
• Parametric estimating
• Contingency
• Estimating as an ongoing process
• Estimating project costs

Planning networks and charts

• The planning process and scheduling process
• Constructing a dependency network
• Developing a bar (Gantt) chart
• Creating a resource histogram
• The iterative lifecycle
• Milestones and baselines
• Procurement and procurement strategies

Teams, leadership and motivation

• The elements of an effective team
• The Belbin team types and their use
• How teams develop – the Tuckman model
• Motivation theories – Maslow and Hertzberg
• Management style
• Leadership
• Conflict management
• Virtual teams

Project risk management

• The risk management process
• Risk identification and assessment
• Planning risk responses
• Managing the risk management process
• The risk map. Risks vs issues
• The benefits of risk management

Managing quality in projects

• Definition of quality in projects
• The quality plan – purpose and content
• The ISO01001 standard
• Quality management
• Quality control, quality assurance and continual improvement
• Configuration management

The project management plan

• Definition of a project management plan (PMP)
• The project management plans in relation to other plans
• Who is the PMP for?
• Issues to be addressed in and contents of a project management plan
• Deployment baseline
• Updating the PMP

Project monitoring, control and reporting

• The need for monitoring and control
• The principles of monitoring progress
• The control loop
• Managing project scope – change control
• Managing issues and reporting progress
• The communications plan

Project transition

• Definition of project transition and activities involved
• Project completion, handover and acceptance
• Administrative closure of projects
• Early closure of a project
• Post-project review and benefits review
• Why have reviews?

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