APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ)

Who is this course for

APM Project Management Qualification is the benchmark qualification for anyone embarking on a project management career, or looking to add project management to their portfolio of skills.

Purpose of the course

The course provides a wide breadth of knowledge in all areas of Project Management, from strategic and commercial implications, to the technical, organisational, and people management skills required to participate effectively within a project team. The APM Project Management Qualification provides evidence of a thorough understanding of project management. Based upon the APM’s Body of Knowledge, the course covers all the techniques required to plan, control and implement successful projects.

You will learn how to

Apply the tools and techniques suggested by the Association of Project Managers

Contextualise a project in different environments, such as business as usual, programme and portfolio

Use and apply a social roles model

Use and apply a situational leadership model

Approach conflict in project management in different ways, each suited to a given circumstance

Prerequisites

This is an advanced course and it is advised that you have completed one of the following courses: Principles of Project Management, APM Project Fundamentals Qualification, PRINCE2 Foundation or PRINCE2 Combined.

Or have extensive experience in project management and ideally have been working in a projects role for at least two years.

Benefits for you as an individual

Attendees should, by learning 37 syllabus areas, gain a good understanding of what a project is and what a project manager's job involves. This includes techniques such as risk assessment, planning and reporting and 'softer' elements of project management such as communication, motivation and teamwork.

Benefits for your organisation

Attendees should gain a fully rounded appreciation of what is involved in managing a project: topics are explored in detail, with the emphasis on what needs to be done in running a project, such as the use of milestone charts and earned value analysis in reporting.

General

What is a Project? and Project Management?
Defining ‘Programme Management’ and ‘Portfolio Management’
Understand the benefits of managing groups of projects within an organisation
The important factors of a project’s context and the effects of these context factors on a project
Understand stakeholder management

Strategic

Project success criteria and success factors
Learn suitable performance indicators to apply to project success factors
The Project Management Plan, its purpose, content, authorship, readership and ownership
The Project risk management process
Identifying and evaluating risks and the risk management plan
The role of quantitative analysis
Common quality techniques
Differences between quality planning, quality control, and quality assurance
Health and Safety and Environment standards applicable to PM

Control

Main break down structures and their fundamental relationships
Demonstrate the use of different techniques for scheduling projects
Time schedules and resource allocation schedule
Resource histograms and ‘S’ curves
Cost management - methods & reasons
Change control
Identifying possible change control problems
Understand how an earned value system works
Communication methods

Technical

How to structure a project cost estimate
The different estimation methods
Estimating the effort needed to execute a project
Configuration management
Defining the terms configuration control, configuration identification, configuration status accounting, configuration auditing

Commercial

Understanding the business case
Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
Net Present Value (NPV)
Payback periods
Purchasing and contracting methods
Outlining the principles of managing suppliers and contractors

Organisation and Governance

Project life-cycles
Handover and closeout
Project reviews
Organisational roles

Organisational

Project life-cycle and the reasons for managing projects in them
The hand-over and close-out process
Post project review and its place in the project life-cycle
Recognising the different types of project organisation and their merits
The factors to be considered when setting up the project organisation and its administration and defining the different roles required in the management of projects

People

Communicating methods
Identifying the needs of teams
The different types of teams and social roles needed in teams
How to build and motivate a team
Leadership qualities
Conflict management
Negotiation techniques

Additional Exam Information

Although the duration of the course is 5 days the exam will take place on the Monday after your course.

Exams for APM PMQ are ran exclusively online using the APM exam system Surplus. For the online exam you will need a laptop using the latest version of Google Chrome, which allows extensions to be added and in addition a smartphone or tablet to act as a second camera view. You can find out more here.

The exam is a 3 hour exam and is sat on the following week after the course - please check your joining instructions for date and time. You must answer 10 from the 16 questions covering 37 the syllabus topics. You will need 55% or more to pass.

Exam results will come directly to you from APM.

Pre-Coursework

15 hours of pre-course preparation work is required, along with some evening work during the course. You will be sent login credentials to our e-learning platform Quanta Learn where you can access this pre courses work.

Pre-course reading and post-course support on Quanta Learn, our e-learning portal.

PPM APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ)

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