The IPA Institute

Capital Project Delivery Excellence - A Course for Project Managers

22 Professional Development Units

Capital Project Delivery Excellence is a 3-day training course that presents key learnings and Best Practices for project planning and execution. The course is taught from the perspective of owner organizations that plan and execute capital projects. It focuses on the key aspects of project planning and execution: the critical Front-End Loading (FEL) phase; elements of contracting strategy, key components of team effectiveness, implementing Value Improving Practices (VIPs); identifying and managing project risks, drivers of improved construction safety, and activities needed for controlling a project through execution; and managing change.

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Capital Project Delivery Excellence for Large and Small Projects

The IPA Institute offers a Capital Project Delivery Excellence course that provides participants with Best Practices and learnings that have been shown to improve capital project effectiveness for projects of varying sizes. The program has been customized to include findings for standard size projects, that is, projects estimated to cost from $5 million to $1 billion (USD), and to highlight practices that drive the performance of smaller projects, that is, projects estimated to cost under $5 million (USD). This program integrates findings from IPA’s extensive quantitative research that links project management practices to project outcomes.

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Contracting in the Changing World of Projects A Seminar on Contracting Strategy

Contracting in the Changing World of Projects is a day and a half long seminar to share knowledge on how contracting approaches and strategy are linked to business value. Contracting strategy is an important element of any project execution plan. It is often a contentious area with strongly held beliefs about how contract plans can influence project outcomes. However, no one contracting strategy is right for all projects or project systems. As more and more work is outsourced by owners to contractors, contracting arrangements have become increasingly important elements of the capital project process.

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Establishing Effective Capital Costs

Establishing Effective Capital Cost is a 2-day program designed to allow those who participate in the capital process to better understand the elements of high-quality cost estimates as well as how the current environment affects cost estimates. The program provides an understanding of: elements of cost estimate, what drives needed contingency, what does escalation mean and how to deal with it in estimates, data needed to provide a sufficient quality estimate to select between options and quality of cost estimates as they progress through the project cycle. A high-quality cost estimate is vital to making informed decisions on the best business opportunities to pursue.

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Making Decisions for Improved Capital Effectiveness

Far too many capital projects do not achieve the desired business outcomes. These investments fail to meet their targeted returns either by exceeding the expected cost and schedule targets, failing to operate as expected and, in the worst cases, being the wrong investment to meet the business need. The goal of this seminar is to provide a better understanding of what business people need to do to aid capital projects in achieving their objectives. This curriculum will improve the interface between business and engineering to better align project execution with business strategy. The program will provide business people with a set of questions they can ask to ensure a project meets business needs, methodologies for making changes when needed, and an understanding of the relationship between business decisions and project outcomes. Learnings from discussions with their peers and presentation of research findings will provide participants with the basis for implementation plans to improve capital effectiveness.

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Minimizing the Risks Related to Innovation

Investing in innovative technologies can provide great business opportunities. These projects are often of strategic importance. However, new technology projects are often difficult to execute and carry greater risks than their standard technology counterparts. This IPA workshop on Successful Commercialization of New Technology shares the findings of IPA research to help participants minimize problems they may experience when incorporating innovation into their capital projects.

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Scheduling Practices

The Scheduling Practices course focuses on details of Project Execution Planning. The session will provide participants with instruction on how to complete the elements of project execution planning. A solid project execution plan is a critical component of project control. The seminar also will provide attendees with an understanding of project controls practices.

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Small and Plant Project Delivery Excellence - A Course for Project Managers

22 Professionald Development Units

Small and Plant Project Delivery Excellence is a 3-day training course that focuses on capital project planning and execution in the context of small and plant-based capital projects. Organizations spend between 30 to 65 percent of their capital budgets on small projects (less than US $5 million). IPA research has found that these small projects are frequently less successful than the larger projects executed by the same company. These small and plant projects are a mix of maintenance, regulatory, and revenue-generating projects. Both central project groups and plant-based project groups execute these small projects.

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Successful Megaprojects - A Seminar for Those Involved with Large and Complex Projects

The seminar materials are based on the cumulative findings of more than 20 years of research. IPA maintains proprietary upstream and downstream databases of projects executed by more than 200 companies. These IPA databases have detailed information for approximately 200 megaprojects. IPA uses these databases to conduct quantitative research that is focused on the drivers of project success. This seminar integrates key aspects of this body of knowledge into a single course.

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Upstream Version of Capital Project Delivery Excellence - A Course for Project Managers

22 Professional Development Units

The IPA Institute offers the Upstream Capital Project Delivery Excellence course for oil and gas exploration and production projects. Unlike our regular Capital Projects program, this course focuses specifically on the practices and work processes related to the success of capital investments in exploration and production (E&P). The program incorporates subsurface and offshore issues into the current project management program. Like the other Capital Project Delivery Excellence program, the Upstream Project Delivery Excellence course is designed to provide participants with Best Practices and learnings that have been shown to improve capital effectiveness.

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Workshop - Defining a Project: Front-End Loading

In this workshop the project team applies best practices to develop a roadmap to be used to execute the critical definition stage of the project prior to authorization.

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Workshop - Value Improving Practices

The workshop allows participants to develop guidelines for selecting and implementing value improving practices in their organizations.

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Workshop - Work Process Reengineering

This program is designed to help establish a project process. It is often held in conjunction with a benchmarking study, which identifies the strengths, weaknesses, and practices being used by the given project process.

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