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Delivery and Support Options

Course delivery can be easily customized to address your organization’s needs

Through IPS’ corporate program, our courses are offered in an instructor-led format, either on site at your location or synchronously on the Web. Course delivery can also be easily customized to address your organization’s needs. IPS makes best efforts to use locally based instructors in key markets in North America, Asia Pacific, and Europe.

Program Features

Training from the Advanced Project Management curiculum provides advanced skills for those who already know project management. This means the methodology also applies to anyone who manages projects, programs, or a portfolio of programs, not just those with “project manager” in their titles. Some features of the program include:

  • Flexibility - there are no prerequisites, so you can start wherever you need the most help
  • The best of academia and industry - IPS in partnership with the Stanford Center for Professional Development at Stanford University have combined real-world experience with academic research to present the most comprehensive curriculum available for improving your ability to get the right results
  • Instruction from dynamic, seasoned professionals - IPS instructors are the best in the world and bring with them valuable professional experience and effective facilitation skills
  • Convenient course delivery - courses can be presented at a location of your choosing
  • Activity-based learning - All courses are practical, interactive, experiential, and application-oriented
  • Participants learn by doing - courses use real-world projects relevant to your organization
  • The opportunity to earn professional credentials - completing six program courses earns participants the Stanford Certified Project Manager (SCPM) credential
  • Immediate and ongoing results - you’ll leave these courses prepared to apply proven approaches to specific project, program, and portfolio issues

 

Quality Assurance Standards

All IPS instructors teaching courses in the Stanford Advanced Project Management curriculum are certified via the following five-stage process:

  • Screening and selecting - IPS screens, interviews, and checks references for candidates, looking for those who have extensive relevant experience.
  • Observing a class delivery - With a certifying IPS professional, the candidate observes, takes notes, and is advised through a live delivery.
  • Co-teaching - The candidate assumes partial responsibility for instructing a live class, and is coached and debriefed.
  • Teaching with observation - The candidate teaches an entire class under the supervision of a certifying IPS professional.
  • Certification teaching - The candidate delivers the class again for the purpose of being certified to teach it without supervision.

Program Support Options

IPS routinely supports large corporate roll-outs by implementing the support services described below. Each of these services can be deployed individually or be bundled together for a truly all-encompassing learning solution. These services are provided based on volume and as such can be built into the final pricing for your organization.

  • FastPLAN® workshop - A FastPLAN workshop is an interactive planning session that brings together all core team members and stakeholders at key decision points. Each workshop is geared to produce a high-level plan for a complex program or a detailed plan for the next phase of a critical project. These workshops promote thorough understanding of key project or program roles and responsibilities, objectives and target schedule, risks, and contingencies. FastPLAN workshops are a powerful tool for project planning and team building.
  • Program management executive/on-site instructor - This instructor will be responsible for contextualizing courses through pre-course interviews, continuous improvement and quality control of course content and delivery, formulating evaluations (with client input), and compiling evaluations into clients’ preferred formats.
  • Client Learning and Support System (My CLASS) - Use this IPS-designed and maintained Web-based learning tool to support the integration of the learning through the organization and to take the learning experience beyond the classroom.
  • Marketing support - IPS will design and distribute internal brochures, posters, and e-mail blasts to build awareness of the advanced program management curriculum within the organization.
  • Webinars - IPS will deliver informational Webinars monthly or quarterly to help integrate learning.
  • Lunch and learns - IPS will deliver these casual sessions monthly or quarterly to help integrate learning.
  • Graduation ceremonies - To help build a social community of practice, IPS and Stanford will sponsor graduation ceremonies that highlight the accomplishments of those who have successfully completed the advanced certification program.
  • Quarterly review meetings - As deemed necessary by the client, IPS will review with the client the previous quarter’s evaluation results, lessons learned, and areas for improvement.

Other Delivery Options

On campus at Stanford University - Open enrollment available to participants who have qualified for the program. This delivery option allows participants to engage with program faculty and to gain insights from peers in a wide variety of organizations, industries, and cultures during classroom discussions, as well as during meals and breaks throughout the course. Each course is two and a half days long, enabling participants to complete two courses per week. On-campus courses are offered in March, June, and September.

Asychronous online - Courses can be accessed and completed anytime from anywhere—a perfect option for geographically dispersed teams. Participants study and review all of the content from the on-campus course during the 90-day asynchronous access period per course.