Project Planning and Control™ (PPC) Foundation and Practitioner

The Project Planning and Control (PPC) Certification, developed in partnership with the Association for Project Management (APM), equips individuals with practical tools and best practices to plan effectively, monitor progress, and manage time, cost, and risk throughout the project lifecycle. Supporting APM’s comprehensive guide, Planning, Scheduling, Monitoring and Control, the qualification helps standardise delivery practices, reduce waste, and improve confidence in project outcomes across all industries

Price upon request

Description

This five-day APMG Project Planning and Control (PPC) course develops the practical knowledge and skills needed to plan, schedule, monitor and control projects effectively. It combines the two certification levels, typically delivered as three days of Foundation training followed by two days at Practitioner level, progressing from an understanding of core principles to their application in realistic project scenarios.

The Foundation exam is a 40-minute, closed-book assessment comprising 50 multiple-choice questions; candidates must score at least 25 out of 50 (50%) to pass. The Practitioner exam is a three-hour, open-book, scenario-based objective assessment comprising eight questions worth ten marks each; candidates must score at least 40 out of 80 (50%) to pass and may use the official PPC guide and a simple calculator.

Topics Covered

Both foundation and practitioners cover the same contents. The difference is in the format of the exam. The course contents are:

Planning techniques and approaches including:

  • Scope management,
  • Requirements management,
  • Works information and statement of works,
  • Stakeholder management,
  • Breakdown structures, levels, PBS, WBS, OBS, RAM, CBS and RBS,
  • Dependency management

Budgeting and cost control including:

  • Types of estimate,
  • Contents of an estimate,
  • Estimating methodologies,
  • Definition of budgeting,
  • Funding and budgeting,
  • Cost breakdown structures,
  • Cash flow,
  • Budget transfers

Scheduling practices including:

  • Steps in establishing a schedule and the different types of schedule including:
    • tender,
    • contract
    • baseline,
    • working,
    • target,
    • medium and short term
    • and as build schedules.
  • Project trackers required to support the schedule including
    • Procurement schedules,
    • Design and other trackers,
  • Elements of a schedule, including:
    • Critical path,
    • links,
    • leads and lags.
  • Estimating durations,
  • Resource management.
  • Horizontal and vertical integration of schedules from different perspectives including combining schedules from several organisations.
  • Schedule interfacing and coding,
  • Contingency and the use of buffers

Communicating the Schedule including:

  • Bar charts,
  • line of balance,
  • time chainage

The supporting components of a schedule including:

  • Schedule narrative including calendars,
  • activity codes,
  • calendars,
  • shutdowns,
  • possessions,
  • permits and licences.

Schedule review including the processes for approving and accepting schedules.

Building Information Management (BIM) including the integration of the schedule with the design process

Agile including planning for the use of sprints, timeboxes and other ag

Monitoring and Control including

  • baselines,
  • re-planning,
  • baseline
  • maintenance,
  • re-programming

Performance reporting including

  • drop line method,
  • activity weeks,
  • milestone monitoring,
  • cost value.

Cost Control including

  • cost control process,
  • performance management baseline,
  • performance measurement

Change management including

  • Change control process,
  • Adjusting the schedule to accommodate changes,
  • Communicating and reporting change

Risk Management including

  • Risk management process, risk drawdown, quantitative schedule risk analysis (QSRA), Quantitative cost risk analysis (QCRA)
  • Forensic analysis
    • Purpose of forensic analysis, Methods including planned vs as built, Impact method
  • Record keeping
  • Document management
  • Handover and closeout
  • Lessons learned.

Learning outcomes

Foundation:

  • The approaches and products used to gain a clear definition of a project.
  • The approaches and techniques used to plan and close a project.
  • The selection and use of appropriate scheduling techniques.
  • The practices used for rigorous monitoring to enable proactive control of the project.
  • The basis for good record keeping, which also facilitates the virtuous feedback and learning cycle.

Practitioner

  • The approaches and key products used to gain a clear definition of a project
  • The approaches and techniques used to plan and close a project
  • The scheduling techniques and appropriate presentation of the outputs
  • The management of risk in the planning, execution and evaluation of a project
  • The practices and data used for rigorous monitoring to enable proactive control of the project.

What is included in this course?

  • Five days of virtual tutor input
  • APM Project Planning and Control manual
  • Both PPC foundation and practionoer exams. 

They monitor you though a microphone, webcam and an app on a mobile phone. The APMG provide detailed guidance on the technology required but in summary, you need a personal computer with Google Chrome installed, webcam and microphone and mobile device (phone or tablet). The exam system will not load any software on your computer, they do ask you to add an extension to Google Chrome. This is why Google Chrome is the only supported browser. The APMG advise that the exam is unlikely to work on a corporate PC unless you have admin rights. Just like classroom exams, you will need a photo ID. For move information of the system requirements visit Equipment Requirements – ProctorU

Prerequisites

Payments

We offer multiple options for payment;

1. Credit / Debit Card

2. Payment via invoice. During checkout for your course, select 'Offline Payment'. You will then receive an invoice from which you can pay. If you wish to add a Purchase Order number to your order, please enter this when prompted at checkout.

Course Dates

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