The Association for Project Management’s Project Management Qualification is aimed at those wishing to achieve a broad level of project management knowledge sufficient to participate in projects from individual assignments through to large capital projects. Applicants typically have some pre-existing project management knowledge, and it is the ideal next step for anyone who has previously achieved the APM Project Management Fundamentals qualification.

The project manager has overall responsibility for the initiation, planning, design, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of a project. A role requiring extensive expertise.

This course provides those wishing to gain the project management skills, knowledge, tools and techniques they need to manage successful projects. 

The APM Project Management course is based on the APM Body of Knowledge 7th edition, the key 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.

For virtual courses, a printed copy of the latest edition of the comprehensive course manual will be sent to your home address in good time for the start of your course. Our delegates tell us that having access to a physical document is beneficial as both a reference document and for taking notes during the course. 

Yes. During this five-day course, you will receive all the training you need to prepare for the APM Project Management Qualification online examination, which is a three-hour test where 10 out of 16 questions must be attempted. 

APM also offers the Project Professional Qualification which assesses the ability to deliver professional projects. This is the third stage, following Project Fundamentals Qualification and the Project Management Qualification in APM’s professional development path.

APM Project Management Qualification (five-day course)
Course content

The project environment

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

Project concept

• Importance of starting a project properly
• Understanding the business context
• Inherent uncertainty
• The legal and regulatory environment
• Organisation structures
• Engaging stakeholders
• Roles and responsibilities in projects
• Project governance
• Documenting the concept stage
• Project Initiation Document (PID)

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 breakdowns and product breakdowns (WBS and PBS)
• Types of product or deliverable
• Work packages
• Cost breakdown structure (CBS) and cost planning
• Organisational breakdown structure (OBS)

Requirements management

• Requirements management defined
• Effective requirements management
• Tacit and explicit knowledge
• Techniques to capture requirements
• Assessing the requirements
• SMART requirements
• Prioritising requirements
• Requirements in iterative lifecycles

Estimating

• Definition of an estimate
• Estimating accuracy