This is the kind of thing I would prepare if asked to present project management to school students. And I would probably adopt a flipchart style. (This would save having to present a monotonous deck of slides.) I would do something really simple. First the students would want to hear something about the kind of projects that are done and why they are important all over the world. Students like to hear about the exciting real world and there's nothing more 'real' than a good project!
Quality is usually defined as meeting requirements and satisfying the customer; no more, no less.
There is one major skill that does not get mentioned enough on projects and that is about the ability to manage upwards. Managing upwards on projects is not just about the quality of reporting, and it is certainly not a “kiss up, kick-down” mentality, but rather the opposite.
Critical Purpose is a new term to define an approach that emphasises the key deliverables. On every project there are a small number of critical questions that must be answered if success is to be achieved. The goal is to isolate these critical success factors and to remove the uncertainties as soon as possible by producing some tangible output that can be dependably validated and indisputably verified.
Where do the process improvements come from when you have a mature business, heavy infrastructure, huge capital investments and processes that have been worked upon and ‘optimized’ relentlessly?
Imagine a children’s game called the Monkey Tree. Players take monkeys out of the box and hang them on the tree, until the overall weight of the monkeys is too heavy for the tree and then the monkeys start to fall off. Evidently, with the right company and the right number of monkeys, this can be quite entertaining.