The Association for Project Management (APM)

The Association for Project Management Professional Qualification Course is designed to be an intensive and rigorous culmination of studies, building upon experience and some pre-course work. It is mapped to the current APM Body of Knowledge.

The Course is residential and covers 5 working days, including examinations on the last day, or two consecutive weekends, including Fridays, and will be not less than 50 hours duration. Attendance on all parts of the course is compulsory, as each part is designed to prepare the candidate for the APMP examination taken on the last day.

The Course is not designed as a CPD course and participants should be attending primarily to gain the APM Professional Qualification. RICS & RIBA members wishing to record the course for CPD purposes are encouraged to do so, whether or not the candidate passes the exam.

Academically, the course equates to a 150 hour module. It is required that a candidate has experience in practice, which, with appropriate critical knowledge and understanding suitably focused to Generic Project Management, equates to 90 hours of that module. Distance learning and course exercises make up the final 60 hours.

Further Information

Further information on the dates and locations of APM courses can be found on the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers websites. Please use the following links for more information.

IMECHE APM Information
RIBA Project Management Information
click here for Professional Software to enhance your Project Management

The Course elements

• compulsory distance learning
• teaching by appropriately qualified tutors (approved by the RICS/RIBA and APM)
• practical group work (syndicate working/workshops/presentations etc)
• independent studies and tasks

An assessment will be made on the basis of

• a written examination of 3 hours duration
• the independent tasks undertaken e.g. in the syndicate working
• the submission of a CV to demonstrate experience as required

It is expected that participants in the course will have had experience on briefing, design, construction and their administrative processes.

To gain the APM Award, 5 years demonstrable experience working in Projects is required.

Candidates will only be awarded the qualifications upon satisfactory completion of the experience element of the requirements of the APM.

Certain documents should have been obtained and read prior to taking the course listed below.

This course is based upon the Association for Project Management's Body of Knowledge and their APMP Syllabus. There are approximately 30 sections that are required to be covered within the teaching. The course has been constructed to ensure that each section of the syllabus is covered, but they are not in the strict or defined order of the Body of Knowledge nor the Syllabus. This is because Project Management uses many of the elements concurrently and in a variety of ways.

The course uses individual and group working sessions and expects the students to spend time throughout the course out of the standard "class" hours. In addition, a case study will be used in the course.

The identified course sessions will be

• Strategic Context
• The Role of the Manager
• PM Methodologies
• Project Organisation
• Managerial Behaviour
• Project Initiation
• Project Planning
• System Development Life Cycles
• Risk Management
• Quality Controls
• Estimating Methods
• Managing Other Resources
• Contracting Out
• Progress Control
• Plans & the PSO
• Documentation Management
• The Product Delivery Framework
• Configuration Management
• Post Implementation Considerations
• Change Management
• Quality Management Systems

The order and timing will be confirmed at the beginning of the course.

Pre Reading for the APM Project Management Course

*** essential reading
** advised extra reading

• ***APM Body of Knowledge (5th edition) - obtainable from APM via their Web-site
• ***APM Syllabus for the APMP Examination - download from APM Web-site - Particular attention should be given to the Glossary of Terms in the APM Syllabus because semantics can be a barrier and acronyms are often used to confuse the innocent!
• ***BS 6079 - obtain direct from BSI
• The CIC publication "Project Management Skills in the Construction Industry" -summary only. Not in print but copies available from JC Consultancy upon payment of course fee.

The course is necessarily intensive and without having read these four and digested their contents participants will always be running to keep up.

Other reading is also recommended. It is difficult to make a choice, or indeed, recommendations. The following will give a good grounding:

• ** Rory Burke, Project Management Project Planning & Control, 4th edition John Wiley
  (buy direct through JC Consultancy)
• *** Albert Lester -"Project Planning and Control 4th edition, Butterworth-Heinemann (Albert's own book in a field in which he has a lifetime's hands-on experience in Project Management. It is practical and Authoritative. You need it in the office!)
• ** D.C.B. Chapman & S. Ward Project Risk Management - John Wiley
• ** Prof. Peter Morris -"The Management of Projects" Thomas Telford
• ** Belbin -"Management Teams" Butterworth-Heinemann
• ** F.P.Hersey & K.H. Blandford - "Situational Leadership" Centre for Leadership Studies For the Construction Industry, **BS7000 Design Management Systems - Part 4 - "Guide to Managing Design in Construction"

Registration forms for the APM Examination are obtained from JC Consultancy upon payment of the course fee. They must be submitted at least 10 working days before the examination. Failure to comply with this will mean exclusion from the examinations. You can still attend the course, but you would have to sit the examinations at a later date at additional expense. Note - at such a late stage, no refunds would be applicable.

Any queries on the above should be directed to John Colville at JC Consultancy +44 (0) 1765 690333