Course Overview:

Upon completion, participants will:

• Be armed with a survival kit of skills, checklists and templates used by leading organisations worldwide to run projects within the wind energy sector
• Be comfortable presenting to wind energy clients, stakeholders and management teams, identifying and mitigating risk, preparing the perfect project plan appropriate to their wind energy project across all phases of wind energy projects, managing cross functional teams
• Have access to expert consultants and advice on challenges encountered in similar projects once back in the field
• Be confident in leading and delivering projects within the wind energy sector

Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes:

Module 1: Project Approach & Methodologies

Class introductions – meet the presenters. That the participants will feel confident in understanding the different stages of wind energy projects and gain an understanding of the different Project management methodologies in the market and how to apply the fundamental rules of engagement to delivering successful wind energy projects.

Module 2: The role of the Project Manager (PM)

That the participants will know exactly what the actual role and behaviour of a Wind Energy Project Manager is and how to motivate their vast cross functional teams and stakeholders to deliver to specific targets and goals from the feasibility, planning & permitting, pre-construction, construction, testing phase through to the operations and maintenance phase and ultimately de-commissioning.

Module 3: Project Scoping, Change Management & Risk

That the participants will feel confident in how to capture crystal clear wind energy project requirements, resources, timelines etc. how to assess risk, track and monitor risk and implement a strategic highly successful risk management plan.

Module 4: Planning, Estimations & Project Wrap up

That the participants will know exactly the fundamental requirements to deliver, track and maintain an excellent project plan and detailed costs to move the project to close down and benefit assessment.

Module 5: Industry expert presentation & case study presentation Presented by industry experts, Brendan Heneghan, AFRY Renewables Ireland & James O’ Hara, Dogger Bank C project with the FTSE-listed SSE plc.

Module 6: Presentation of projects by participants to wind sector experts for feedback and critique

Who should attend:

This programme is suitable for anyone involved in leading, delivering or participating on any aspect of wind energy projects.

Course Content:

Module 1:

• Project environments
• Project methodologies and Lifecycles
• What makes a good or a bad project
• Key fundamentals for project success
• Get a clear understanding of the content and format of six week programme, the documents, templates, tools and get to know their project team, class rules of participation and norms
• Understand and communicate the difference in the project methodologies that are most popular on the market
• Understand how to best assess what approach best suits the project they are about to embark on
• Understand the critical success factors of a very good project and how to ensure they are applied to any project they run
• Understand and experience the basic fundamentals of successful projects

Module 2:

• The PM role, Programme Manager, PMO
• Team Management
• Project checkpoints, Meetings, Status Reporting & Executive Presentations
• Engaging with your clients, steering committees, stakeholders and issue resolution
• Stakeholders & Communication Planning
• Understand the role of the PM and the responsibilities that go with the title
• Understand how to identify your team, get your team performing effectively and how to kick-off your project
• Understand how to run great meetings, present to clients/boards/steering committees
• Understand project management versus programme management and project governance structures

Module 3:

• Project justification & initiation
• Defining Crystal Clear Requirements
• Running Workshops – onsite / virtually
• Risk Assessment & Risk Management (around the areas of environment, market, organisation, customer, technology, personnel, materials and resources)
• Working with external experts
• Understand how to capture, prioritise and present crystal clear project requirements
• Assess project risk and implement a plan to mange it throughout the entire project lifecycle
• Understand the best approach to getting external experts fully onboarded to the project and the methodology being applied to ensure they deliver

Module 4:

• Building the perfect project plan
• Estimation techniques and contingency planning
• Building your costs
• Monitoring and controlling the plan, the costs, change control techniques
• Project closure and wrap up
• Learn key project planning terms
• Understand how to build a detailed project plan
• Understand how to estimate accurately
• Create detailed project costs for monitoring during the project
• Understand how to wrap up your project when the project has been delivered

Module 5:

• This will be presented by energy industry experts –Brendan Heneghan & Off Shore Wind Energy Expert James O’ Hara.

Module 6:

• Industry Leaders introductions and their expectations of Project Managers in the real world
• Participant presentation
• Industry Leaders critique & feedback
• Post programme actions and follow up planning

Other course details

After completion of the programme participants have access to a follow on Zoom session to support them with any post-training real world queries they may have after being back in the field for a couple of weeks.

Certification

WEI - 18 hours (3 hours weekly for 6 weeks with final participant project presentation)

About the presenters:

Blue Sky: Deirdre Fox and Máire Kearns have worked in strategic business consulting and project implementation since 1990, see www.blueskytraining.ie, supporting multi-national public and private sector clients with projects and their implementation. We have considerable global experience in business consulting and in particular we have extensive experience in implementing projects on a fixed time fixed price basis, which ensures that we always meet our target deadlines. We have worked on projects for all the major utility companies in Ireland. Having delivered Project Management courses previously for Wind Energy Ireland, we understand the training needs of members of the Greentech Skillnet and can continue to deliver very successful programmes for all members.

Over the years, we have harvested knowledge from hundreds of projects and developed significant training, mentorship and consulting programmes, training clients and their employees in project management and setting up correct project processes and procedures to ensure successful delivery. We have spoken at numerous conferences and seminars and written articles for various trade magazines. We lecture at UCD Professional Academy, Public Affairs Ireland and TU Dublin.

Frankly, by now, there is nothing we don’t know about project delivery. We have trained thousands of Project Managers to deliver projects and we’ve even written the book, The No Nonsense Project Handbook – a practical guide to delivering projects. It is on the recommended reading list at Trinity College’s Project Management masters course, National College of Ireland (NCI)’s Post Graduate School of Business and endorsed and recommended to all staff at Enterprise Ireland.

Our experience enables us to provide very specialised leading edge consulting and coaching services for clients and partners. Our ‘Can do’ approach is practical and relevant to real world wind energy projects, interactive and dynamic and exceptionally comprehensive.

Brendan Heneghan Operations Manager at AFRY Renewables Ireland and UK is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and has worked exclusively in renewable energy since 2003 when he joined the wind energy section of ESBI, having previously worked for CRH across various group companies and countries. Brendan joined Ionic Consulting (formerly Wind Prospect Ireland) in 2006 and has held a number of project management, technical, and managerial roles and is currently Operations Director. Ionic Consulting have been the leading provider of renewable energy project management and technical consultancy services in Ireland for more than a decade. Ionic has successfully project managed the pre-construction and construction stage delivery of more than 30% of all renewable electricity projects across the island of Ireland, in excess of 2,000 MW to date, and are also constructing a number of projects in Great Britain currently. Ionic are delivering wind, solar PV and battery storage projects on behalf of Clients in addition to civil and electrical design, and technical due diligence for renewable energy projects.

Brendan was the interim CEO of the Irish wind Energy Association (IWEA) in 2016 and has also served as a Director of IWEA from 2017 to 2020. He was lead author of IWEA’s ‘Lifecycle of an Onshore Wind Farm’ report in 2019 and has delivered a number of training modules on this subject to job seekers and trainee wind turbine technicians via Greentech Skillnet in 2021.

James O’Hara is Project Manager for the Dogger Bank C project with the FTSE-listed SSE plc. He has worked with SSE for 16 years and has worked as Project Manager on offshore projects for over 4 years. James was previously Project Manager for the Arklow Bank Wind Park Phase 2 offshore project and the Galway Wind Park project, now Ireland’s largest onshore wind farm, taking the project from the development phase, through construction and into full operation.