Overview

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Today’s fast track business and global environment emphasizes increasing project development efficiency while using fewer resources. This course shows you how to accomplish exactly this. Learn how to justify and select projects, and how stakeholders can influence projects. Identify the requirements necessary for defining project scope and create a list of tasks necessary to accomplish that scope. Create effective communication plans and assign responsibilities. Gain an understanding of the fundamentals of project planning through the use of scheduling software. Establish project requirements, objectives, and goals before defining the total project scope using a work breakdown structure (WBS). You’ll have the opportunity to apply what you learn to a case study that brings together the key elements of launching a project.

Syllabus

Introduction to Project Management

Learn how to justify and select projects and how stakeholders influence projects. Develop requirements necessary to define project scope and create a list of tasks necessary to accomplish the scope. Create effective communication plans and assign responsibilities. Today’s fast track business and global environment places emphasis on how to increase project production efficiency with limited available resources. Gain an understanding of fundamentals of project planning. Establish project requirements, objectives, and goals before defining the total project scope with the use of a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). This course uses a simulation project— students will start the development of a project plan as demonstration of mastery of key project management practices from this course. The simulation project will continue into the follow-on classes of this program.

Project Leadership

Leadership involves inspiring people while management involves managing things. Both are essential for successful project completion, but many project “managers” don’t know the difference between the two. Leaders provide a vision and a sense of direction; they inspire their team to adopt the vision as their own; they take risks where appropriate; and they see opportunities where others only see problems. Leaders create a safe space for their team members to thrive and produce their best work. This module shows you precisely the difference between “leading” and “managing,” and why knowing the difference is critical for project success.

Project Selection and Justification

Ever wonder how firms select projects and what is expected from the project? We will review the project selection process, impacts, and implications downstream of project selection.

The Project Charter
Project Kickoff, PM Plan, and Agile PM

Now that you have an approved project with a project charter, what’s next? In this module, you will learn how to kick-off a project and review methods in which to engage the project team. We will also review the process of creating a project management plan. And finally, you will learn the fundamentals of the Agile project management approach.

Requirements Gathering

Planning with the end product as the starting point is an effective and efficient way of developing a project plan. Learn how the requirements gathering process will help you more successfully define your project deliverables.

The Statement of Work

The Statement of Work (SOW) may be one of the most powerful tools for project managers. The SOW defines the product or service to be delivered to the customer at the completion of the project as well as defines the work necessary to complete the project. In this module, you will learn to use the information from requirements gathering to create a SOW.

Work Breakdown Structure

It has been said a picture call tell a thousand words. A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) can be just the picture you need to tell the project team what they need to do on a project. This module will be focused on the structure and formats of a WBS and how to create a WBS including the WBS dictionary. You will be able to translate requirements into actionable activities in a WBS.

Project Scope

Some say an hour spent in planning results in two hours saved during implementation. Learn how proper planning can reduce the overall level effort for a project. You will have an opportunity to develop a project scope management plan which will be the culminating activity of this course.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders can have a significant impact to the success of projects. In the module, you will develop skills for identifying stakeholders and ways to manage engagements, activities, and communication with stakeholders.

Communication

The majority of a project manager’s time is devoted to project communication. In this module, you will be exposed to the importance of project communication towards project success. You will have an opportunity to develop a project communication plan.