Project Management   

Learn to deal with the realities of managing projects at supersonic speeds despite truncated timelines, inadequate staffing, and skimpy budgets.

With accelerated schedules driving many technology projects today, the smart project manager must rapidly retool their skill set. This course offers a breakthrough model for dealing with the realities of managing projects at supersonic speeds. Learn to meet and win the challenges of truncated timelines, short-staffed project teams, skimpy budgets and crippling risks.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

• This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

• PC: Windows 8 or later.
• Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
• Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

• Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

1. Manage at High Speed: Why the Rush?
2. The Race Is On: Three Critical Factors
3. Factor One: The Team Is Always First
4. Factor Two: Time Versus Money
5. Factor Three: It's Always About Risk
6. Fast-Track Planning: Steps 1 Through 5
7. Fast-Track Planning: Steps 6 Through 10
8. Fast-Track Planning: Steps 11 Through 13
9. Fast-Track Planning: Steps 14 Through 19
10. Plan Execution: Full Acceleration
11. Project Control: The Power of Process
12. Closeout: Cross the Finish Line

This online, self-paced course will teach you how to effectively plan and implement with Microsoft Project, the world's most popular project management software.

Microsoft Project is one of the most widely used project management resources. If you oversee projects in your organization or plan to take on a project management role, knowing how to use Microsoft Project 2019 adds a valuable skill to your professional profile.

Introduction to Microsoft Project 2019/365 will teach how to effectively plan, implement, and control projects. You will learn how to organize all your project's details, including task assignments, resource allocation, and progression and timeline. Armed with this information, you will avoid stalling or overloading your schedule. If you encounter trouble, you will know how to best utilize Project 2019 to get your project back on track.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

• This course must be taken on a PC. Macs are not compatible.

Software Requirements:

• PC: Windows 10 or later.
• Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge is also compatible.
• Microsoft Project 2019 (not included in enrollment).
• Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

• Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

• The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Overview of Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project can help you manage your project's schedule, costs, and scope in a way that you've never dreamed of. Too often, Project users never use this powerful tool to its fullest potential. In your first lesson, you'll discover how to improve your project by adopting a formal management approach. You'll get a quick overview of Project Management, and then you'll learn the basics of Microsoft Project, including a summary of the Gantt Chart view and ways to create and enter project tasks.

Creating a Solid Foundation

If you're looking for ways to keep organized, you'll see just how to do that in today's lesson! We'll walk through steps to create a project schedule in no time flat. Once you create and enter tasks in Project's Gantt Chart view, you'll set a plan by using a calendar and assigning lead times. Then, you'll need to create task dependencies, sometimes known as links. You'll see how to perform these activities, and in the process, you'll become comfortable using Project's many dialog boxes. Before you know it, you'll be creating schedules for all your projects with little effort.

Creating and Managing Resources

You won't get too far with your project without adding resources. While tasks create the backbone of your project, people, equipment, and material bring your project to life. In this lesson, you'll find out how to apply two types of Project resources—work resources, and material resources. We'll look at two more dialog boxes—Resource Information and Assign Resources—and you'll learn how to analyze resources by using the Resource Sheet and Resource Usage views.

Defining and Assigning Costs

No matter what project you work on, the bottom line is always important. So, get ready to add the final piece to your project schedule—costs. You'll start things off by looking through a brief overview of cost accounting, exploring fixed, variable, relevant, and accrued charges. After this review, you'll learn how to assign costs by using the Resource Sheet. You'll even discover how to attach different fees for the same resource and analyze the overall costs for your project by using the Cost Table.

Project Templates, Security, and Constraints

Successful project managers are known for their efficiency and for safeguarding private information. Microsoft Project provides two excellent methods to help you in these areas: project templates and project security. You'll find out how to use some of the many templates Project has to offer, including the Residential Construction template and the New Product template. You'll also learn how to protect your project information with backups, passwords, and write protection. Then you'll discover how to put Project's task constraints to good use.

Working With Views and Managing Information

In this lesson, you'll discover how easy it is to modify your basic schedules and work with project data. You'll look at the various Project views, such as the Calendar, Leveling Gantt, and the Network Diagram. And if you don't like the default colors or fonts in your schedule or table, you'll be well-prepared to make changes. You'll even learn how and why you might want to create a combination view; add notes to your project; or sort, filter, and group data.

Fine-Tuning Your Project Plan

Many projects experience schedule compression when management or clients ask that the project is completed sooner and for less. In today's lesson, you'll discover how to improve your schedule's performance. You'll explore the Project Statistics dialog box, and you'll learn how to determine the ideal starting point in terms of planned costs and completion dates. You'll see how to change task dependencies to speed up your project and also find out how to split tasks to add more lead time. You'll also learn how to create recurring tasks and attach notes to your project's taskbars.

Baselines and Tracking

Before you implement your project, you need to create a baseline. This will help you track actual results against what you initially set out to accomplish. Microsoft Project makes it possible to set up a baseline with a few mouse clicks. You'll learn how to create a baseline and then see a variety of ways, including using the Tracking toolbar, to record your actual project results.

Managing Variances

Here's where things start to come together! You'll learn how to compare actual results to your baseline by using the Gantt Chart and reviewing a table. You'll discover how useful status identifiers and progress lines can be to gain information about your project's position quickly. You'll also begin using the Tracking Gantt and filters to identify slipping tasks automatically. You'll also take a stroll through the basics of variance analysis by discussing the Start and Finish Date, Resources, and Work Variance Tables.

Closing Your Project

No project is complete until it's officially closed. In this final lesson, you'll find out how to close your project and use the Organizer to help you customize and copy views for future projects.

Printing Views

Now that you're using reports to share project information, you'll occasionally need to print various views and tables. In this lesson, you'll delve into printing Microsoft Project documents. You'll be a master at creating different aspects of your project with the Page Setup dialog box, and you'll clearly understand the mechanics of the Print dialog box and the Print Preview.

Using and Creating Reports

Once your project gets rolling, outsiders will probably want to know how things are going. It can be a real time drain answering each request individually. When others request information from you, Microsoft Project offers the perfect solution: Reports. You'll go over a representative sample of the standard reports as well as discuss how to modify and create new reports in today's lesson. By the time you finish, you'll be well acquainted with Project's reporting capabilities and also know how to develop Visual Reports as Project automatically exports data to Microsoft Excel and Visio.

In this Managing Web Design Projects training class, you will learn all about the design process and how to manage a web design project from start to finish.

This self-paced course will teach you how to manage web design projects. You'll learn how to optimize the web design process and take your projects from concept to iteration on time and within budget. With demand for skilled web designers and developers at an all-time high, adding project management to your UI/UX toolkit is key to meeting your clients' needs.

What you will learn

• Defining project scope
• Creating mockups and working with data
• Integrating the pieces of your website project
• Usability and accessibility considerations
• Steps in rolling out your project

How you will benefit

• Be able to analyze and learn from your project for future projects.
• Be able to fully manage web design projects
• Learn important skill for web designers

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

• This course can be taken on either a PC or Mac.

Software Requirements:

• PC: Windows 10 or later.
• Mac: macOS 11.0 or later.
• Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
• Adobe Photoshop.
• Adobe Dreamweaver.
• Any spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice Calc.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

• Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

1. Design Process
2. Project Scope
3. Mock-ups
4. Functionality Model
5. Integration
6. Usability and Accessibility Rules
7. Roll-out
8. Analysis

What you will learn

• Define project scope.
• Creating mockups and working with data.
• Integrate the pieces of your website project.
• Usability and accessibility considerations.
• Rolling out your project.

How you will benefit

• Be able to analyze and learn from your project for future projects.
• Be able to fully manage web design projects
• Learn important skill for web designers

Experienced project manager teaches you tricks of the project management trade.

Increase your value to your employer by discovering and mastering essential quantitative and qualitative project management applications.

A successful project begins with process definition, data collection, and the scoping of project requirements. Every project ends with a motivated project team able to accomplish objectives on time and within budget. Winning projects rely on accurate cost and time estimates, identification of the critical path, and use of tracking and control tools.

In this course, an experienced Project Management Professional will teach you the same powerful tools and techniques that experienced project management professionals rely on every day.

You will increase the probability of project success by mastering the tricks of the trade: Earned Value Performance Measurement, Gantt Charts, Network Scheduling, Work Breakdown Structure, and Cost-Volume Analysis.

You will become proficient at recruiting project team members and empowering them to succeed. You will understand the stages of team development, and you will gain skills in developing and motivating team leaders. You will learn how to understand and relate to an organizational culture and the differing characteristics of its work groups.

The course also includes essential information that will help you prepare for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® and the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM®) exams offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI)®. Certification Magazine recently identified PMP certification as "the highest-paying certification" of the year.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

• This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

• PC: Windows 8 or later.
• Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
• Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

• Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Basic Project Management Tools

In your first lesson, you will learn how to use a variety of project management data collection tools including check sheets, histograms, performance charts, and process definition tools such as work breakdown structure (WBS) and flowcharts. After you master these tools, you will be able to increase your project management effectiveness by leaps and bounds.

Estimating

Estimating is a very important activity for every organization. It helps you calculate time and costs for your project. When you successfully use estimates, your actual cost of project work is very close to your projections. In this lesson, you will learn how to apply quantitative and qualitative estimating methods, such as historical analogy, the walk through and Delphi methods, expected value, and estimates under uncertainty.

Earned Value

Earned value is gaining in popularity in project management circles. Although some people view it as a new concept, they're often surprised to learn that it's been around for more than 30 years. This lesson will define earned value, describe its history, and discuss its benefits. You will learn about the overview of earned value and discover how to create a step-by-step earned value performance measurement (EVPM) system.

Gantt Charts

Gantt charts, along with work breakdown structure (WBS), earned value performance measurement (EVPM), and the precedence diagram method (PDM), make up the big four of project management. A Gantt chart may be the most popular tool associated with project management because it's an easy to follow timeline chart. In this lesson, you will learn about the history of Gantt charts, find out how to create one, and discover their benefits and limitations.

Precedence Diagram Method

Network scheduling, along with earned value, represents one of the most technical aspects of project management. If you enjoy working with charts and numbers, this lesson is right up your alley! As with earned value, the precedence diagram method (PDM) includes a fair amount of terminology and a little bit of tricky math. In this lesson, you will learn the basics of networks and see how they relate to project management.

Project Planning and Control Tools

In this lesson, you will take a break from using calculators and studying elaborate models. Instead, you will learn how resource planning, work flow diagrams, and storyboards can help you create and implement an effective project plan.

Data Analysis Tools

This lesson introduces a few more tools to help you with your projects. You will learn about the cost-volume analysis, a tool to help you optimize choices using costs, volume, and desired profits. You will also learn how to use and apply the Monte Carlo simulation, force field analysis, and the Pareto principle.

Project Management Software

This lesson focuses on the nature of project management software and identifying winning techniques. You will read two case studies to help you understand issues pertaining to software implementation. You will learn why some people are reluctant to use project management software and discover ways to evaluate and select a software supplier.

Statistics and Process Improvement

This lesson introduces the measures of location (median, mode, and mean), the normal curve, and measures of dispersion (range, mean absolute deviation, variance, and standard deviation). You will see how the Taguchi loss function is an alternative to traditional go/no-go inspection. You will also learn how to measure variation, use prevention, and apply statistical process control (SPC) to help you produce predictable and acceptable results.

Dimensions of the Project Team

For your project to succeed, you need a skilled project manager and committed capable project team members. This lesson will teach you how to identify essential competencies of an effective project manager, and how to establish a winning project team. You will understand what it takes to recruit, evaluate, and select project team members. And you will also learn about the concepts of a core team, extended team, and the overly important project team.

The Project Team in Action

This lesson introduces work group theory. You will learn about the stages of team development, understand why change is so important for your project, and find out why people are reluctant to change. You will learn how to overcome resistance to change and empower your project team.

Organization and Motivation

This final lesson focuses on fundamental organizational concepts. You will discover the purpose of an organization chart and learn why a matrix organization is a common project management organizational structure. You will understand key coordinating principles such as authority, responsibility, accountability, and power.

Gain the skills you'll need to succeed in the fast-growing field of project management.

Organizations initiate projects to create new computer applications, erect bridges and buildings, improve processes, develop new products, and reorganize company operations. Unfortunately, most organizations do not manage projects well, creating an unprecedented demand for project management practitioners.

If you're organized, perceptive, detail-oriented, and an excellent communicator, you just might have what it takes to succeed in the fast-growing field of project management.

In this course, an experienced Project Management Professional will help you master the essentials of project management. You will become an indispensable member of your project team by discovering and mastering the critical concepts you need to plan, implement, control and close any type of project.

You will learn about project politics and ethics, project measurements, and project closure. You will be able to develop all sections of a project plan, you will become comfortable with the project management body of knowledge, and you will develop a variety of powerful techniques to generate project ideas.

If you're new to project management, this course will provide you with the essential information you will need to prepare for and complete your first project. If you're an experienced project manager, this course will make you more valuable to your employer by increasing your skills and competencies.

This course and its follow-up (Project Management Applications) also include essential information that will help you prepare for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® and the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM®) exams offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI)®. Certification Magazine recently identified PMP certification as "the highest-paying certification" of the year.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

• This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

• PC: Windows 8 or later.
• Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
• Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Applications must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

• Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Introduction to Project Management

In your first lesson, you will learn why project management is necessary and find out how to differentiate projects from programs and tasks. When you finish with this lesson, you will understand the temporary and unique nature of projects and discover why scoping a project is a critical activity.

Project Management Activities

This lesson will set the stage for the remainder of the course by introducing the major project management activities that establish it as a formal field of study. You will learn how to plan and control a project and see how project tools help you work effectively and efficiently. You will see how human behavior affects your projects and also determine the role of risk management, quality assurance, purchasing, and politics.

Project Management Resources; Project Life Cycle Phases

The Internet is a storehouse of useful project management information. Today you will learn how to access and use project management resources you will find on the World Wide Web. You will also discover how to use the four phases of the project life cycle—conceptualization and definition, planning, implementation, and completion and closure—in creating your project plan and putting it into practice.

High-Performance Planning for Project Management

This lesson focuses on the planning activity as a key factor in helping you succeed with project management. In any enterprise, planning should be the first activity performed. It sets the stage for the remainder of project management activities. You will learn about the importance of strategic planning as a backdrop for your project plan. You will discover the elements of planning, understand why many people are reluctant to plan, and learn how the 5 Ws and 1H can help you to create a sound project plan.

Introduction to the Control Process

In this lesson, you will discover the characteristics and goals of effective control systems and be able to identify the benefits of control. You will learn the prerequisites to use control, find out how to use steps of the control process, and identify problems with using control. You will also discover the various types of control techniques.

The Project Manager and the Project Team

This lesson may be the most important one in the course: A highly functional project team and an excellent project manager are critical success factors for any project. You will learn about a project manager's roles and responsibilities, and also required skills and competencies. To support your project manager, you will discover the characteristics of a team, see how a team comes together, and find out how to use effective team building activities.

Deliverables, Stakeholders, and Idea Generation

This lesson explores two different sides of the same coin (deliverables and stakeholders). You will develop an understanding of methods that will help you generate excellent ideas to provide project solutions that satisfy expectations. You will learn how deliverables are prone to change and see how quality function deployment (QFD) identifies and satisfies stakeholder requirements. You will understand how brainstorming, brainwriting, the nominal group technique, and affinity diagrams lead to excellent project management ideas.

Ethics, Organizational Politics, and Conflict Management

As a project manager, you need to practice a high level of business ethics and also be aware of organizational politics. Also, you must be aware of conflict situations and act to manage conflict at the right time and in the right way. This lesson provides an overview of ethics, describe how ethics can be practically applied, and specify how to establish an ethical tone in your organization. You will learn the nature of organizational politics, understand the nature of conflict, and find out why some project teams experience more conflict than others.

The Project Plan

In this lesson everything discussed so far will come together as a project plan. The project plan that will be presented today has 14 sections. Your project plan will begin with the foundational elements (project strategy, executive summary, statement of work, work breakdown structure, and project schedules), continue through supporting elements (human resource plans, procurement plans, interface plans, and configuration management plans), and conclude with controlling elements (work control plans, quality control plans, cost control plans, risk management plans, and reporting plans).

Implementing Your Project Plan

This lesson expands upon the fundamental elements discusses earlier. First, you will learn areas that can jumpstart your project into action, including key factors for a successful project like using a pilot and holding a project kickoff meeting. You will also learn about interpersonal aspects of project execution like creating team rules, using effective communication, and solving problems.

Controlling Your Project

Project control is the most important activity for your project. In this lesson, you will learn the importance of project control, project performance measurements, and project reporting. You will discover why Earned Value is an outstanding method to control project cost and performance. You will also find out how a periodic project audit can keep your project on track.

Closing Your Project

Your final lesson focuses on what happens at the end of a project. To increase your understanding about this topic, you will review and apply all the necessary activities that you must follow to effectively close your project. You will work through the steps of project closure and also identify reasons why your project may not be successful.

Learn 10 essential skills every project manager needs to successfully plan and manage projects.

Are you a part-time or accidental project manager? Part-time project managers have projects assigned to them in addition to their daily responsibilities. Accidental project managers find themselves leading projects without formal training in the discipline. Some people choose project management as a career, and many others find project management just another part of your area of responsibilities. For you, project management is a skill set, not a career.

If you have been assigned projects and need a quick jump start to get going, then this is the course for you. You will learn the 10 essential skills you need to survive and thrive. Topics include understanding the business need and the related project outcomes, setting project boundaries so you know what's included and what's not, getting to know your project stakeholders and their needs so you can set and meet their expectations, and how to plan projects and create a schedule.

It's not enough to just manage a project, you also have to control it, so things don't get out of hand. Eventually, the project will come to an end, so you will need to know what project closing looks like. You will want to turn the project over to your customer, so you can close down the project and move on to your next big adventure.

Throughout the course, you will find examples of real projects and how each of these essential skills applies in the real world. Project management skills are essential life skills with many practical applications and all industries. Project management and leadership are consistently the top two skill sets current and future employers look for, so this is also essential for your professional development.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

• This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

• PC: Windows 8 or later.
• Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
• Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader.
• Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

• Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Introduction to Project Management

When people talk about project management, what exactly do they mean? Project management is a proven framework to plan and manage new initiatives that many call "projects." Projects are handled differently than other work because they create something new that hasn't been done exactly like this before. There are many project management tools, methods, skills, and techniques that anyone who leads a project can use. In this lesson, you will learn the basic concepts and terminology of project management and see how project management skills can help you in your job no matter what your official title is.

Challenges of Part-Time Project Managers

Not all who are put in charge of projects are project managers. Projects are everywhere, and you may be chosen to lead the next project. For you, this is only one of several hats you wear, and that can be challenging. How can you balance it all and be successful? This lesson examines the challenges of being a project manager and introduces strategies you can use to ensure your success.

Define Your Project

The most critical step in every project is understanding why the project was initiated in the first place. Do you understand the problem you're supposed to fix? Do you have a clear understanding of the project boundaries? Answering these questions will form the basis of project scope definition. Without good definition, your project has little chance of success. In this lesson, you will learn how to define the three essential components of a project's scope: boundaries, requirements, and deliverables.

Plan Your Project

After you have defined your project's scope, it's time to start planning. Your project plan states how you intend to complete the project. You will need to identify all the project tasks and sequence them so that you and your team can complete the work within a set time frame. You will need to know the project priorities according to your stakeholders, and you will develop a detailed schedule based on those priorities. This lesson will give you some strategies and tools for identifying your key stakeholders, documenting your project's activities, and putting together a schedule to complete those activities.

Anticipate Problems

Every project creates something new, and that means there's an unknown element that could result in problems. It's the project manager's responsibility to anticipate what could go wrong and develop appropriate plans to handle situations that come up. In this lesson will walk you through the risk identification process and introduce techniques for listing and documenting project risks in a risk registry.

Communicate with Stakeholders

Good communications are the glue that binds all the project work and stakeholders together. People need information, and it's your responsibility to make sure the right people get the right message at the right time. That kind of goal requires a good communication strategy and plan. In this lesson, you will learn how to create a communication plan by figuring out the who, what, and how of your project communications.

Manage Your Time

It seems like there's always more work to do than hours in the day. Time management and organizational skills improve your ability to tackle your "to-do" list in the most efficient way possible. After all, if you can't manage your own work, you will definitely struggle managing the work of others in your projects. In this lesson, you will learn how setting goals and prioritizing help you maximize your effectiveness.

Manage the Work

After you have planned your project, it's time to actually do the work. Your responsibilities during project execution are to make sure tasks are completed according to the schedule, update the project plan as needed, handle any issues that come up, and communicate project status to your stakeholders. While doing these things, you will work to establish yourself as an effective team leader. In this lesson, you will learn how to manage the work of the project from the kick-off meeting all the way through to completion.

Control the Work

We start every project with a plan, but as you know, plans don't always work out. How can we evaluate what's actually happening during project execution compared to the plan? That's where controls come in. In this lesson, you will learn about common project controls and how to use them to identify variances between your project plan and current project performance.

Know When You're Done

It may sound like a strange question, but how do you know when the work of the project is really done? The answer often depends on who you ask. As long as there are multiple understandings of this concept, you are at risk. This lesson introduces how to quantify project completeness and the practical aspects of closing a project.

Transition the Project

Once the project deliverables are done, it's time to transition them to their final owner. The final owner may be an external customer or an internal department, such as Operations or IT. Your goal is to facilitate a seamless transition from the temporary nature of the project to the team or department who will be responsible for it in the long term. In this lesson, you will find out how to create a transition plan and ensure that your project deliverables can be used or implemented by their final owner with minimal disruption.

Documenting Lessons Learned

Projects are initiated to create something new: a product, a service, or a new capability that didn't exist before. But the project's deliverable is not the only thing that's new: You're also creating new knowledge and gaining new experiences that may be positive or negative. In this lesson, you will learn how to identify important learning experiences from your project so that they can benefit you, your team, and your company.