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Project Management Program

Curriculum

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Project Management Overview

This course explains the elements essential to starting a project, including eliciting requirements, developing a project charter, selecting, and building the project team, and facilitating project kick off. Students will practice these skills and examine how the choice of project methodology impacts the work to be done.

16 hours of instruction, totaling 1.5 units.

Module 1 – Introduction to Project Management
Module 2 – Project Management Roles and Responsibilities
Module 3 – Traditional/Waterfall and Agile Methodology
Module 4 – Tailoring

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Project Initiation

Have a project in mind for your organization? This course provides the information you need to get started on the right foot. Before any project work can begin, it is important to do a bit of background research. Some critical elements to establish at the beginning of any project include creating a business case to justify the project for your organization, identifying your stakeholders and a plan to manage them, coming up with the project requirements that must be accounted for, and setting up a project team with the characteristics needed to support and complete this specific project.

Module 1 – Establishing the Business Need
Module 2 – Project Scope and Stakeholders
Module 3 – Eliciting Requirements
Module 4 – Building the Project Team

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Project Planning and Risk

This course covers key components of project planning and documentation. Students will learn about the project management plan, Work Breakdown Structures for waterfall, agile, and hybrid methods, and subsidiary management plans. The subsidiary plans will include scope and risk management strategies. Students will create all these components based upon a project of their choice.

Module 1 – Project Planning
Module 2 – Work Breakdown Structures
Module 3 – The Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary and Scope Management
Module 4 – Risk Management Through the Project Lifecycle

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Project Schedule and Cost

To meet stakeholder requirements and successfully complete a project, project managers need to be mindful of both schedule and cost. In this course, students will learn how to estimate a timeline and develop integrated schedules and milestones, calculate the critical path, calculate approximate cost, and establish a project budget, and track project performance and value delivery for benefit realization.

16 hours of instruction, totaling 1.5 units.

Module 1 – Estimating a Timeline and Developing Integrated Schedules and Milestones (Include Sprints and Program Increments)
Module 2 – Project Scope and Stakeholders
Module 3 – Estimating Costs and Establishing a Project Budget (Traditional vs. SCRUM)
Module 4 – Project Performance and Value Delivery

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Project Stakeholders and Change Management

Projects involve multiple stakeholders and can require change management to see them through to successful completion. This course teaches participants how to identify and assess stakeholders, determine the impact of change, manage resistance, and engage their organization in change and communicate that change to others.

16 hours of instruction, totaling 1.5 units.

Module 1 – Creating a Stakeholder Register
Module 2 – Assessing the Impact of Change
Module 3 – Communicating Change
Module 4 – Managing Resistance and Engaging the Organization in Change

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Project Procurement

Projects can require procurement of goods or services from parties outside your organization. This course educates students about the various types of contracts and associated risks that exist, the lifecycle of a typical contract, how to select vendors, and how to perform and make changes to a contract to ensure project success.

16 hours of instruction, totaling 1.5 units.

Module 1 – Contract Types and Associated Contract Risks
Module 2 – Developing and Prioritizing the Product Backlog
Module 3 – SCRUM and Kanban (Various Methods for Prioritizing Work)
Module 4 – Range Estimating and Burn Down Charts

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Agile Project Management

Agile project management is an iterative project methodology that works well for specific types of projects. This course teaches students what Agile methodology is and focuses on components of this methodology; developing and prioritizing the product backlog, prioritizing work through SCRUM and Kanban, and using range estimating and burn down charts.

20 hours of instruction, totaling 2.0 units.

Module 1 – Agile Overview
Module 2 – Developing and Prioritizing the Product Backlog
Module 3 – SCRUM and Kanban (Various Methods for Prioritizing Work)
Module 4 – Range Estimating and Burn Down Charts

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Leadership and Communication

The bulk of the work of a project manager is leading and communicating with the project team and its stakeholders. In this course, students will learn verbal and written communication skills, conflict management and problem solving, virtual team management, team empowerment, and motivation skills to serve as effective project leaders.

20 hours of instruction, totaling 2.0 units.

Module 1 – Verbal and Written Communication
Module 2 – Conflict Management and Problem Solving
Module 3 – Principles of Empowering and Motivating Project Teams
Module 4 – Managing Virtual Teams