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.
The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.
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Lesson 1
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.
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