Traditional Project Management for Beginners

The basis of any professional project management process is mastering project management methods. Master the ten most essential methods and lay the foundation for your successful project management:

1. Work Breakdown Structure - The heart of project management because it makes it immediately clear what the project is about.

2. Work Package Description - Precisely specifies the content of each work package.

3. Milestone Plan - Provides an easy-to-understand overview of the current status and future progress.

4. Gantt Chart - Visualizes a project’s time dimensions.

5. Network Diagram - Visualizes, among other things, a project’s critical path and, thus, shows which work packages should not be delayed under any circumstances.

6. Resource Plan - Provides an overview of required resources and project costs.

7. Stakeholder Analysis - Helps to understand how to manage a project’s different stakeholders.

8. Communication Plan - Schedules project team meetings and communications with stakeholders.

9. Risk Plan – Definition of preventive and corrective actions for potential hazards.

10. Quality Management Plan – Plan of measures to achieve a project’s quality objectives.

    
    

Good methodological skills are essential for success in project management. However, they alone are not enough to excel as a project manager. Soft skills are at least as important. For this reason, I will help you in the next module to become even better in the 10 most important project management soft skills:

1. Leadership - People don't want to be managed, they want to be led.

2. Motivating Employees - With good project managers, employees tend to be internally motivated.

3. Exuding Authority - If one's own instructions are not followed to a sufficient degree, it is often due to a lack of authority.

4. Sincere Interest in the Team - Only when everything is right on the relationship level can employees be reached on the subject level.

5. Being a Problem Solver - In project management, creative ways of solving novel problems must be found.

6. Resilience - Project management can be the trigger for a lot of stress, which is why it is important to develop good resilience.

7. Communicating Effectively - A good project manager is able to quickly get to the heart of what others need to know.

8. Managing Conflict - Good project managers are also good conflict managers.

9. Presenting - Even non-technical stakeholders should be able to follow the presentation easily.

10. Learning Ability - Good project managers have a positive attitude toward learning.

    
    

Now, you will have a solid understanding of how to systematically plan projects, and how to lead your team. Finally we will deepen your understanding in four supplementary videos. These cover the project charter, software in project management, the magic triangle and agile project management.

Course Picture from starline on Freepik