Project Management Fundamentals

Start your project with a sponsor issued charter, then translate it into a detailed scope statement, gather and prioritize requirements, and align time, budget, and resources with stakeholders.

Master how to manage scope, time, and cost—the triple constraint—by defining requirements, objectives, and a clear scope statement, addressing risks to prevent scope creep.

Assemble project teams by matching needed skills with available local or remote members, using a skills matrix to balance supervision, experience, and certifications.

Identify and document risks early using a risk register to capture uncertainties. Assess probability and impact using qualitative and quantitative analysis, considering risk tolerance and risk threshold to prioritize mitigation.

Develop a solid foundation in project management fundamentals by learning how to construct a work breakdown structure.

Learn to define activities at the work package level for bottom-up estimates from the WBS, then sequence them with a network diagram using finish-to-start, start-to-start, and lag or lead times.

Learn to estimate task durations with resources, distinguishing effort hours from duration, apply the PERT method, and use a network diagram to find the critical path and float.

Develop practical skills in creating a project schedule as part two of the project management fundamentals course.

Estimate project costs by breaking work into activities and tallying labor, materials, and equipment, then roll up to a total using bottom-up and PERT methods.

Document risks in a risk register to identify and prioritize threats and opportunities. Use qualitative and quantitative analysis to estimate probability, impact, and expected value for informed risk responses.

Develop a communications plan that balances overcommunication and undercommunication while clarifying information needs and distribution. Align it with the project plan to enable handoffs and versioning of information for stakeholders.

Learn how to implement a formal change control process in project management, assess costs and timelines, document requests, and recalibrate the baseline to prevent scope creep and risk.

Begin project work by acquiring the team and conducting a kick-off. Align on roles, plans, risks, and communications to ensure smooth execution toward the end goal.

Execute the project plan by monitoring time, cost, and scope, using milestones and weekly assessments to adjust plans, while safeguarding project, process, and product quality.

Learn how earned value uses a time, scope, and cost baseline to compare budget at completion, planned value, and earned value, revealing variances and indices.

Explore forecasting and control techniques for project progress, including estimate to complete, estimate at completion, and variance at completion, plus resource leveling and scope reduction strategies.

Explore earned value and other performance reports—status, progress, forecasting—and personnel evaluations to monitor time, cost, and scope, guide communications, recognition, and future planning.

Receive and analyze change requests during execution, assessing scope, cost, and time within the triple constraint. Document approvals and sign-offs in a spreadsheet or database to ensure accountability.

Closeout the project by closing contracts, obtaining formal acceptance, and verifying requirements. Capture lessons learned, preserve historical data, reuse templates, and produce the final closeout report.

Create a final report that documents project performance and deviations, includes an executive summary, and outlines lessons learned and recommendations for future projects to senior management.