Project Management Fundamentals (Earn 5.5 PDU's)

Explore the history of project management, from oldest projects and basic techniques to development since the 1950s, and growth over 70 years as a thriving career.

Trace how ancient temples and pyramids show coordinated resources and schedules to achieve predetermined goals. Learn how later methods, including the gang shot on Hoover Dam, shaped modern project management.

Trace the evolution of project management from the triangle of constraints to integrated processes, and note the Pembroke Guide and ISO 21 500 standards shaping practice and demand for managers.

Trace the history of project management from ancient resource and schedule practices to the 1950s focus on scope, cost, and time, and note PMI's 1969 founding and PMBOK milestones.

Explore the foundations of project management, including definitions of project, program, and portfolio, PMO role, project success criteria, and the PMBOK five processes, ten knowledge areas, stakeholders, and manager competencies.

Define a project as a unique, temporary, planned endeavor that delivers defined deliverables within time and budget constraints, balancing scope, time, and cost to meet stakeholder quality standards.

Learn how project management applies the five PMI process groups—initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing—through progressive elaboration, balancing time, cost, and scope with stakeholder needs.

Identify and lead the project team by applying core project management principles, align with sponsor objectives, and balance scope, schedule, and budget through leadership, integration, and stakeholder focus.

Explore the foundations of project management, including project, program, and portfolio definitions, the PMO's influence, the five process groups, ten knowledge areas, stakeholder roles, and leadership and soft skills.

Explore the benefits of planning a project in phases and how phased planning reduces first-phase and project uncertainties and risks, and how phases differ from the five project management processes.

Discover how planning in phases with progressive elaboration, rolling wave planning, and phase gates reduces uncertainty and aligns scope, time, and cost.

Break the project into smaller chunks to reduce uncertainty, generate revenue earlier, and apply phase gates for phase review and next-phase planning across predictive, iterative, incremental, and adaptive life cycles.

Explore how organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors shape a project, then examine the six organizational structures and their effects on a project manager's role, authority, and resource allocation.

Explore how organizational culture and structure influence project management, including organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors. Assess how functional, matrix, projectized, and composite structures shape authority and resource access.

Identify organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors that influence projects, and map six organizational structures to the project manager’s authority before studying the project lifecycle.

Explore the project initiation process group overview, examine project business documentation, and review process outcomes and outputs, plus practical advice from a project manager.

Define the initiating process to start a project or phase by securing approvals, outlining scope and preliminary costs, identifying stakeholders, and authorizing the project charter as a baseline.

Identify the project statement of work, business case, and benefits management plan as key initiation inputs, describing the business need, product scope, and expected benefits.

Define the project charter and stakeholder register as initiation outputs, detailing sponsor authority, scope, assumptions, high-level estimates, and initial risks; analyze stakeholders with a power-interest grid to keep them engaged.

Define a smart objective in a single stakeholder-approved sentence, align all stakeholders in a room to iron out misalignment, and clearly state the project manager in the charter.

Define a project through the initiation process group using inputs like the project statement of works, business case, and benefits management plan to produce the project charter and stakeholder register.

Explore the project planning process group, its overall planning process, key outcomes, and practical guidance on the recommended process flow, showing how planning paves the way to project success.

Explore the planning process group, its 24 activities, rolling wave planning, and the project management plan baseline that guides execution and stakeholder alignment per PMI PMBOK sixth edition.

Explore how the project planning process yields the project management plan and ten subsidiary plans, guiding scope, requirements, schedule, cost, quality, resources, communications, risk, procurement, and stakeholders.

Apply a simplified best-practice process for project planning, from requirements collection to defining scope, creating the work breakdown structure, developing the schedule and budget, and addressing risks.

Identify the project planning process group essentials, from collecting requirements to creating a comprehensive project management plan with scope, time, and cost baselines, while avoiding over allocations.

Explore the project execution process group, including the overall execution of project work, its key outcomes, and practical management advice from seasoned project managers.

Execute the project work per the project management plan, coordinating resources and a diverse team to deliver the deliverable and prepare for handover, updating plans through formal change control.

The lecture outlines the executing process group's focus on delivering project deliverables, with outputs including lessons learned, quality reports, and updates to enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets.

Hold kickoff meetings to align stakeholders on scope, schedule, costs, and risks; conduct requirements clarification session to confirm needs, then plan the solution and empower the team with delegated authority.

Execute the project work per the approved plan with a strong team, while the manager monitors progress, producing deliverables and updates, and conducting kickoff, requirements clarification, and design-before-build sessions.

Explore the monitoring and controlling process group through a three-part section, outlining its fit in project management, main outcomes, and practical, experience-based guidance for effective execution.

Learn how the monitoring and control process group actively tracks project performance, analyzes variances from baselines, and formally manages changes to keep the project on plan.

Explore the monitoring and control process group and its outputs—work performance reports, approved change requests, verified deliverables, and forecasts—and ensure formal approvals keep the project aligned with stakeholders.

Learn practical monitoring and controlling of projects using earned value management, weekly and monthly progress meetings, risk registers, and rigorous change control plus procurement contract closures.

Monitor project health and performance through weekly and monthly meetings, enact change control, and close procurements, delivering work performance reports, change requests, deliverables, baselines, quality metrics, and updated plans.

Explore the process overview and importance of project closure, including its main outcomes and outputs. Apply practical advice to properly close a project and conclude the course on project closure.

Master the closing process group by reviewing the project management plan and subsidiary plans, confirming deliverables and objectives, and transferring resources at project end while documenting lessons learned.

Explore the closing process group outcomes, including lessons learned, final deliverable handover, and the final report, with organizational process assets updated for future projects.

Discover practical tips for closing projects, including maintaining team motivation, conducting constructive performance reviews, celebrating delivery, and issuing a formal close-out notification for administrative closure.

Close projects by concluding all project management process groups, ensuring no unfinished business, and issuing a formal completion notice while producing lessons learned, final deliverable transition, and final report.