PM Crash Course: Project Management Master Class

Explore how a minimum viable product in agile delivers early value and customer feedback, contrasting with waterfall's slower proof-of-concept and showcasing flexible options like skateboard versus motorcycle.

Explore ceremonies in waterfall and agile, showing how a commanding project manager runs large status meetings with stakeholders, while agile favors servant leadership and self-managed teams during daily stand-ups.

Compare Scrum and Kanban frameworks in agile methodology, outlining product backlog and sprint backlog for Scrum, limit-based Kanban work in progress, and recurring ceremonies to deliver increments.

Explore how project managers use tools across waterfall and agile projects, including Visio for dependencies, Excel for planning, Word for documentation, and Jira, Confluence, and poker planning for agile workflows.

Download Microsoft Project for free and start a 30-day trial with project plan three, which includes a desktop client, and cancel anytime.

Sign up for Jira and Confluence through Atlassian to access a free cloud plan for up to 10 users, using email, for hands-on agile project management in this course.

Identify stakeholders during initiation and classify them by power and interest to plan engagement; align with PMBOK and PMP preparation.

A project charter documents the business case, needs, strategy, and return on investment assumptions at project start, sets high-level goals and timeline, and guides sponsor and PM alignment and planning.

Define project governance by establishing reporting cadences and a collaboration site, and plan change management. Use milestones to guide execution, kickoff, and eventual closing.

Learn how to run an effective project kickoff by inviting stakeholders, defining roles with a RACI, sharing the milestone plan and project scope, and aligning teams for the planning phase.

Learn planning tools for waterfall and agile, from expert judgment and bottom-up estimates to three-point, parametric, and comparative methods, plus agile relative estimation using Fibonacci sizing.

Break down a room painting project into a work breakdown structure, assign tasks, time, and costs, establish dependencies, and plan with Jira and timelines for effective project planning.

Explain the scope management plan within the overall project management plan, detailing how to gather requirements, define and baseline scope, map requirements to solutions, and secure approvals and change requests.

Track project execution by using action logs, issue logs, change logs, and a risk register, with Excel filters and reports to monitor open items, due dates, and mitigations.

Track project progress with agile standups or weekly status calls using a structured OneNote template, capturing issues, risks, action items, and executive status reports.

Track project execution by consolidating action, issue, change, and risk logs in Excel, capture training module additions, and monitor open items, due dates, and stakeholder decisions through filters and reviews.

Learn how to hand over a completed project to the operations team, including documenting the knowledge base, training support staff, and setting up processes to handle issues and ongoing releases.

Close out a project by conducting a lessons learned session with the team, capturing what went well, what to improve, and what to stop, to improve future project execution.

Closeout archives all approvals and project documentation to ensure audit readiness. Securely store records and architecture diagrams before dismantling the team and moving to the next project.

Develop communication, time management, negotiation, leadership, organizational finance, facilitation, and presentation to advance in project management and collaborate across teams.

Prepare for project management job interviews by articulating your experience, education, and certifications, and practice behavioral questions using stakeholder management concepts and the star format.