Project and Program Management Online Courses

Projects today are the means for introducing innovation and implementing an organization’s strategy, and project management is a discipline to deliver value. In this course, students will study the foundational principles and concepts that are applicable to a wide variety of projects. The course will explore the predictive (traditional) as well as agile approaches to managing projects. Using a real life-like case study in which an organization addresses a business problem by launching a new project, students will have an opportunity to walk in the shoes of a project manager as the project goes through the stages of initiation, planning and execution. Working individually as well as in groups, students will apply the tools and techniques that they have learned and experience first hand the challenges of working in teams solving complex project problems.

Projects attempt to achieve maximum value for minimum cost, and they often compete with other projects and operations within the organization for resources and financing. This course covers recently developed methods and value based metrics that, properly applied, can significantly impact project and portfolio value and revenue. By quantifying each side of the classic Triple Constraint Triangle, the value returned by the project and its contribution to the organizational portfolio can be accurately assessed and optimized. The course focuses on the project as an investment, and addresses both the theoretical and practical skills necessary to successfully manage that investment. Techniques covered include Estimated Monetary Value of the project scope; critical path and precedence diagramming methods of scheduling; resource optimization; and decision-making processes that optimize both project performance and return on investment.

This course covers risk management processes and techniques in depth, exploring the systematic and iterative approaches that encompass risk planning, identification, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, response planning, and monitoring and control. The course addresses risk management principles consistent with the PMBOK. Techniques for building and applying a risk management toolkit are explored, as are methods to implement risk management programs within an organization.

Conflicts of interest are common in project and program management, business environments, and daily life. This course provides a framework to understand the basis of conflict, to select an appropriate conflict resolution strategy, and to employ tactics that optimize results for both individuals and organizations. Characteristics of negotiation explored include the two fundamental strategies of negotiation; frames of reference; value creation; value claiming; and the impact of both tangible and intangible factors on the negotiation process. With globalization of project management and the implementation of virtual teams, the challenges to successfully resolve conflicts become increasingly complex. Approaches to conflict resolution differ among collocated and virtual teams, and cultural differences, interests, and values influence negotiation strategy and tactics. As each element of the conflict resolution process is explored, the course highlights special considerations for virtual team members. By participating in this course you will come to recognize the pervasiveness and importance of negotiation. You will acquire a new repertoire of negotiating skills. You will develop a systematic and positive approach to negotiating with colleagues, bosses, clients, other stakeholders, and external groups of all kinds–in ways that equip you to deal also with all kinds of conditions and circumstances.

Programs connect a company’s strategic plans to the projects necessary to implement them. Programs frequently span many years, include multiple product releases, involve numerous and diverse stakeholder groups, and necessitate the establishment of a program office. This course covers the history, current practice, and future directions of program management. Concepts covered include program versus project, product, and portfolio management; the program manager role; the program life cycle, its phases and process groups, consistent with the PMI Standard for Program Management; themes of program management including benefits management, stakeholder management, and program governance; key program management deliverables; program office models; portfolio management concepts; and program management implementation within an organization.

This course examines the people-related aspects of project management across several areas, including team and stakeholder management; the role of the project manager in relation to the different levels, positions and personalities among the team and stakeholders; and the vital aspect of communications in effective project management. Also covered is the importance of project leadership vs. management, and an in-depth examination of the many people-related issues that often arise during the project lifecycle.

This course examines the various challenges that more often than not arise within the project lifecycle and can threaten project success. The course also examines the reasons these challenges occur, when in the lifecycle they tend to happen, and solutions for anticipating, preventing, minimizing and/or mitigating them.

This course covers the procurement process in depth, including concepts, principles and ethics, pricing methods, awards, and all phases of contract administration from both the seller and buyer perspectives. It explores the development of bids and requests for proposals; the evaluation of responses; and the capabilities and use of various types of contracts and pricing mechanisms. It addresses outsourcing (including market investigation, key risks, requirements definition and evaluations using performance based service agreements) and the evaluation and use of contract information systems.

Agile approaches are being utilized in a myriad of projects, startups, and business units throughout the corporate world. This course takes the basics of Agile and sharpens this knowledge by demonstrating techniques to implement Agile practices in teams, projects, and the enterprise. We will first take a deeper dive into Agile techniques and practices that help teams create value. We will then study how Agile at scale creates an Agile enterprise where innovation teams collaboratively work with plan based approaches to deliver better results at the enterprise level. Students will be able to carry tools with them that will not only help in delivering innovative solutions in an Agile environment, but also help them coach teams and organizations to embrace Agile approaches.

The field of project and program management continually evolves. Project management professional groups such as the Project Management Institute (PMI) introduce new and revised standards each year; organizations adopt novel approaches and refine existing methodologies; updated industry data and case studies on the effectiveness of project management practices become available. This Project Management Special Topics course facilitates the introduction of cutting-edge project management practices as they are introduced in the industry.

This course provides a foundation of the history, concepts, purpose and application of both data science and analytics in a business environment. This includes the methods of data collection, preparation, analysis, visualization, management, security, and preservation of large sets of information. Also covered in the course are the primary methods of analytics, including predictive, prescriptive, and descriptive. The course will examine the various uses of analytics and how these methods identify and leverage competitive advantage in the era of ever-growing information requirements. Through Python programming for beginners and real-world public datasets, some business problems will be analyzed in this course. Tools such as Pandas, Jupyter Notebooks, or Spyder are used to identify and understand relationships in data and visualize information. The course will offer opportunities to create expressive data science projects while utilizing case studies, trends, techniques, and best practices in the data science field.

This course covers principles and concepts of agile project management in alignment with the needs of strategic analytics projects. Agile project management techniques take into consideration the values, roles, deliverables, and practices of Scrum; additional agile and iterative methods; scalability and enterprise-wide considerations. Concepts covered include process groups from initiation through closure; techniques for estimating and reporting; and management of risk, quality, resources, and communications. The dynamic nature of analytics projects, which include data warehouse implementations and business intelligence solutions, are characterized by uncertain or changing requirements and high implementation risks.