Project Management Specialization

This course introduces students to the art and science of project management as applied to different types of project situations. Topics such as project life-cycle management, project organizations and leadership, project team building, RFPs, proposals and contracts, techniques for project scope definition, work definition, estimating, scheduling, risk management, control and closeout, the project management methodology, and PM software are covered.

This course emphasizes a hands-on approach to using project management knowledge areas to facilitate scheduling, estimating, tracking and controlling the schedule and costs of the project. A project baseline will be set so that actual schedule and cost variances can be compared to the project baseline and corrective actions can be developed to address the variances. In this course students will learn about the legal, ethical, and fiscal considerations in procurement and contracts. Students will examine ways of identifying, evaluating and mitigating risk in scheduling, cost control, contracting and procurement.

This course focuses on application of managerial approaches necessary to align significant projects with organizational strategy. It examines and discusses how firms determine business benefits and project feasibility, report progress, and measure project quality while communicating with key organizational stakeholders. Emphasis is placed on Earned Value Management techniques and achieving project progress and technical performance of the project.