Project Management Fundamentals

This course is designed for professionals who manage projects as part of their role but whose primary job title is not "project manager." If you have ever been handed a project and had to figure it out as you went, this course gives you the structure and language to do it right.

It is also an ideal starting point for anyone considering a formal career path in project management and wanting a thorough grounding in the field before pursuing certifications such as CompTIA Project+ or PMP.

• Define what a project is, describe the project management life cycle, and explain the role and key skills of a project manager
• Initiate a project by defining scope, assembling the right team using a skills matrix, and identifying risks early
• Build a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), sequence activities in a network diagram, identify the critical path, and estimate durations and costs
• Analyze project risks using probability and impact scoring, create a communication plan, and establish a change control process
• Execute the project plan, track progress using Earned Value Analysis, report performance to stakeholders, and implement approved changes
• Formally close a project, hand off deliverables, and produce a final report that captures lessons learned

1. Getting Started with Project Management

   You will learn what separates a project from routine operational work, explore the five process groups of the project management life cycle (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing), and examine the skills a project manager needs — from technical knowledge and general management ability to interpersonal skills like leadership, negotiation, and conflict resolution. You will also look at how organizational structure (functional, projectized, matrix, or composite) affects a project manager's authority.

   • Characteristics of a project vs. operational tasks; project stakeholders and their roles
   • Project management life cycle: process groups, deliverables, and sign-offs
   • Role of the project manager: skills, organizational structures, and the Project Management Office (PMO)
2. Initiating a Project

   Before a single task begins, you need to define what the project will — and will not — deliver. This lesson walks through the scope definition process: gathering requirements from stakeholders, writing a scope statement, creating a project charter, and getting formal sign-off. You will also build a team skills matrix to match the right people to the right tasks, and learn a systematic approach to identifying people, technology, organizational, financial, legal, and environmental risks before they become problems.

   • Scope statements, scope creep, the Triple Constraints (scope, time, cost), and the project charter
   • Team skills matrix: matching skills to tasks, identifying gaps, and planning for coverage
   • Risk identification: six categories of risk and guidelines for documenting them early
3. Planning for Time and Cost

   This lesson is where the project plan takes shape. You will decompose the project into a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), arrange tasks into a network diagram to show dependencies, and calculate the critical path — the sequence of tasks that determines your earliest possible finish date. You will then estimate resource needs, apply resource leveling to avoid over-allocation, and build a project budget using analogous, parametric, and bottom-up estimating techniques.

   • Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): decomposing deliverables into manageable work packages
   • Activity sequencing, network diagrams, critical path, float, and schedule development terminology (ES, EF, LS, LF)
   • Resource estimation, resource leveling, duration estimation, and project cost budgeting
4. Planning for Project Risks, Communication, and Change Control

   With the schedule and budget in place, you turn to the factors most likely to disrupt them. You will score each identified risk using a Probability and Impact Assessment matrix to prioritize your response planning. You will then design a communication plan that ensures the right stakeholders receive the right information at the right time — without burying anyone in unnecessary reports. Finally, you will establish a change control process so that any scope, schedule, or cost changes go through a formal review before they affect the project baseline.

   • Risk analysis: probability and impact scoring, risk registers, and mitigation planning
   • Communication plan: information distribution, stakeholder reporting cadence, and documentation protocols
   • Change control: change request elements, impact assessment on scope/time/cost/quality, and approval workflows
5. Managing a Project

   Planning is only valuable if execution follows it. This lesson covers the full span of active project management: launching work, running effective status meetings, tracking progress against the baseline using Earned Value Analysis (EV, PV, AC, CPI, SPI), producing performance reports for stakeholders, and processing change requests without letting them derail the project. You will also look at quality assurance as a continuous activity throughout execution, not just an end-of-project check.

   • Beginning project work: kickoff, work authorization, and quality assurance processes
   • Executing the project plan: status meetings, team motivation, and compliance with organizational procedures
   • Tracking progress: Earned Value Analysis, schedule and cost variance, and forecasting
   • Reporting performance: status reports, forecast reports, and personnel evaluations
   • Implementing change control: processing change requests and updating project baselines
6. Closing the Project

   A project is not finished when the last task is complete — it is finished when the deliverables are formally accepted, the team is released, and the lessons learned are documented for future projects. This lesson walks through the administrative and interpersonal steps of project closeout: obtaining stakeholder sign-off, archiving project records, releasing resources, and writing a final report that captures what went well, what did not, and what the next project team should know.

   • Closing a project: formal acceptance, contract closure, resource release, and archiving
   • Final report: major accomplishments, performance evaluation, variance explanations, and lessons learned

No formal project management experience is required. Some on-the-job experience participating in managed projects is helpful but not mandatory.