Plan, run and close projects with confidence: charters, WBS, Gantt charts, the critical path, budgets, risk, Scrum, Kanban, earned value and CAPM/PMP prep, from beginner to expert.
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Every lesson starts by telling you what you’ll be able to do.
Real-life cases from U.S. households and small businesses.
Check what you learned with immediate feedback.
Practice first, then compare with the solution.
4 levels · 16 lessons · 3h 16min of content
Projects vs. operations, the project manager's job, the triple constraint, the five life cycle phases and predictive, agile or hybrid approaches.
Start from the business problem, build a quick business case with payback and ROI, write SMART goals and a one-page charter, and run the kickoff.
Scope statement, deliverable-oriented WBS, the 100% rule, the 8/80 guideline, WBS dictionary, scope creep and gold plating.
Identify stakeholders, map them on a power/interest grid, assign roles with RACI, count communication channels and build a communication plan.
Activities, dependencies, three-point (PERT) estimates, effort vs. duration, and a Gantt chart in Excel with WORKDAY, NETWORKDAYS and holidays.
Network diagram, forward and backward pass, total and free float, near-critical paths, and schedule compression by crashing and fast-tracking.
Analogous, parametric, bottom-up and three-point estimates, loaded labor rates, contingency and management reserves, and the S-curve.
Risk statements, 5x5 P×I scoring with a traffic light, expected monetary value, response strategies and a living risk register.
The Agile Manifesto, Scrum's accountabilities, events, artifacts and commitments, burndown charts and release forecasting with velocity.
Kanban boards, WIP limits, cycle time and throughput, Little's Law, cumulative flow diagrams and percentile-based delivery forecasts.
What each tool does best, a weighted decision matrix, duration-weighted percent complete, key Excel formulas and a 30-day rollout plan.
Quality planning, assurance and control, cost of quality, Pareto charts, the change control process and status thresholds.
Planned value, earned value and actual cost; CV, SV, CPI and SPI; EAC, ETC, VAC and TCPI with a worked example.
Stages of team development, team charter, workload balancing, five conflict-resolution approaches and the real cost of meetings.
Formal acceptance, contract closure and retainage, the final report, lessons learned that change something, and handover.
Current CAPM and PMP eligibility, counting experience months, exam formats and domains, study plan and renewal.
A practical, free project management course for anyone who has to deliver something on time and on budget: small business owners, team leads, coordinators, career changers and future PMP candidates. Every lesson uses real-world U.S. examples, from a bakery launching online ordering in Austin to a software launch in Denver and a construction job in Ohio, with the numbers worked out step by step.
You'll start with the project life cycle, SMART goals and the project charter, then define scope with a work breakdown structure, map stakeholders and build a communication plan. In the intermediate level you'll create a Gantt chart in Excel, find the critical path and float, estimate costs and reserves, and score risks with a probability and impact matrix. The advanced level covers agile and Scrum, Kanban and flow metrics, choosing tools like Trello, Asana, Jira and Excel, and quality and change control. In the expert level you'll calculate earned value (CPI, SPI and EAC), lead and motivate the team, close the project with lessons learned and prepare for the CAPM and PMP exams. There are 16 lessons in four levels, with interactive quizzes and practice exercises with solutions.
Includes a free downloadable template: a project management workbook for Excel with a simple Gantt chart (dates and workday durations calculated automatically), a risk register with P×I scores and a traffic light, and an earned value sheet that calculates CPI, SPI and EAC.
Templates and practice data you’ll use throughout the course. Free, no sign-up.
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