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TOPIC HIGHLIGHTS

Project Management Overview: Students will receive an overview of the PMBOK^® Guide and application of MS Project to the PMBOK^® Guide. The course follows the main PMBOK^® Guide Process Groups- Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring, and Closing a Project.

Initiating the Project: Students will develop a project charter and scope statement. Initially, students will set up a project (using a case study) to define resources, establish a calendar, and develop task units of measure (e.g., fixed duration versus fixed units of work). Advanced tools such as Mind Mapping will be demonstrated to show how they can aid in rapidly defining a project and achieving stakeholders’ “buy-in.” Students will learn how to integrate Project Charter and Scope Statements into MS Project.

Planning A Project: Based on the case study, students will develop a work breakdown structure and establish task dependencies including the concepts of lag and lead times. The students will also define milestones, identify recurring tasks, and develop cost and resource estimates. To fully understand the practical application of MS Project, students will learn to evaluate the effects of resource leveling and resource substitutions and to understand both fixed and variable costs. Students will apply MS Project to analyze and understand the relationship between critical path, float, and slack. Students will also learn how to shorten the critical path by using alternate resources and Schedule Compression.

Executing and Monitoring: Students will create scenarios for further analysis and use templates and tools provided by course instructors, which are aligned with the PMBOK^® Guide. The scenarios will include “what if” options to analyze alternate project developments, such as schedule slippage, resource substitution, changing task dependencies, and working calendars, etc. Students will learn how to work with project baselines, update and create interim plans, and implement Earned Value, including CPI and SPI which are not defined in MS Project. Students will apply MS Project to integrate the activities of a project in accordance with the Project Management Plan. The scenarios will include monitoring the project activities against the project baseline and evaluating project performance against quality standards. Through lecture and demonstration, students will observe the benefits of tools, such as Palisades @Risk^® for risk analysis, monitoring, and mitigation.

Closing a Project: Students will create tracking reports and tables, which are aligned with PMBOK^® Guide, in MS Project and Excel, and define/use project progress reports. Students will share project data with other programs; create data templates; import and export data from Excel; use resource pools; and use a master project to track sub-projects or project portfolios. Students will create a “lessons learned” file and learn how to share with other related projects. Final Project Closure, including administrative and contractual requirements will be covered.

100% attendance and participation are expected from participants.

Courses are scheduled throughout the year and can be taken individually or as part of the Project Management Certificate Program to earn a George Mason University Certificate of Completion.

The Project Management Certificate Program provides you the opportunity to learn the basics of project management-how to plan, execute, control and complete projects. In addition, our Project Management core courses prepare you to take the PMP^® Certification Exam offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI is the world's leading organization certifying and representing 60,000 project management professionals worldwide.

After completing the Project Management core courses, you can take in-depth courses to further develop your project management skills. The advanced courses focus on key trends in managing projects and demands on the project managers. You will learn how to prepare project schedules, develop project measures and advanced approaches to project control; and how to develop, lead and motivate project teams. If dealing with risk and complexity is part of your work environment, you will learn both standard and advanced techniques to aid you. After successfully completing the four core courses and one elective, you will earn the George Mason University Certificate of Completion. Click here to learn more.

In addition, this program can be scheduled for group training at your site, at your convenience, through contractual arrangements. Contact us at 703-993-4800 for current course schedules, to register, or to discuss onsite possibilities.

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“Very good insight into the capabilities of MS Project.”

“Deep dive into MS Project with step by step instruction…just what I needed.”

“Good overview of MS Project and its features.”

Project Management Certificate Program