Project Management (Part 7) - Managing Your Project to Success

In Project Management (Part 7) - Managing Your Project to Success, you'll learn ...

• The information you need to monitor schedule performance, how to collect and evaluate it, and how to ensure its accuracy
• How to manage changes in your project
• The keys to successful project communication, including tips on planning and executing project meetings
• Elements of a well written project-progress report
• How to influence and motivate your project team

Overview

Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.

Credit: 4 PDH

Length: 47 pages

Over the past 25 to 30 years the number of projects in the workplace has skyrocketed. Projects of all types and sizes are now the way that organizations accomplish their work. People who want to devote their careers to planning and managing those projects are vital to their successes.

At the same time, a new breed of project manager has emerged. This new breed may not have set career goals to become project managers, but they do know they must successfully manage projects to move ahead in their careers. Clearly, project management has become a critical skill, not a career choice.

Even though these people realize they need special tools, techniques, and knowledge to handle their new types of assignments, they may not be able or willing to devote large amounts of time to acquiring them, which is where this Project Management course series comes into play.

This course is Part 7 of a 9-part series based on the popular book Project Management for Dummies, 4th Edition, which provides tools and techniques in accordance with PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). Each course in the series is stand-alone. Feel free to jump back and forth through the courses depending on your own project-management knowledge and experience and your current needs. However, it is suggested that you complete the series in sequential order if you are new to project management concepts.

This course, Part 7 of the series, will explain how to monitor, track, analyze, and report on your project’s activities. You’ll also learn how to establish and maintain effective communications between you and all your project audiences and how to demonstrate leadership that energizes your project team.

The courses in this series were written to be direct and (relatively) easy to understand. But don’t be misled — the simple text still navigates all the critical tools and techniques you’ll need to support your project planning, scheduling, budgeting, organizing, and controlling.

For those seeking Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, the tools and techniques provided in this course series are in accordance with PMBOK. In fact, a section is provided at the end of each course module that specifies where the topics in the module are addressed in PMBOK.

It’s important to note that PMBOK identifies what best practices are but doesn’t address in detail how to perform them or deal with difficulties you may encounter as you try to perform them. In contrast, this course series focuses heavily on how to perform the project-management techniques and processes. However, if you’re preparing to take the PMP examination, use these courses as a companion to PMBOK, not as a substitute for it.

From Project Management For Dummies ®, 4th Edition. Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey . Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Keeping track of how the project plan compares to actual performance
• Using information systems to track scheduling, work effort, and expenditures
• Implementing your control process and taking corrective actions
• Managing changes responsibility
• Highlighting some important elements of communication
• Deciding whether to share the news through writing or a meeting
• Writing your project-progress report
• Getting familiar with different meeting styles
• Creating a project communications plan
• Defining the difference between leadership and management
• Identifying the traits of an effective leader
• Improving your ability to influence your project team
• Developing and maintaining motivation on your team

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 20 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.