BA 287 Principles of Project Management

Lecture Hours: 4
Credits: 4

Explores the various facets of project management. Covers the fundamentals, core concepts, techniques, and skills needed for success. Identifies the management skills needed for projects, goals, activities, resources, team development, risks, budgets, and controls from start to finish.

Recommended: Placement into WR 121Z and BA 101 and MTH 095 or higher. (All recommended courses must be completed with a grade of C or better.)

Student Learning Outcomes:

Identify the phases of the project management life cycle, and a project manager’s role in each phase.
Recognize skills needed for effective project management.
Explain the initiation and planning process of the project life cycle.
Express the importance of project charters, how to set goals, and document project requirements.
Describe how to break down work into manageable components, acquire resources, and identify and plan for risks.
Describe how to develop a project schedule, final estimates and project budget to complete final project.
Explain executing and monitoring and controlling processes through the use of team building, reporting project status, monitoring project performance and taking corrective action.

Content Outline

Building the Foundation
- Project management journey
- Benefitting from project management principles
- Twenty-first century project management
- Where do you go from here
Developing Project Management Skills
- Little bit of everything
- Communicating your style
Initiating the Project
- Selecting projects for success
- Creating the project charter
- Holding the project kickoff meeting
Defining Project Goals
- Agreeing on deliverables
- Discovering requirements
- Identifying assumptions and constraints
- Creating the project scope statement
- Creating the communications plan
Breaking Down the Project Activities
- Constructing the work breakdown structure
- Defining tasks and activities
- Determining milestones
- Constructing the responsibility assignment matrix
- Estimating activity durations
- Estimating dependencies
- Constructing a network diagram
Planning and Acquiring Resources
- Planning a project team
- Acquiring materials, supplies, and equipment
- Contracting for resources
Assessing Risk
- Identifying risks
- Risk analysis techniques
- Planning for risks
- Responding to risks
- Contingency planning
- Risk management plan
Developing the Project Plan
- Creating the project schedule
- Quality management plan
Budgeting 101
- What makes up a budget
- Estimating techniques
- Estimating costs and finalizing the budget
- Establishing a cost baseline
Estimating the Project
- Assembling the team
- Negotiation and problem-solving techniques
- Project manager’s roles in team development
- Progress reporting
- Taking corrective action
Controlling the Project Outcome
- Change happens
- Assessing the impacts of change
- Monitoring and controlling project processes
- Performance-reporting tools
- Risk monitoring
Closing the Books
- Happy endings
- Breaking up is hard to do
- Documenting lessons learned
- Obtaining project sign-off
- Is the customer happy
- Archiving project documents
- It’s party time