Project Management: Beyond the Basics
Build your existing project management knowledge and develop the skills to manage teams and deliver effective projects.
Duration
4 weeksWeekly study
3 hours
Project Management: Beyond the Basics
Learn how to lead project teams with success
Digital transformation and the rise of large scale infrastructure projects has created a growing demand for more project-oriented jobs worldwide. On this course, you will go beyond the fundamentals of project management and improve your knowledge so you’re better prepared to lead projects in the future.
You will focus on ensuring your projects deliver the intended benefits to stakeholders whilst being on time and within budget. You will learn how to choose the best approach to projects and develop the leadership and management skills needed to grow effective project teams.
Syllabus
Week 1
Becoming an effective project manager
Developing as a project manager
What are the skills you need?
Engaging stakeholders
Finding the right strategy.
Working ethically in projects
Can you make difficult decisions while acting ethically?
Check your understanding
Review your week's learning.
Week 2
Managing projects in a complex world
Understanding and responding to complexity
Frameworks that make sense of a complex world.
Linear and iterative projects
Two different approaches: but when should they be used?
Adapting approaches to context
What happens in practice?
Check your understanding
Review this week's learning.
Week 3
Managing project people
Establishing and leading project teams
How are teams put together – and how do they work?
Creating the conditions for project teams to succeed
What is the project manager's role in creating and supporting a team?
Developing and safeguarding team members
What happens after a project team has been formed?
Check your understanding
Review this week's learning.
Week 4
Managing projects in complex organisations – seeing the bigger picture
Managing quality
Project management means identifying the cost of quality and creating a quality plan.
Managing resources
How will you manage the resources that you use on a project?
Managing conflicts
Conflicts on a project are inevitable. How will you manage them?
Check your understanding
Review your week's learning, and complete the end-of-course test.
When would you like to start?
Start straight away and learn at your own pace. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.
Available now
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Reflect on your current knowledge on project management and go beyond the basics of project management in your own professional practice
- Identify the appropriate methods and techniques best suited for specific project management scenarios
- Improve your awareness of the professional skills required to be a project manager
- Demonstrate your understanding of how to manage project teams with success
- Improve your ability to give and receive feedback from all project stakeholders
- Apply appropriate communication tools and techniques to engage with project stakeholders
- Develop an awareness of the ethical aspects in project management
Who is the course for?
This course is for people working on and leading projects in their work but who may not see themselves as professional project managers. It also offers the opportunity for people to explore project management as a career.
Who will you learn with?
Giacomo is a Senior Lecturer in Strategic Management at The Open University Business School. He holds a work experience in project management both in consulting companies and in EU research projects.
I am Head of Transformation at The Open University and lecturer in the OU Business School, and I speak, write, consult and advise on strategy, project and product management and organisational change
Liz Moody is a Senior Lecturer in the Open University Business School. She has managed a number of large programmes and change projects in a variety of settings and sectors.
Who developed the course?
The Open University
The Open University (OU) is the largest academic institution in the UK and a world leader in flexible distance learning, with a mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas.
Established
1969Location
Milton Keynes, UKWorld ranking
Top 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020
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