Build your existing project management knowledge and develop the skills to manage teams and deliver effective projects.

- Duration4 weeks
- Weekly study3 hours
Project Management: Beyond the Basics
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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.
What topics will you cover?
Week 1
- The skills a project manager needs to master
- Demands placed on a project manager
- Identifying and evaluating stakeholders
- Lines of communication
- Ethics in projects
Week 2
- Managing in situations of volatility and uncertainty
- Managing complexity and ambiguity
- Linear, iterative and hybrid project lifecycles
- Selecting the right approach
- Developing project agility
Week 3
- Forming and developing project teams
- Launching projects
- Conditions for success
- The power of social, identity and cognitive diversity
- Developing and safeguarding project teams
Week 4
- Managing quality in a project
- The costs of quality
- Preparing a quality plan
- Managing resources
- Looking at the critical chain
- Dealing with conflict
When would you like to start?
Date to be announced
Add to Wishlist to be emailed when new dates are announced
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.
- Established1969
- LocationMilton Keynes, UK
- World rankingTop 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020
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