Graduate Certificate in Advanced Project Management

Students in this course are introduced to a comprehensive framework for proactively building, managing, and controlling project schedules from initiation to closeout. They explore the importance of defining deliverables, establishing project and product requirements, defining scope boundaries and building a detailed work breakdown structure as prerequisites to building network diagrams using both critical path and critical chain approaches. Students explore the challenges of project scheduling under uncertainty, address techniques for addressing resource constraints, and develop procedures for proactively managing and controlling the scheduling process throughout the project's lifecycle.

A major responsibility of many project managers is planning and administering project contracts for the purchase or acquisition of project resources from external sources. In this course, students learn about planning for purchases and acquisitions, requests for proposal, vendor selection, contract administration, and contract closure. They consider and discuss the role of the project manager in the procurement process as it relates to project requirements for purchases or acquisitions, managing the relationship between buyer and seller, assessing vendor performance, contract change control, and conflict resolution. Students also have the opportunity to reflect on theory presented in the course as well as how they can apply these concepts to professional practice.

How do project managers ensure that their organization's initiatives allow for sustainable business and promote positive change through products for a sustainable environment? Students in this course are provided with an opportunity to answer such questions as well as to develop their understanding of managing projects at the portfolio and program levels. Students learn about the nature of sustainability in project management in terms of how project management processes align with the three fundamentals of sustainable development: social equity, economic efficiency, and environmental performance. Students work toward gaining a real-world understanding of concepts through the examination of current research illustrating sustainability in project management and by assessing actual products developed through projects.