The eLearning Center for Gatlin Education Services

The Project Management portion of this online certification training program provides a comprehensive education in project management. You'll learn the basics of project management and get preparation for the current edition of the Project Management Professional national certification exam. Textbook and exam prep are included.

In the Microsoft Project^® portion, you'll master one of the most popular project management scheduling software products available today.  Whether you're an occasional user or a full-time scheduler, your understanding of Project is vital to your ability to plan, manage, and track your projects effectively. This program is the essential Microsoft Project^® training. You'll become familiar with how to really plan and track projects using Project’s many features.

This online certificate program is offered in partnership with major colleges, universities, and other accredited education providers.

Project Management Section:

Project management as a profession has grown exponentially over the last 30 years. Many organizations recognize the value of project management as an effective way to achieve business results. Project management standards and practices can be found in all industries (i.e. construction, manufacturing, aerospace, and telecommunications) and all disciplines (i.e. engineering, information technology, human resources, and product development) worldwide. As the interest and demand for project management standardization increases, so does the demand for highly qualified project management practitioners.

The purpose of this training is to improve your knowledge and skills in project management and prepare you for the next step in your professional development. You'll learn the terminology associated with this profession and the practical application of these concepts in the day to day planning and execution of projects. The training material is presented in 10 separate modules covering all of the essential aspects of project management such as:

• Initiating a new project and developing the project scope
• Identifying work efforts and developing the schedule
• Defining measurable quality metrics for the project
• Understanding how procurement applies in the project framework
• Identifying, assessing and mitigating project risks
• Creating a project management plan
• Identifying resource requirements and negotiating for team members
• Developing a communications plan to meet the stakeholders’ needs

You'll have reading assignments followed by online training materials. The online modules present the material by following a story about a project. The story shows how project management is applied in the real world. As with any real project, you will be presented with situations or problems that you will deal with and solve, letting you test your project management knowledge.

Interested in getting certified in project management? The Project Management Professional® (PMP) certification, offered through the Project Management Institute, is the industry standard. It requires formal project management education as a prerequisite to sitting for the examination. This training will meet or exceed the educational requirement and is compliant with the current edition of the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) ®. To learn more about the requirements for the PMP certification, please visit the Project Management Institute’s Web site: http://www.pmi.org.

Microsoft Project Section:

This training is designed for beginners through advanced users of Microsoft Project.  It includes a full module and project management scheduling concepts to ensure that you and Project are making the same assumptions as you build your project schedule.  If you have dabbled with Project before, you're probably aware that it's not like any of the other Microsoft suite software.  With Project, you must have some knowledge of project management in order to use the software effectively.

This training program combines online presentations, reading assignments, and hands-on practice, which you'll work offline with provided practice files.  Quizzes and short case studies will confirm your understanding of the topics discussed.  Each module builds on the previous one in a logical progression from entry level to very advanced level skills.  You'll also get lots of tips and hints from the instructor, who is a project manager and has worked with Project for many years.

In addition, this training will help you prepare to take Microsoft’s Exam 70-632 for MSProject 2007 standard or professional certification and provide the prerequisite training hours for Project Management Institute’s Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP^®) credential.

Project Management Section:

Upon successful completion of the Project Management training, you'll be able to: 

• List and describe the nine knowledge areas of project management
• Describe the steps required to plan a project
• Describe the steps required to manage a project
• List and describe the primary planning documents for a project
• Define the characteristics of a project and its deliverables
• Describe the most common phases of a project life cycle and the typical project management tasks associated with each
• Meet the 35 hour education requirement for the PMP® certification exam

Microsoft Project Section:

Upon successful completion of the Microsoft Project training, you'll be able to:

• Demonstrate your understanding of project management scheduling terminology and concepts
• Set up a project file with the appropriate default settings for your type of project and industry
• Describe the four different types of calendars used in Project and how each is utilized during the planning and tracking of projects
• Describe the five most common task types and how each is modeled in Project
• Demonstrate how to assign the three resource types to specific tasks effectively and efficiently
• Perform a "sanity check" to validate that the planned schedule is correct and make adjustments as required
• Use Project to manage and track the project’s performance including the use of Earned Value statusing and forecasting calculations
• Use both the tabular as well as graphical reports available
• Customize Project's look and feel and adapt it to meet your own company's formats and standards
• Create macros for repetitive project management tasks and save some keystrokes
• Use Project to develop recovery scenarios to get a project back on track

Project Management Section:

1. Project Management Introduction and Framework
   1. What is a project
   2. Understanding project life cycles
   3. Understanding project process groups
   4. Identifying project stakeholders
2. Project Management Integration
   1. Project management integration skills defined
   2. Project charter
   3. Developing the Project Management Plan
3. Project Scope Management
   1. Developing the Scope Statement
   2. Creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
   3. Establishing the project boundaries
4. Project Time Management
   1. Defining and estimating activity requirements
   2. Establishing activity dependencies
   3. Developing the schedule
   4. Monitoring and controlling schedule performance
5. Project Cost Management
   1. Estimating project costs
   2. Developing the project budget
   3. Monitoring and controlling cost performance
6. Project Quality Management
   1. Defining and planning for quality
   2. Establishing project quality standards
   3. Monitoring and controlling product / project quality
7. Communication Management
   1. Understanding the communication needs of stakeholders
   2. Defining the distribution process
   3. Communicating project performance information
8. Project Human Resource Management
   1. Acquiring the project team
   2. Developing the project team
   3. Managing the project team
9. Project Risk Management
   1. Creating a risk management plan
   2. Risk Identification
   3. Assessment risks
   4. Developing a mitigation strategy
10. Project Procurement Management
    1. Planning for procurements
    2. Selecting qualified sellers
    3. Managing the contractual relationships

Microsoft Project Section:

1. Project Management Scheduling Concepts
   1. Terminology
   2. Effort based estimating techniques
   3. Performing forward and backward passes
   4. Schedule network analysis
   5. Calculating critical path, float, and early/late dates
   6. Creating a time-scaled network diagram
2. Navigation
   1. Understanding Project's menu system
   2. Project specific terminology
   3. Understanding the difference between views, tables, and forms
3. Default Settings
   1. Knowing and locating the default settings
   2. Understanding how the defaults impact your project schedule
   3. Creating a company specific template with selected defaults
4. Understanding Calendars
   1. Calendar templates included
   2. Creating the project calendar
   3. Understanding and establishing resource calendars
   4. Understanding and establishing task calendars
5. Defining Tasks
   1. Understanding the different task types
   2. Modeling the different task types correctly
   3. Defining task dependencies
   4. Modifying task dependencies
   5. Working with constraints and deadlines
6. Defining Resources
   1. Creating the resource pool
   2. Assigning resources to tasks correctly
   3. Verifying resource hours and budgets
7. Performing a Sanity Check
   1. Verifying critical path
   2. Resolving resource over-allocations
   3. Confirming project end date and milestone dates
   4. Verifying dependencies and links
8. Tracking Project Performance
   1. Setting defaults for statusing
   2. Establishing status dates
   3. Inputting actuals
9. Advanced Tracking & Recovery
   1. Using Earned Value in Project
   2. Analyzing project performance using Project
   3. Projecting project completion and performing project audit
   4. Developing a recovery plan in Project
10. Customizing Project
    1. Changing the views, bar styles, etc.
    2. Creating custom tables and views
    3. Creating macros
    4. Creating customized reports