📚 The curriculum: three levels
A step-by-step journey from the basics to PMP exam prep. Start with level one.
Unit 1: Core concepts
What is a project?
How a project differs from day-to-day work, and why projects need their own kind of management.
The project manager's role
What a project manager actually does, and the skills they need.
Project life cycle and approaches
The phases a project goes through, and predictive vs. agile vs. hybrid approaches.
Unit 2: Planning
Project constraints: scope, time, and cost
Why changing one element of a project affects the others.
Stakeholders
Who affects or is affected by your project, and how to engage them.
Defining scope and the WBS
How to turn a big goal into small, manageable pieces.
Schedule and budget
How to estimate duration and cost, and what the critical path is.
Unit 3: Executing and monitoring
Managing risk
How to prepare for what might happen before it happens.
Managing quality
What quality means in a project, and quality assurance vs. quality control.
Managing communication
Why communication is the project manager's most important skill, and how to plan it.
Building and leading the team
Team development stages, motivation, and handling conflict.
Unit 4: Agile, closing and next steps
Introduction to Agile and Scrum
The core values of agile, and how the Scrum framework works.
Closing the project and lessons learned
How to finish a project properly without losing what it taught you.
The path to PMP certification
What PMP is, its requirements, and how to start preparing.
Unit 1: Initiating and integration
Business case and benefits
Why a project deserves to be done at all, and how we check it delivered the promised value after it ends.
Project charter
The document that formally launches the project and gives its manager authority, and what it should contain.
Integrated change control
How to handle change requests in an orderly way that looks at their impact on the whole project, not just one part.
Governance
Who has the right to make decisions on a project, where problems get escalated, and how the organization oversees its projects.
Unit 2: Advanced planning
Resource management
How to plan people, equipment and materials, assign responsibilities, and fix over-allocated resources.
Procurement and contracts
When to buy instead of make, how to choose a contract type and a seller, and who carries the risk in each type.
Cost estimating and budgeting
Cost estimating techniques, how their accuracy improves over time, and contingency vs. management reserve.
Earned value basics
How to combine scope, time and cost into simple numbers that tell you where your project really stands.
Unit 3: Agile in depth
User stories
How to write short, user-focused requirements that capture value, and how to get them ready for work.
Relative estimation
Why agile teams size work by comparison rather than hours, and how they do it together.
Kanban
A way to manage a continuous flow of work using a visual board and limits on work in progress.
Velocity and burn charts
How to use velocity and burn charts to plan and forecast, not to judge the team.
Choosing and tailoring the approach
How to choose between predictive, agile, and hybrid, and how to adapt the method to fit your project.
Unit 4: People and leadership
Negotiation
How to negotiate for resources and contracts in a way that serves both sides and protects the relationship.
Emotional intelligence
How understanding and managing your own and your team's emotions helps you lead calmly and with empathy.
Coaching and mentoring
How to grow your team members through coaching, mentoring, good feedback, and delegation.
Virtual and distributed teams
How to lead a team spread across cities and time zones without losing connection and trust.
Unit 5: Business environment
Compliance
How to spot legal, regulatory and internal requirements early and make them a fixed part of your project.
Organizational change management
Why people resist the change a project brings, and how to help them adopt it so the benefits are actually realized.
The project management office (PMO)
What a PMO is, its types, how to work with it, and the difference between a portfolio, a program and a project.
Sustainability and the wider environment
How to consider your project's impact on the environment and society, and watch the external factors that can change its course.
Unit 1: People domain
Building a common vision
How to create, with the team and stakeholders, one clear picture of what we are building and why, and keep it alive until the end.
Aligning and managing stakeholder expectations
How to uncover what stakeholders really expect, reconcile conflicting expectations, and manage them honestly so they don't turn into disappointment.
Knowledge transfer
How to make sure what the team knows isn't lost when someone leaves or the project ends, and reaches the people who need it.
Unit 2: Process domain
Value-based delivery
Why finishing outputs isn't enough, and how to deliver value early, in increments, and measure it while the project runs.
Evaluating project status
How to pick meaningful measures, show status honestly and openly, keep project documents current, and then act on what the data says.
Unit 3: Business environment domain
Advanced risk management
How to set how much risk is acceptable, measure risks with numbers, and choose and follow up the right response until the project ends.
Issues and impediments
How to log and prioritize issues, find their root cause, clear impediments for the team, and follow up until they are closed.
Continuous improvement
How to make improvement a daily habit in the project: small steps, measured results, a safe culture, and sharing what you learn with the organization.
Unit 4: Exam readiness
The PMI mindset for situational questions
How to read a situational question, recognize the choices PMI favors and the common traps, and reach the best answer by elimination.
The formula sheet
Every formula you need for the exam in one place, with what each number means and how to read it.
Exam-day strategy
How to book your exam, pace yourself across 180 questions, handle hard questions and nerves, and spend the final week wisely.