Lesson 1 Overview

During this course, you will become familiar with project management basics and have a chance to apply what you learn as you work through a semester-long course project. To succeed in this course, it is important that you start each lesson early in the week to allow time to complete the lesson assignments. A big part of project management is time management, and that will also be a big part of being successful in this course!

Each lesson module will begin with a brief overview of the lesson, the learning objectives, and an overview of the reading assignments for that lesson. It is important that you read the reading assignments listed in the lesson overview before continuing on to the remainder of the lesson commentary, as some of the exercises embedded within the module expect that you have already read the assigned material. Occasionally, additional short reading assignments or web links are introduced within the commentary that are not included in the overview readings, but these are typically short readings of one to three pages.

In addition to the basics of project management that are covered in Textbook 1, another big component of this course includes supplemental material, exam prep suggestions, and tips to help prepare you to take the PMP^®/CAPM^® project management certification exams.

ENGR 405 Project Management for Professionals was developed with two key audiences in mind. The first audience includes those of you who are now or will be in the future working on a project team or serving as a project manager. For this audience, the course provides practical instruction to enable students to effectively manage projects and demonstrate an understanding of the formal project management process. The second audience includes students in the first category that are also interested in pursuing a Project Management Professional (PMP^®) or Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM^®) certification.

The course lesson commentaries provide material that supplements the readings in your textbooks. The commentary includes test prep tips for those of you interested in taking the PMP^® or CAPM^® exam as well as material that is needed to complete the lesson assignments.

There is a lot of material provided through the two course books and the online commentary; you may choose the extent to which you want to cover this material based on whether your future plans include the PMP^® or CAPM^® exam.

Students Not Taking the PMP^® or CAPM^® Exam

If you have no future interest in taking one of the exams, you may wish to cover only the following materials:

• Read the Textbook 1 readings and other supplemental reading assignments (you do not need to read the Textbook 2 readings).
• Read the lesson commentary.
• Take the lesson quizzes (for “extra credit”) until you are satisfied with your grade.*

Students Planning to Take the PMP^® or CAPM^® Exam

If you are interesting in taking one of the exams, you should cover the following materials:

• Read all reading assignments (including the Textbook 2 readings).
• Read all of the lesson commentary and carefully review the PMP^®/CAPM^® exam tips.
• Prepare index cards for each of the 49 project management processes and their inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs; continuously review them and be able to place them in the correct project management process groups and knowledge areas.
• Take the lesson quizzes (for “extra credit”) as many times as you can for practice.*

*Each lesson includes a quiz that is worth a small fraction of the course grade. Each quiz includes approximately five questions based on the Textbook 1 material. The remaining quiz questions were developed to give you practice for the PMP^®/CAPM^® exam. You may take each quiz up to 5 times, and you will retain the highest score. The quiz questions will come from a larger bank of questions specific to the project management (PM) processes covered in the lesson. As you take the quiz a second and third time (and so on), you will encounter different questions, giving you more practice for the exam.

Course Exams

Please note that there are three course exams. These exams do not include PMP^®/CAPM^® process questions; they are solely focused on the material in Textbook 1.

This first lesson will introduce you to the Project Management Institute (PMI)^® and various project management certifications. The content in this course is tied to PMI^®’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)^®, which is assessed on certification exams. The lesson provides an overview of the PMBOK^® structure, which both presents a logical environment for learning the keys to effective project management, and also prepares you for exam certification, if that is something you plan to pursue in the future.

You will begin exploration of project management with a discussion regarding the characteristics of a project, the life cycle of a project, project constraints and their impact on a project, and the project management process. You will also have a brief look at project team development and effective communication, as these are important for your work throughout the course; keep in mind that they are covered in greater detail much later in the course.

Learning Objectives

Upon conclusion of this lesson, you should be able to

• navigate this course;
• identify the characteristics of a project;
• describe the project life cycle, and identify activities in each phase;
• identify project constraints, and describe their potential impact on a project; and
• discuss the project management process.

Lesson Readings & Videos

Please complete the assigned textbook readings prior to reading the lesson commentary:

• Course Syllabus
• Textbook 1: Chapter 1
• Textbook 2:
  • pages 1–11 and 17–41
• Lesson Commentary, includes:
  • Video series on Exam Tips: Project Management Professional (PMP^®) (9 short videos; 47m 49s total).

Lesson Activities

• Journal Entries (2)
• Video Biography (initial video post)
• Lesson 1 Questions
• Lesson 1 Quiz