Project Management: Technical Projects Course

Lesson 1 • Roles and Responsibilities in Technical Teams

Defines PM, technical lead, architect, and SME roles and their interdependencies. Clarifies accountability structures students will manage throughout the course.

Lesson 2 • Core PM Frameworks and Standards

Surveys dominant frameworks—waterfall, agile, and hybrid—and their governing bodies. Equips learners to match framework choice to project context.

Lesson 3 • Ethics and Professional Standards

Introduces ethical decision-making, intellectual property considerations, and professional codes in technical projects. Grounds practice in responsible conduct from the outset.

Lesson 4 • Project Lifecycle Phases

Maps initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure phases to technical deliverables. Provides the structural backbone for all subsequent chapters.

Lesson 1 • Stakeholder Identification and Analysis

Identifies internal and external stakeholders and assesses their influence and interest. Accurate stakeholder mapping drives effective requirements elicitation.

Lesson 2 • Requirements Elicitation Techniques

Covers interviews, workshops, prototyping, and use-case analysis for gathering technical requirements. Connects elicitation quality directly to scope accuracy.

Lesson 3 • Work Breakdown Structure Development

Decomposes project scope into manageable work packages using WBS best practices. The WBS becomes the foundation for scheduling and cost estimation.

Lesson 4 • Scope Control and Change Management

Establishes processes to evaluate, approve, and document scope changes while preventing scope creep. Reinforces the scope baseline as a controlled artifact.

Lesson 1 • Activity Definition and Sequencing

Derives activities from the WBS and establishes logical dependencies using precedence diagramming. Correct sequencing is prerequisite to all scheduling calculations.

Lesson 2 • Agile and Hybrid Scheduling Approaches

Adapts sprint planning, velocity tracking, and release roadmaps for technical projects. Bridges predictive and adaptive scheduling within a single project context.

Lesson 3 • Resource Loading and Leveling

Assigns resources to activities and resolves over-allocation through leveling and smoothing. Produces a resource-balanced schedule aligned with team capacity.

Lesson 4 • Critical Path and Float Analysis

Calculates the critical path, total float, and free float to identify schedule risk. Enables PMs to focus control efforts on activities that drive project completion.

Lesson 1 • Budget Development and Cost Baseline

Aggregates work-package estimates into a time-phased cost baseline with contingency reserves. The baseline becomes the control reference for all expenditure tracking.

Lesson 2 • Cost Estimation Fundamentals

Covers bottom-up, analogous, and parametric estimation and their accuracy ranges. Accurate estimates prevent budget overruns that derail technical projects.

Lesson 3 • Procurement and Vendor Cost Management

Addresses contract types, vendor selection criteria, and cost management for outsourced technical work. Extends budget control beyond internal teams to the supply chain.

Lesson 4 • Earned Value Management

Applies EVM metrics—PV, EV, AC, SPI, CPI—to measure schedule and cost performance. Provides objective data for forecasting and corrective action decisions.

Lesson 1 • Qualitative Risk Analysis

Scores risks by probability and impact using a risk matrix to prioritize response effort. Enables rapid triage without requiring detailed quantitative data.

Lesson 2 • Risk Response Planning

Develops avoid, transfer, mitigate, and accept strategies for threats and exploit strategies for opportunities. Assigns risk owners and triggers to ensure timely execution.

Lesson 3 • Quantitative Risk Analysis

Applies Monte Carlo simulation, decision trees, and sensitivity analysis to model schedule and cost risk. Produces probabilistic forecasts that support executive decision-making.

Lesson 4 • Risk Monitoring and Control

Establishes risk review cadences, trigger monitoring, and residual risk tracking throughout execution. Closes the loop between risk planning and real-time project control.

Lesson 1 • Quality Assurance Processes

Implements process audits, peer reviews, and design reviews to ensure adherence to quality standards. Assurance activities catch systemic issues before they produce defects.

Lesson 2 • Quality Planning for Technical Projects

Defines quality standards, metrics, and acceptance criteria aligned with technical specifications. Quality planning prevents defects rather than detecting them after delivery.

Lesson 3 • Quality Control Techniques

Applies inspection, testing, control charts, and Pareto analysis to verify deliverable conformance. Control data feeds back into assurance and planning for ongoing improvement.

Lesson 4 • Software and Systems Testing Integration

Connects PM quality processes to unit, integration, system, and acceptance testing phases. Ensures testing is planned, resourced, and tracked as a project deliverable.

Lesson 1 • Conflict Resolution and Difficult Conversations

Provides frameworks for resolving technical disagreements, priority conflicts, and interpersonal tensions. Equips PMs to maintain team cohesion under delivery pressure.

Lesson 2 • Communication Planning Essentials

Identifies communication needs, channels, frequency, and owners for each stakeholder group. A structured plan prevents information gaps that derail technical projects.

Lesson 3 • Meeting Management and Facilitation

Applies structured facilitation techniques to stand-ups, sprint reviews, and steering meetings. Efficient meetings reduce overhead and maintain team alignment throughout execution.

Lesson 4 • Executive and Steering Committee Communication

Adapts technical content for executive audiences using concise briefings and exception reporting. Builds sponsor confidence and secures timely decisions on escalated issues.

Lesson 1 • Performance Monitoring and Forecasting

Combines EVM, schedule variance, and quality metrics into a unified performance picture. Forecasting enables proactive intervention before variances become unrecoverable.

Lesson 2 • Integrated Change Control

Operates a change control board to evaluate and approve changes across scope, schedule, and cost baselines. Integrated control prevents uncoordinated changes from destabilizing the project.

Lesson 3 • Directing and Managing Project Work

Translates the project management plan into daily work assignments, issue resolution, and deliverable production. Execution discipline determines whether plans become results.

Lesson 4 • Project Closure and Knowledge Transfer

Executes formal closure activities including final acceptance, contract closeout, and lessons-learned documentation. Ensures organizational learning is captured and transferred.