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Course Description

On the surface, project management seems straightforward. However, at best, only 80% of projects end up being economically successful. The remaining 20% of projects usually cost more than estimated, run late, or fail to satisfy goals or meet objectives.

In this course, Linda Nozick, Professor and Director of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell, shares clear, understandable, and practical methods for achieving better results. You will practice breaking down a project into pieces that can be scheduled, tracked, and controlled.

While this is not a prep course for a project management certification, it will be quite valuable for anyone who is interested in pursuing one. This program will equip you with the concepts, tools, and language of project management that can be applied to any size and type of project.

The course is not specific to any formal project management software (e.g. Microsoft Project), but will require that learners have Microsoft Excel with its free Solver add-on installed.

Faculty Author

Linda Nozick, Professor and Director of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Benefits to the Learner

  • Examine the project management life cycle and the continuum of project characteristics
  • Develop a work breakdown structure
  • Construct a project network including mechanisms to identify task durations
  • Construct a Gantt chart
  • Use float information for decision making
  • Identify the critical path
  • Recognize shortcomings in computation
  • Identify sources of uncertainty in task durations
  • Examine PERT computations

Target Audience

Students may be team leaders, managers, and individual contributors from any functional area who are responsible for the success of projects or initiatives of any size and do not have formal project management training. Students will come from every continent and from a diverse range of organizations, including for profits large and small, NGOs, and governmental agencies. Students will be most successful if they have had exposure to formal project management efforts within their organizations. Some familiarity with standard project-management tools will be helpful.

Accrediting Associations

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Cornell University's College of Engineering
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