Via Coursera, I completed a specialization in project management principles and practices offered by the University of California, Irvine. The program is just right for professionals who want to better understand the role of a PM and incorporate some of their practices in their own work before investing in a project management certification.
The program covers initating and planning, budgeting and scheduling, and change and risk management, concluding with a capstone project.
The capstone requires learners to manage a real or made-up project and is peer-graded on seven artifacts:
- Project charter
- Work breakdown structure (WBS)
- Sequence
- Schedule
- Budget
- Risk assessment
- Responsibility assignment matrix (RAM)
I created a full-blown Gantt chart, budget spreadsheet, a RACI with dropdowns, plus a WBS and sequencing diagram in Miro for a yearlong celebration of my imaginary company’s 40th anniversary. I may have committed some scope creep with the scale of my submission, but I’m excited to apply what I learned to future content strategy projects.
