PM415 - Professional Certificate in Project Management Foundations
Program Description
This short-term professional certificate provides a practical introduction to the foundational principles and practices of project management, including business cases, scope, scheduling, resource planning, budgeting, stakeholder communication, and change management. Grounded in PMBOK principles and applied through real-world projects, participants will walk away with a skills-based certificate, and a polished project plan they can adapt to their own work. Participants who successfully complete this program will also earn skill-specific digital badge recognizing their achievement and expertise that they can add to their LinkedIn profiles.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this program, you will be able to:
- Define projects in terms of business value and outcomes.
- Develop a business case and project charter.
- Create a basic project plan including scope, schedule, resource plan, and budget estimate.
- Develop a work breakdown structure, WBS.
- Conduct stakeholder analysis and develop a communication plan.
- Identify and respond to project risks and uncertainties.
- Select appropriate project approaches, predictive, agile, and hybrid.
- Monitor and adapt project execution.
- Apply structured thinking to real-world project scenarios.
- Identify and respond to change and resistance in project environments.
- Apply PMBOK process groups and performance domains at a foundational level.
- Work effectively within different organizational structures.
Who Should Attend:
- New or aspiring project managers.
- Emerging leaders preparing for broader responsibility.
- Team leads and supervisors.
- Professionals who want to strengthen planning, strategic thinking, and credibility.
- Managers seeking practical tools to connect daily work, team priorities and outcomes to broader organizational priorities.
Course Outline
Week 1: Project Thinking and Business Value
Week 2: Lifecycle and Ways of Working
Week 3: Project Scope and Prioritization
Week 4: Scheduling and Resource Alignment
Week 5: Risk and Decision Making
Week 6: Stakeholders and Communication
Week 7: Execution, Integration and AI Support
Dr. Leah Newman is an Associate Professor in MSOE’s Mechanical Engineering Department and Program Director of the Industrial Engineering program. Dr. Newman’s area of specialty lies within human factors, called macro-ergonomics or sociotechnical systems. She investigates the design of institutions and organizations, examining their culture and leadership. She teaches Engineering Economy, Ergonomics and coordinates IE Senior Projects. She has additional teaching experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Penn State University.