Project Management: Understanding and Applying the Fundamentals

Audience: Executives, managers, professionals, supervisors
Method: Online
Duration: 8 weeks (4-week course and 4-week lab that follows)
Credits: 3 (1.5 for course and 1.5 for lab)
Graduate application: Not required
Cost: $2,500 ($1,250 for course and $1,250 for lab)

The training starts with a four-week course and is followed by a four-week lab. After registering for the course, you’ll be prompted to register for the lab. Please complete both registrations.

A two-part project management course for learning the essentials

Do you learn best by doing? This two-part course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of project management and offer the opportunity to practice and apply newfound knowledge and techniques.

After a foundation is set, you’ll continue learning in the lab that follows. In the lab, students work in teams to approach a complex project management scenario and take a project from initiation through closing using a tailored approach that integrates the various topics covered in both courses and allows for direct application of tools and techniques.

This course covers the underlying fundamentals of successfully guiding a project to completion that are common to many methodologies with a focus on tools and techniques for defining, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing projects to produce defined and measurable results. It emphasizes practicality in project management, while still emphasizing flexible and proven approaches to meet project goals. Along with the lab, which focuses on application of fundamentals via a project simulation, this course provides a solid foundation to help students understand the fundamentals of project management, begin building a project management “toolbox,” and gain valuable practice taking a project through the entire project managemeny lifecycle.

This course is aligned with the leading project management standard today, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), and covers the five standard project process groups, ten knowledge areas and 47 processes that collectively can serve as a baseline for successful project management.

A NOTE ON COURSE CREDIT

This course and lab are part of the Graduate Certificate in Project Management, and together they’re worth 3 credits. The course and lab can be taken for professional development or as part of the certificate program. Please note that students are limited to earning a maximum of nine graduate credits before applying for admission into a degree or certificate program. If you are below the nine-credit limit and are not seeking a certificate or degree, you’re free to take this course and lab without applying to the graduate school.

You can leverage your education and earn a Certificate in Project Management and these credits would apply toward Creighton’s MBA or MSBIA graduate degrees. If you do not have a bachelor’s degree, this course is cross-listed as a graduate/undergraduate course, but it is highly recommended that students have several years of working experience and prior business-related coursework before taking this course.

PMI, PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PgMP, OPM3 and PMBOK are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc.

If you are a Creighton employee and wish to utilize tuition remission for this course, please complete the application.

Creighton University will issue a 1098-T by January 31 for all learners enrolled in courses for credit. As part of that process, you may be asked to provide your Social Security number.

Project management course goals

This two-part course is designed to help students to understand fundamental project management topics, tools, and techniques that are common to many methodologies used today. This course provides experiential opportunities to practice and apply these fundamentals in an effort to begin building a project management “toolbox” and further develop individual skillsets.

Outcomes and objectives

During this course and lab, students will learn to:

• Understand fundamental project management concepts and terminology
• Identify various factors that increase probability of project success
• Define a project and its components, including boundaries and characteristics
• Write a Project Charter document and obtain project authorization
• Complete a risk matrix and an assumptions-issues list
• Determine work required using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Begin to create a project management toolbox by selecting and integrating topics, tools and techniques covered in the course

Meet the instructor

This course is led by Rodney Verhoeff, PMP®/CSM. Verhoeff is a program and project leadership professional and a niche management consulting firm owner with over 15 years teaching and 20 years of experience in project management, environmental science, IT and instruction/professional training. A faculty member of Heider College of Business (HCB), he oversees the Masters Certificate in Project Management (MCPM) program and teaches/instructs and consults for external partnership project management and leadership programs.

Rodney holds a Project Management Professional (PMP®) designation and is a Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®). He also holds certifications in non-profit leadership and watershed management. He earned his Bachelor of Science in natural resources, with a major in water science and his Master of Science in agronomy, with specialization in soil and water science/soil physics, both from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received the highest commendation from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission for his dedication to Nebraska’s natural resources and has been known to navigate the waters of Nebraska in canoe, kayak and even an airboat on the lower Platte River.

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