Agile Project Management Certification | Northwestern SPS - Northwestern School of Professional Studies

This course is designed for project team members and project managers/professionals who are new to project management, or who are managing projects as one part of their job. In this course we will take a look at the fundamental processes of project management. Using readings, videos, discussions, and case study activities, you will learn how to apply the standard project management process to successfully initiate, plan, direct, and close a project.

Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Communicate the value of project management;
• Establish the structure and plan for a successful project;
• Assemble, motivate, and lead the project team;
• Ensure the project scope delivers the expected business value and desired outcome;
• Implement the proper mechanisms to prevent, minimize, and respond to risks;
• Develop and use various mechanisms to communicate project information;
• Ensure the project is completed per the agreed-upon quality standards;
• Ensure the project is completed per the approved budget; and
• Ensure the project is completed per the approved schedule.

You will leave this course with:

• New connections with your classmates who are also project managers.
• Examples and case studies from real projects.
• A set of templates and best practices you can use after the class.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 36 (Ways of Working: 29; Business Acumen: 5; Power Skills: 2)

Course materials:

Project Management from Start to Finish, 1st Edition. Barnes, Lisa-Ann. Access Alliance for Education, 2020. eText ISBN: 9781685649494

Students may purchase this digital textbook from any retailer where it is available. Additional course materials will be provided via the online course site.

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

This course is designed for project team members and project managers/professionals who are new to project management, or who are managing projects as one part of their job. In this course we will take a look at the fundamental processes of project management. Using readings, videos, discussions, and case study activities, you will learn how to apply the standard project management process to successfully initiate, plan, direct, and close a project.

Course Objectives
By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Communicate the value of project management;
• Establish the structure and plan for a successful project;
• Assemble, motivate, and lead the project team;
• Ensure the project scope delivers the expected business value and desired outcome;
• Implement the proper mechanisms to prevent, minimize, and respond to risks;
• Develop and use various mechanisms to communicate project information;
• Ensure the project is completed per the agreed-upon quality standards;
• Ensure the project is completed per the approved budget; and
• Ensure the project is completed per the approved schedule.

You will leave this course with:

• New connections with your classmates who are also project managers.
• Examples and case studies from real projects.
• A set of templates and best practices you can use after the class.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 36 (Ways of Working: 29; Business Acumen: 5; Power Skills: 2)

Course materials:

• Project Management from Start to Finish, 1st Edition. Barnes, Lisa-Ann. Access Alliance for Education, 2020. eText ISBN: 9781685649494

Students may purchase this digital textbook from any retailer where it is available. Additional course materials will be provided via the online course site.

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

Our Applied Project Management Course is specifically designed for seasoned project managers like you, with over five years of hands-on experience, who are eager to master advanced techniques and strategies. Taught by practicing project managers with over 25 years of experience, these industry experts will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to confidently manage complex projects and drive organizational success. Through this course, you’ll earn ongoing professional education hours (PDUs) to maintain your certifications and stay ahead of the game in your career.

Dive deep into advanced project management topics such as financial metrics-based project selection techniques, managing sophisticated stakeholder relationships, and aligning project dependencies across your organization. You’ll gain expertise in advanced scheduling methods like PERT, critical chain, and hybrid delivery. You’ll learn proven best practices for budgeting, cash flow management, and risk management strategies. Our course goes beyond technical skills, emphasizing leadership competencies essential for handling significant project disruptions, overcoming resistance to change, and navigating complex organizational dynamics.

Moreover, you’ll explore ways to leverage your organization’s PMO, critically evaluate project management tools, and harness the power of generative AI to enhance project outcomes.

By the end of this course, you will be equipped to tackle the most challenging projects with confidence and lead your team to success.

After completing this course, students are able to demonstrate the following:

• Align their project management methods with industry-recognized principles and best practices
• Deliver project results aligned with organizational capabilities and strategic objectives
• Develop project plans addressing interdependencies with other projects
• Manage the complexity that distributed teams or external vendors can pose to a project
• Define requirements for procuring additional project resources
• Allocate and assign project work leveraging team member capabilities and capacities
• Respond to situations requiring changes to project plans and activities
• Communicate project plans, status, issues, and other complex topics with leadership
• Lead issue resolution, manage conflicts, and communicate with multiple differing audiences
• Apply project management tools and Generative AI applications to meet project needs

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 60 (Ways of Working: 36; Business Acumen: 15; Power Skills: 9)

Recommended Course Materials:

Schwalbe, Kathy. An Introduction to Project Management, Seventh Edition: Predictive, Agile, and Hybrid Approaches. © 2021, Schwalbe Publishing. ISBN-13: 979-8695713459

Students may purchase these books from any retailer where they are available, in any format.

Optional Course Materials:

Project Management Institute, Inc. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Seventh Edition and The Standard for Project Management. Published August 2021. ISBN: 9781628256642

Access to optional course materials is provided to students enrolled in this course through the online course site.

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

Our Applied Project Management Course is specifically designed for seasoned project managers like you, with over five years of hands-on experience, who are eager to master advanced techniques and strategies. Taught by practicing project managers with over 25 years of experience, these industry experts will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to confidently manage complex projects and drive organizational success. Through this course, you’ll earn ongoing professional education hours (PDUs) to maintain your certifications and stay ahead of the game in your career.

Dive deep into advanced project management topics such as financial metrics-based project selection techniques, managing sophisticated stakeholder relationships, and aligning project dependencies across your organization. You’ll gain expertise in advanced scheduling methods like PERT, critical chain, and hybrid delivery. You’ll learn proven best practices for budgeting, cash flow management, and risk management strategies. Our course goes beyond technical skills, emphasizing leadership competencies essential for handling significant project disruptions, overcoming resistance to change, and navigating complex organizational dynamics.

Moreover, you’ll explore ways to leverage your organization’s PMO, critically evaluate project management tools, and harness the power of generative AI to enhance project outcomes.

By the end of this course, you will be equipped to tackle the most challenging projects with confidence and lead your team to success.

After completing this course, students are able to demonstrate the following:

• Align their project management methods with industry-recognized principles and best practices
• Deliver project results aligned with organizational capabilities and strategic objectives
• Develop project plans addressing interdependencies with other projects
• Manage the complexity that distributed teams or external vendors can pose to a project
• Define requirements for procuring additional project resources
• Allocate and assign project work leveraging team member capabilities and capacities
• Respond to situations requiring changes to project plans and activities
• Communicate project plans, status, issues, and other complex topics with leadership
• Lead issue resolution, manage conflicts, and communicate with multiple differing audiences
• Apply project management tools and Generative AI applications to meet project needs

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 60 (Ways of Working: 36; Business Acumen: 15; Power Skills: 9)

Recommended Course Materials:

• Schwalbe, Kathy. An Introduction to Project Management, Seventh Edition: Predictive, Agile, and Hybrid Approaches. © 2021, Schwalbe Publishing. ISBN-13: 979-8695713459

Students may purchase these books from any retailer where they are available, in any format.

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

Since the software development industry first adopted the term Agile in 2001, it has quickly become a popular buzzword that has spread beyond software development. Unfortunately, the term agile has come to mean many things to many people.

This course is an in-depth, workshop-style course that will teach participants the principles and values of Agile, the most popular agile frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, Lean Software Development and Extreme Programming (XP), and help them apply Agile practices and techniques to their current projects.

This course qualifies as education contact hours for the Project Management Institute’s Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) exam. Note that in order to sit for the PMI-ACP® exam, students must meet additional requirements set forth by PMI that can be found on their website.

Course Learning Goals

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain various Agile frameworks and why they are used—including Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban
• Apply the Scrum framework to develop a new product
• Create a product backlog and user stories
• Create Agile communications tools that create transparency and stakeholder trust
• Demonstrate how teams drive business value using product backlogs
• Contrast Agile Planning with traditional ways of planning projects
• Understand how to establish an Agile team and help encourage high-performance
• Apply agile approaches to manage project scope, schedule, budget and quality
• Understand the knowledge and experience requirements necessary to apply for and pass the PMI-ACP® certification exam

There are no prerequisites for this course. This course assumes some experience working in organizations.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 26 (Technical: 20; Leadership: 6)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

Organizational leaders do not achieve their goals by themselves. Effective leaders develop people in a way that promotes individual growth while improving business outcomes. Students will learn about their own strengths and focus on how to bring out the best in others through coaching and feedback. They will gain an understanding of team development and learn skills to address team dysfunction. Participants will also have the opportunity to assess their personal style of conflict management and explore the benefits of engaging in and facilitating positive conflict.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Identify ways to leverage your strengths and the strengths of your teams
• Outline the stages of team development and understand the leader’s role at each stage
• Apply the Five Dysfunctions model to improve team effectiveness
• Utilize coaching skills in conversations with peers and direct reports
• Approach conflict as an opportunity

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 16 (Ways of Working: 1; Business Acumen: 2; Power Skills: 13)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

The effective project manager possesses deep interpersonal skills and is able to use their skills to lead their project teams to deliver results. This 2-week workshop, designed for project managers and team leaders, will help you improve the essential skills needed to be an effective project manager. Using lectures, case studies, discussions and individual and group exercises, you will learn how to improve your capabilities in communication, relationship-management, conflict resolution, decision-making, and team motivation.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Define characteristics of an effective leader;
• Explain the importance of effective leadership in a project;
• Assess effectiveness of leaders;
• Develop solutions to ineffective leadership situations;
• Critique and correct ineffective email communications;
• Develop a communication to summarize a problem and describe a solution;
• Assess facts, evaluate options, and decide upon an approach;
• Build and motivate an effective team; and
• Resolve a conflict in a virtual setting.

You will leave this course with:

• New connections with your classmates who are also project managers.
• Examples and case studies from real projects.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 20 (Ways of Working: 3; Business Acumen: 5; Power Skills: 12)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

The Executive Team is counting on you to commit a project completion date. Mistakes will be costly due to penalties if there is any delay. Your project team is counting on you to guide their effort so the critical tasks are identified and prioritized. You are buried in a ton of project information arriving to you daily. How do you collect and organize it? How do you make sense of it? How do you use it to make the best decisions for the project?

From committing to a project completion date based on the organization's risk tolerance to creating compelling reports and charts that can drive actions from your organization to address critical issues to keep your project on track, Excel is one of the best and more flexible tools available for Project Managers to simplify tasks related to managing information and also to help on daily decision making on many levels.

Students will learn advanced excel skills through this hands-on workshop that will help them to create analytical tools, formulas, charts, graphs and macros that will support them on making critical project management decisions. Real-world experiences from project initiation to project completion will be used so students will leave each day of the training with the ability to apply what they have learned in their workplace.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Manage risks in project schedules and define confidence levels by building a customized analysis model based on your firm’s probabilities and risk tolerance
• Identify potential issues or showstoppers in data and be able to identify potential risk triggers
• Know the ins and outs of pivot table creation; validate, consolidate, convert, sort and filter your data
• Automate your repeatable processes, using macros to create reports and data analysis charts
• Trace Precedents and Dependents to analyze cascading formulas and troubleshoot spreadsheet issues

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 18 (Ways of Working: 12; Business Acumen: 5; Power Skills: 1)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

This course offers a comprehensive approach to managing distributed project teams, which are becoming increasingly common in today's flexible and remote work environments. Over four weeks, participants will learn key strategies and tools through lectures, articles, discussions, and practical group exercises.

The course objectives include:

• Establishing Clear Rules of Engagement: You'll learn how to define and reach consensus on ground rules for collaboration, ensuring that all team members understand how to work together effectively, despite being in different locations.
• Developing Effective Communication Channels: The course will provide insights into setting up the most effective communication protocols and platforms, allowing teams to stay connected and work efficiently, even across time zones.
• Adjusting Roles and Responsibilities: Understanding the unique challenges of distributed teams, you'll learn how to modify traditional roles and responsibilities to fit this new project environment, ensuring clarity and avoiding overlap or gaps in tasks.
• Navigating Decision Rights and Influence: With team members dispersed, decision-making processes can be more complex. You'll explore how existing influence structures can affect team dynamics and decisions, ensuring that you navigate these challenges smoothly.
• Enhancing Business Knowledge for Project Managers: You'll gain the necessary business knowledge and judgment to make informed and strategic decisions, even when working with a distributed team.
• Adapting Project Management Tools: The course will teach you how to adapt traditional project management tools—such as governance structures, stakeholder engagement maps, communication plans, and project playbooks—to meet the needs of distributed teams.
• Exploring the Impact of AI on Project Management: You'll explore how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming project management, particularly within distributed teams. This includes understanding how AI-driven tools can enhance project planning, resource allocation, risk management, and team collaboration, as well as automating routine tasks to improve overall efficiency and decision-making processes.

By the end of this course, you will have acquired a skill set and strategies to effectively lead and manage distributed project teams, ensuring high productivity and collaboration across different locations.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 24 (Ways of Working: 5; Business Acumen: 2; Power Skills: 17)

You are the project manager for a multi-million dollar project, and there can be no mistakes. Your Executive Team is depending on you to manage successfully! What do you need to do know to assess risk so you can deliver against stakeholder expectations?

Through this course, students will gain an in-depth understanding of types of risks that threaten projects and the use of various techniques for assessing and managing risk and approaches to reduce project risk. Particular emphasis is placed on areas of risk identification, analysis, response planning and monitoring and control. Use of case studies will help illustrate how risk management is used successfully and will allow the students to develop practical skills for use in the workplace.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 15 (Technical: 11; Leadership: 4)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

You are the project manager for a multi-million dollar project, and there can be no mistakes. Your Executive Team is depending on you to manage successfully! What do you need to do know to assess risk so you can deliver against stakeholder expectations?

Through this course, students will gain an in-depth understanding of types of risks that threaten projects and the use of various techniques for assessing and managing risk and approaches to reduce project risk. Particular emphasis is placed on areas of risk identification, analysis, response planning and monitoring and control. Use of case studies will help illustrate how risk management is used successfully and will allow the students to develop practical skills for use in the workplace.

Course Objectives

• Create a Project Risk Management Plan.
• Choose techniques for Project Risk Identification and Risk Analysis.
• Evaluate approaches to reduce risk exposure on projects.
• Plan and make use of Project Risk Monitoring and Control.
• Assess a Project Risk Response Plan.
• Adapt various risk management techniques to real-world projects.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 25 (Ways of Working: 15; Business Acumen: 9; Power Skills: 1)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

The effective project manager is able to create an effective set of project plans that communicate the work, assignments, decision-making flows, and risks to the project sponsor, stakeholders, and team members. These plans must be at the level appropriate to manage the risk of the project, and at the same time be understandable by the project team, and easy-to-maintain as the project progresses. During this three-day workshop, designed for project managers, you will complete a comprehensive set of project plans, learning and applying practical techniques. Using hands-on activities, case studies, and your own projects, you will improve your capabilities completing the project charter, the project participation matrix, communication plan, and risk management plan. You will also learn practical techniques for establishing project ground rules, meeting cadences, and collaboration tools.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 16 (Technical: 12; Leadership: 2; Strategic: 2)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

The effective project manager is able to create an effective set of project plans that communicate the work, assignments, decision-making flows, and risks to the project sponsor, stakeholders, and team members. These plans must be at the level appropriate to manage the risk of the project, and at the same time be understandable by the project team, and easy to maintain as the project progresses.

During this 5-week course, designed for project managers, you will complete a comprehensive set of project plans, learning and applying practical techniques. Using hands-on activities, case studies, and your own projects, you will improve your planning capabilities.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Define the planning principles and how they can be reflected in project plans.
• List the steps and deliverables of the planning process.
• Describe the tailoring process and how that might be reflected in project plans.
• Select appropriate development approach given set of project characteristics.
• Apply the tailoring process.
• Complete project planning deliverables, given inputs, templates, and examples.
• Adapt plans to respond to new scope, feedback, changes, and information.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 30 (Ways of Working: 26; Business Acumen: 2; Power Skills: 2)

Course materials will be provided via the online course site. Some course materials require a Northwestern student email address to access.

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

Agile frameworks empower teams with flexible tools to manage timelines, deliverables and budgets, and still meet stakeholder needs. This overview course will provide leaders and coaches insights into how to support Agile teams. Participants will learn the mindset, culture, values, and principles that make Agile techniques work. They will also learn some of the key differences between traditional and Agile approaches. Finally, participants will learn and practice the key leadership and coaching skills needed to provide an environment for Agile teams to thrive.

This course uses "experiential learning", meaning that students will learn new skills and practice them in the course. Students will use exercises and case studies to gain hands-on experience with various Agile techniques and leadership tools.

Please note: This class is best suited for individuals who have some experience working in teams.

Total PDUs: 14 (Technical: 7; Leadership: 7)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

As Agile methods and tools continue to grow in popularity, people are interested in how to leverage Agile to improve their projects. Contrary to what some people think, planning in Agile projects is more rigorous and disciplined than it is in traditional projects. The purpose of this course is to provide project managers, Scrum Masters, product owners, functional managers and Agile team members with an in-depth understanding of how to plan for Agile projects.

Agile estimating and planning helps to get a project off on solid footing. Working together in teams, participants will select a product to use for their case study and will apply the planning and estimation techniques for the course on that product.

Planning for Agile projects starts with the big picture of product roadmaps and release plans, and drills down into the work that an Agile team will do within an iteration. Participants will learn how to plan for iterative and incremental solution development, and how to address change in a plan.

The course also looks at the two types of estimates used on Agile projects, relative estimates in story points and absolute estimates in ideal days. Participants will learn when to use each of these, and how to include the entire team for more accurate estimates that team members will support.

Please note: This course will be helpful to those who are familiar with estimating and planning traditional projects or who have an agile background but want additional detail on how to effectively plan agile projects. This course is not recommended as an elective for those in the Essentials of Project Management track

This course qualifies as education contact hours for the Project Management Institute’s Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) exam. Note that in order to sit for the PMI-ACP® exam, students must meet additional requirements set forth by PMI that can be found on their website.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 14 (Technical: 14)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

The use of Agile frameworks and approaches are quickly becoming the new norm. In fact, a 2015 Hewlett Packard survey showed that Agile has become the primary approach for technology projects.

The purpose of this course is to provide managers, project managers, agile practitioners and other leaders a broad understanding of popular agile methods, how Agile relates to culture, how organizational change succeeds, and how to support an organization undertaking a transformation from traditional development to agile development.

Whether you are an agile novice or experienced agile practitioner, this course will provide you with a basic understanding of what an Agile Transformation means, how to assess the cultural fit for Agile, and success patterns that other organizations have used to introduce and sustain Agile. Participants will learn the 8-stage model of leading change based on the work of John P. Kotter. Participants will use instruments to assess the culture of their own organization, to determine the receptiveness for Agile, and to assess the risk and readiness for an Agile initiative. Finally, participants will develop their own custom transformation roadmap based on patterns that others have found useful.

This course qualifies as education contact hours for the Project Management Institute’s Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP®) exam. Note that in order to sit for the PMI-ACP® exam, students must meet additional requirements set forth by PMI that can be found on their website.

Please note: This is an advanced class which is best suited for those who have some previous training or experience with Agile frameworks. It is not recommended as an elective for students in the Essentials of Project Management track.

Total Professional Development Units (PDUs): 14 (Technical: 4; Leadership: 10)

Registered students can access their online course site here. An activated NetID and password is required for login. *Please note: It may take up to 24-hours for registered students to be added to the online course platform.

The Managing Product Backlogs course is designed for individuals who work closely with agile teams and have the responsibility to manage or update product backlogs. The two-week course provides an in-depth understanding and hands-on practice with establishing, prioritizing and refining backlogs to optimize the delivery of business value.