In this module, you start to work towards the international certificate exam, using Microsoft Project.
More importantly, though, you are acquiring the skills needed to contextually report project information and to manage a project through its total lifecycle. By working with your own real-life projects (not case studies, not scenarios, not past projects), you learn by making the right kind of mistakes, achieving early benefits from your engagement.
The components of this module include:
- A two-month one-to-one online Preparatory Mentoring Phase where you engage with your Mentor in developing your critical, systems thinking skills. You start to see context and relationships, growing in the kind of thinking needed to see the “big picture” as well as the skills required to execute “on the ground”.
- A 1-day Consultative Tutoring class (max. 6 participants), where you are introduced to the core functionalities of Microsoft Project. This first class is aimed at avoiding time-consuming “Worst Practice” traps typically experienced by self-taught users who have worked with the software for years, as well as by newbies who feel that they have to do it all “as it says in the book”, without the necessary discernment.
- Two further Consultative Tutoring classes towards the middle and end of the programme.
- An ongoing online entrenchment programme, during which you receive short daily tests aimed at assisting you in working methodically though your handbook while you populate your Microsoft plans with live information from your projects. You write an online consolidation exam at the close of each week. You, and your progress, can’t “fall through the cracks”, as you may only proceed to the following week’s assignment once you’ve mastered the work to date. This ensures that you do not have to “catch up”, or that your foundation becomes shaky.
- Ongoing personal mentoring. Parallel to the activities in 3 above, your daily critical thinking now starts to focus on the 10 Knowledge Areas of the PMI®‘s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), and on key principles embodied in PRINCE2®. Your Mentor is also available to guide you in the project, or projects, which you selected for this learning programme.
- An international exam. Once you have thoroughly worked through the Microsoft Project handbook, and developed best practices for using the software in your own projects, you write an online exam at a Prometric Test Centre in a city nearest to you. The exam is administered by Microsoft, who issue you with the internationally recognised certificate, 74-343 Managing Projects with Microsoft Project.
