Welcome to Budgeting and Scheduling Projects!

In this course, you will learn to create a project budget and schedule that delivers results under costs and time constraints. A good project schedule helps all team members’ work together to meet project objectives. A project budget with realistic cost constraints is also an essential bedrock of any project. In this course you’ll learn to plan and stick to time and cost constraints in order to ensure the success of your projects.

Course Learning Objectives:

- Identify the resource needs of the project
- Decompose work packages into activities
- Define what is needed to estimate activity durations
- Define milestones and create a milestone schedule
- Determine the critical path and calculate float
- Describe the purpose of using leads and lags in a project schedule
- Estimate the quantities and costs of resources required to perform project activities
- Select one of three common cost estimating techniques to determine a project budget
- Use a responsibility assignment matrix to assign responsibilities
- Recognize the components of a project’s quality management plan

Course Structure:

This is a cohorted and self-paced course, meaning that you can move through the content as quickly or slowly as you want. Therefore there are no deadlines or a structured weekly format to follow. Instead, move through the modules at your own pace. When you complete this course, we invite you to take the third course in the series, Managing Project Risks and Changes.

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites for this course. We recommend the courses in the Introduction to Project Management Specialization are taken in sequence.

1. Initiating and Planning Projects
2. Budgeting and Scheduling Projects
3. Managing Project Risks and Changes

Readings:

In this course, each module will recommend readings correlating with the module content that will enrich your learning experience. These readings are optional. All the resources required to complete this Specialization are included. Please find the optional textbooks below:

- The Fast Forward MBA In Project Management 4th edition, by Eric Verzuh - ISBN 978-1118073773
- A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – 5th Edition Exercises

Exercises:

Each module will recommend a learning exercise that you can complete in order to practically apply what you have learned in the course.

Quizzes and Final Exam:

At the end of each module you will have an opportunity to check your knowledge and skills by taking a brief quiz. Each quiz is worth 20% of your grade and the final exam is worth 40%. To pass the quiz and final exam you will need to score an 80% or higher. These quizzes and the final exam will count for a cumulative 100% of your final course grade. You will be able to take the quizzes and final exam up to five times in a 24 hour period. This should allow for any technical or timing issues you may encounter. Please note that your final grade for the quiz and final exam will be the highest score you receive of all of your attempts.