Overview
This course aims to achieve the following objectives:
- Provide an overview of project management concepts, characteristics, and environments.
- Discuss the importance of project definition and help students learn about important project definition tools such as the project overview statement (POS), requirements definition, and use cases.
- Teach fundamental planning and scheduling techniques useful for project managers such as work breakdown structures (WBS), critical path method (CPM), and Gantt charts.
- Introduce the importance of risk assessment within project management.
- Examine important monitoring and control tools and techniques such as earned value analysis and milestone trend charts.
- Discuss the importance of change control in traditional project management.
- Examine different project management approaches applied in different contexts.
- Discuss the importance of post-implementation audits
Outline
MGSC 419 consists of 10 lessons, as outlined below:
- Lesson 1: Defining Projects and Project Management
- Lesson 2: Project Management and the System Development Life Cycles
- Lesson 3: The Scoping Process Group
- Lesson 4: The Planning Process Group
- Lesson 5: The Launching Process Group
- Lesson 6: The Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing Process Groups
- Lesson 7: Putting it All Together: Agile Project Management
- Lesson 8: Putting it All Together: Comparing TPM and CPM Models
- Lesson 9: Hybrid PMLC Mode
Learning outcomes
After you have completed this course, you should be able to:
- Articulate and explain the fundamental concepts in project management.
- Articulate a sound project overview statement (POS).
- Analyze a business process and propose an enhanced solution.
- Demonstrate operational planning using the required tools and techniques.
- Analyze an organization's project management method and propose enhanced solutions.
- Explain the differences between traditional and emergent project management methods.
Evaluation
To receive credit in MGSC 419, you must receive a course composite grade of at least D (50 percent) and a grade of at least 50 percent on the Final Examination. The weighting of each component is as follows:
| Activity | Weight |
| Assignment 1 | 10% |
| Assignment 2 | 15% |
| Assignment 3 | 20% |
| Online Discussion | 15% |
| Final Online Exam | 40% |
| Total | 100% |
The final examination for this course must be requested in advance and written under the supervision of an AU-approved exam invigilator. Invigilators include either ProctorU or an approved in-person invigilation centre that can accommodate online exams. Students are responsible for payment of any invigilation fees. Information on exam request deadlines, invigilators, and other exam-related questions, can be found at the Exams and grades section of the Calendar.
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Wysocki, R. K. (2019). Effective project management: Traditional, agile, extreme, hybrid (8th ed.). Wiley.
Other Resources
All other learning resources will be available online.
Challenge for credit
Overview
The challenge for credit process allows you to demonstrate that you have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university-level course.
Full information about challenge for credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.
Evaluation
To receive credit for the MGSC 419 challenge registration, you must complete an assignment and an exam. You must achieve a grade of at least D (50 percent) on the examination and a composite grade of at least D (50 percent).
- Online Exam
- Project Management Analysis Paper
Challenge for credit course registration form