PM Skills: Planning and Project Design

At the beginning of a project, your responsibilities as a project leader will largely revolve around designing a plan that aligns with your organization's corporate strategy while providing fully functional deliverables that meet your stakeholders' needs. But project planning is not a one-time event: it occurs throughout a project's life cycle, so you need to remain prepared to make changes and have contingency plans in place to address unexpected situations. This self-paced, fully online course will introduce you to the tools, techniques, and strategies you can use to develop successful projects and release plans. These tools and strategies can guide you in your efforts to create a just-in-time methodology that will complement your organization's strategic and tactical plans and enhance your product life cycle planning in the most efficient way possible. Learning Outcomes Describe the importance of strategic and sustainable planning Explain the need for just-in-time planning Differentiate between portfolios, programs, and projects Consider the needs of stakeholders in your planning and project design Recognize the necessity of tailoring your plans Recite the stages of the Waterfall project life cycle and Agile development cycle Recognize the components of a project plan, product backlog, and product roadmap Describe the characteristics of a contingency plan and potential contingency planning strategies Utilize adaptive tools and techniques for successful planning Discuss the need for ongoing maintenance and operations Explain how to capture lessons learned through reviews and retrospectives