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Project Planning and Communication: Mastering Gantt Charts and Stakeholder Management

Improve your project planning and communicating skills and find out how to take a project to completion.

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  • Duration

    2 weeks
  • Weekly study

    5 hours
  • 100% online

    How it works
  • Included in an ExpertTrack

    Course 2 of 5
  • Get full ExpertTrack access

    $39/monthFind out more

What does it take to become a professional project manager? And what are the methods they use to succeed?

You’ll find out on this course covering project planning, project communications and stakeholder engagement.

Use powerful scheduling tools such as the Gantt chart

A Gantt is a visual view of a task over time – and they allow for effective project scheduling and tracking from implementation to completion.

On this course, you’ll also get to grips with how to create working plans for a project. You’ll examine why plans are necessary, learn how to estimate the duration of activities, explore network diagrams and find out how to create a Gantt chart yourself.

The power interest grid: How to use stakeholder mapping techniques

You’ll find out how engaging with your stakeholders is vital to keeping a plan on track and explore the different areas of stakeholder management – from identification and creasing communication plans to the power/interest grid. This technique is used to categorise stakeholders based on their power, influence on and interest in a project.

You’ll explore the benefits and limitations of the power/interest matrix in identifying stakeholders and communicating with your business.

What topics will you cover?

  • Identify requirements and produce the scope and specification
  • Create a work breakdown structure
  • Estimate activity duration
  • Develop a project schedule and optimise it to accommodate project constraints
  • Identify and schedule resources
  • Optimise the allocation of resources
  • Understand stakeholder engagement, types of stakeholders, and their roles, influence and power
  • Develop a stakeholder engagement plan
  • Identify, categorise and prioritise stakeholders

Prove you're job ready

Highlight the new, job-relevant skills you’ve gained and supplement existing qualifications with a hard-earned, industry-specific digital certificate – plus one for every course within your ExpertTrack.

  • Learn the latest in your chosen industry or subject.
  • Complete each course and pass assessments.
  • Receive certificates validated by the educating organisation.
  • Impress employers with learning outcomes you can add to your CV.
  • Make your career dreams a reality.

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Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Develop a project management plan that documents the actions necessary to define and coordinate activities, assesses project deliverables, and ensure the control and management of cost, schedule, and changes to the project
  • Assess the nature of stakeholder groups and summarise their impact on project performance
  • Design a stakeholder engagement plan that includes approaches to issues such as communication, ethics and leadership
  • Assess the interaction between the various components of a project, and evaluate and critique how changes in one component can influence how the project manager should adjust their activities, and communicate the results to stakeholders
  • Reflect on the suite of appropriate strategies for stakeholder management, and recommend an approach based upon stakeholder strengths and weaknesses, their impact on the project, and other categories of stakeholder characteristics

Who is the course for?

This ExpertTrack is designed for anyone interested who wants to understand the fundamentals of project management in the context of an organisation.

It will be of particular interest to professionals and individuals interested in project management – especially aspiring project managers, project managers looking to take their career to the next level, and people in other careers such as engineering looking to gain project management skills.

Who developed the course?

Coventry University

Coventry secured 5 QS Stars for Teaching and Online Learning in the QS World University Ranking 2020 and has received No. 1 in the world for Massive Open Online Courses in MoocLab’s World University Ranking 2021.

  • Established

    1992
  • Location

    Coventry

About this ExpertTrack

Become an effective project manager and learn how to deliver strategic change and transformation in an organisation.

Start learning today - free 7-day trial

After your free trial you can:

  • Pay $39 per month to keep learning online
  • Have complete control over your subscription; you can cancel any time
  • Work at your own pace and set your own deadlines at every stage
  • Only pay while you’re learning; the subscription will cancel automatically when you finish
  • Complete online assessments to test your knowledge and prove your skills
  • Earn digital course certificates and a final award that you can share online, with potential employers, and your professional network
  • Keep access to the content of courses you complete even after your subscription ends

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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