Manage Your Projects

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Project Management Training and Books

Competency: project management

Who benefits: anyone in a project management assignment or projected assignment

Consultant Usage: may be useful as self-development

What’s it about? I know that a lot of you readers are involved in project or matrix management.  So this week I have put together a list of training courses with my own level of recommendations, several books, and a couple of websites.  Click links for further information.

The American Management Association (AMA) offers a wide range of courses at various levels of difficulty.  Certification is available as well as individual courses.  They have classes all over the USA and occasionally in Canada.  (I generally recommend AMA classes to less experienced professionals and supervisors.)

The well-respected Management Concepts offers 18 different project management courses and four specialty IT project management courses.  While a majority of their courses are in the Washington, DC area, they do have some courses in 7 other cities across the US.  They are especially useful and versed in government agency methods and requirements.  (I recommend these courses to professionals, supervisors and mid level managers.)

If you are in the mood for a top-of-the-line PMP certification program, go to where Einstein went: Cal Tech.  The Pasadena, CA Industrial Relations Center offers a 5-course, 10 Saturday project management certification program.  (I highly recommend this series to seasoned professionals and mid-level managers and above.)

If you want to exceed “top-of-the-line” and go over-the-top, you can consider Stanford University’s Advanced Project Management individual programs or certification process.  (Recommended for executives or as part of a succession plan for a senior manager.) 

A similar executive level program on the East Coast would be MIT’s Executive Certificate in Technology, Operations, and Value Chain Management.   And if learning is your goal (rather than certification), don’t forget there are a wide variety of project management courses available for free at MIT’s OpenCourseWare.  (I recommend these self-study programs for college graduates in technical fields.  These courses are not for the faint-of-heart!)

If you are primarily interested in the people dynamics of project management, then I can strongly recommend my friends at Personal Strengths who offer a 1-day  Project Management  course in Carlsbad, CA and their business associates at ESI International who offer a three-day course Project Leadership, Management and Communications frequently throughout the US.  (I recommend this course to project managers who seek to improve their people skills or manage conflicts within their project team[s].)

The Project Management Institute offers a self-study, study anywhere certification program with a live coach.  The Institute offers healthcare project management certification, IT project management certification as well as a global project management certification.  I picked this organization as representative of 100’s of commercial websites devoted to PM.  I know this site may be of interest to readers in the healthcare fields and I like the personal (albeit long-distance) coach.

And finally, if you are the type that prefers an old-fashion book, while there are several thousand available I can vouch for credibility of the authors of these books: Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management (2nd Edition) – new edition, just published; Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling – great reference book; Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach to Successful Growth and Innovation;  and The Essentials of Project Management: Business Literacy for HR Professionals.

I bet some of you readers have other –better? – suggestions.  Please use the comment section to make your recommendation(s).  Catch you later.

 

[tags]project management, matrix management, healthcare project management, IT project management, project management certification, online project management, project management self study, bill bradley, william bradley,  bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.