First before going deeply into planning and scheduling mega projects. You should know and be more familiar with the basics. This is the aim of this whole section. By the end of this lecture you will know what is the project? - You can download the entire lectures from this course here.

The projects can be divided into more manageable components and it can be part of something better. You will know how is the project stands within your organization and how to manage it effectively

We have understood what is the project, we knew by know that the project has a time frame. What happens during this time frame (Scope) and how to plan for it?. Everything is explained here on how to plan from the start of the project to the deliverable and manage it?, How to make sure the project is going to achieve what it is meant for?

Understand the relation between cost and staffing throughout the project life cycle from the initiation to the closure.

There is a lot of variables in any project. In this lecture you will understand the impact of the variables timing in the project. This lecture will answer your question is how the variables affecting the project is changing throughout the project life? When is the best time to adapt a change and when is not?

You will understand what is the main processes group in any project and how they interact together with relation to time.

You should always be careful that the project is on the right track and is aligned with the project goals, In this lecture you are going to learn the main questions to answer periodically to make sure that the project is on track.

What are Stakeholders?, How to manage, control, communicate with them? - This lecture will summarize for you and will help you to have a better understanding of the stakeholders

There are some key stakeholders which are usually common in most of the projects. You will see the key stakeholders and have an example for what are the stakeholders?

What to do before starting the project? What considerations shall we take care of? - The lecture will make you understand what happens in the initiation process group to start the project effectively.

Understand how to know the importance and how the project aligns with your organizaiton

Be familiar with the main terminologies, expressions in the project management field.

Know what is the process of collecting requirements and how to make sure that the project requirements meets the project objectives.

The main gathering techniques are mentioned to understand how to gather expectations, requirements, etc.

Understand one of the most life changing techniques in gathering information.

Understand what is the role, what is the difference between responsibility, authority and accountability through this lecture.

You will know what is the project sponsor roles, responsibilities and authority and what is the most important process group for the project sponsor.

You always create a project because there is a business need. The business need is to address certain people, the customers/end users, so you should make sure through out the project the product(the project deliverable) is meeting the end user requirements.

You ever wondered what is the limits of the project manager?. You know that the project manager can not authorize everything in the project, he/she might still require higher authorization. Understand how the project manager sits within his organization and according to the organizational structure as well.

One day you want to be a project manager or you want to understand how the project manager works and what does it require to be one?

Do you report to someone else other than the project manager?, Do you want to be in the shoes of your boss?. You want definitely want to know how your functional role evolves when you become the manager of your functional area. This lecture will make you understand what the functional manager are and how they stand in the organization.

Each project has a team. Either you are managing one or part of it, you should understand their role and how it works.

Each project requires either material or services to be procured. The role of the sellers is very vital for the success of the project. This lecture will show you what the sellers to the project.

Understand the different types of organization charts in each project and how important they are.

What is control and how to control? What is Control Accounts? - Have a better control for your project, but first you should know what is control?

Understand how the control account stands with the WBS & the OBS

Know what is the project budget?, How it is calculated and rolled up from activities to project level.

Know what is schedule, how to develop one, manage it and control it. Be familiar with the different industry terminologies and its meanings.

Is there anything holding you from finishing on your deadline? Do you have a lot of obligations and factors constraining you? - Understand project constraints from this lectures and be familiar with the main project constraints

You always assume things which are not ambiguous to you or you don't? In all cases learn what you should do with the assumptions.

Know what is the activity and what defines the activity? Understanding this lecture will ease a lot of things for you in the later stages.

Know what estimates are there for each activity and understand them.

Know how the WBS is broken down into more manageable components. To help execute, manage and estimate each package.

It is a vital planning process and know how the planning evolves and elaborates throughout the project.

You will understand how to plan using this technique and when it is beneficial, when to use it?

You will know what are the main sequence diagramming techniques and how to use the ADM and apply it in your project to be able to create the Schedule Model.

You will know what are the main sequence diagramming techniques and how to use the PDM or AON and apply it in your project to be able to create the Schedule Model.

You will be able to know how to relate activities together in a more professional way.

You will know how to produce sequence a schedule model. You will understand all the relations better here as there is an example showing all of the possible relations that you might encounter together with the lags and leads.  

You will understand the activity node in the PDM diagram and the recommended node to use. This will help you to visualize what it looks even using different commercial software in the market. This will make you better in sequence calculating.

You by now know the 4 main types of the relationships, in this lecture you will know what are dependencies?, which activity is depending on another activity, what type is it and how to use this in building a realistic network model?

In building a network model you should add the logic, this logic will be dependent on the type of relationship and the type of dependency which you are by now, know it All. This will make sure that network model you are building is reliable, easy to handle, and realistic.

Sometimes you do confuse about these two terms?, then now it is time to know which term is representing what? - Activity B - SD =(15-8)/6 not (10-4)/6

You will understand the different ways to estimate the resources required for any activity in the project.

You are going to know what are the main categories of the resources to be broken into it. An example is illustrated in this lecture.

Similar to the estimating resource requirements, you are going to know the different ways to calculate activity duration. You are going to know what to avoid as well to have an accurate estimate?

Understand the various factors affecting the labor Moral and Productivity.

Developing a schedule is a process in which ends up with a schedule for your project.

You will know what is CPM that you hear everyone talking about it. It is the best method developed to schedule a project with activities, relationships, resources, etc. It is the basis for a SUCCESSFUL network model.

In this lecture you will understand the basics and what is the CPM used for.

You will  understand different terminologies and know them better such as the different types of floats and the most common as well.

To start anything you should have a plan in how to execute it successfully and achieve project objectives.

You will know the two main baselines and how the cost is related to the schedule baseline..

To make the cost baseline and the cost budget, not only the cost of activities are summed up to give the baseline and the budget. Know what reserves should be added to generate the cost baseline and the cost budget.

Now you know better than most of the planners out there, there are two things and how to differentiate between them and to understand most of the commercial programs out there.

You will be able to see how is the schedule running and to know what is driving your schedule. You will also know what are the main factors driving any activity. It is extremely useful mainly during updates and there is a delay. It is a way to INVESTIGATE and find the ROOT cause of the delay by Tracking the activities

Knowing the different paths, relationships and the most Critical activities will help you to build and control your schedule in a Professional manner.

Calendars controls the schedule, in different cities you might use different calendars. Applying and understanding the importance of the calendars will make you Manage the project effectively.

See here the different ways and techniques that you can apply to finish on time

Know how is crashing done and in what ways. You will master this skill here and know in what basis is it done on?

Choosing the method that fits your strategic and organization goals should be dependent on some basis, that you will know it in this lecture.

When you are shortening the project duration, you should not only focus on time, there is a lot of other factors to consider as well. In this lecture you will know the different types of costs first to understand how they will be affected by the compression.

As you decrease the project duration, now one of the major project constraints is being affected, so this means usually that another project constraint would be affected. In this lecture the you will know how Cost (one of the major project constraints) is affected by reduction of time. 

Taking consideration that no change in the other constraints and they are constants such as Quality.

A lot might get confused in what exactly comes under the category of Resources, you will be able to know what are they and how to Categorize based on your requirements.

To be an Expert in any field, you have to know the main and the most used terminologies in this field. This lecture summarizes to you the main terminologies used in the resource management

In most projects there were would be a resource controlling your project, or we can say the lack of the resource or the resource availability is controlling your dates, learn how to see the effect of a special resource that might drive your project late.

Understand how to best utilize your resources and how a resource driven schedule might affect your completion dates.

Why you should even level a resource?, is it even necessary?

See how it works by example  and see the main difference between the leveling and smoothing according to what it do to the resource.

You know the critical path method so here you what makes a critical chain method and what is the difference between it and the critical path?

Every Professional Planner should be familiar with the nine project management Knowledge areas. Quality Management is one of the important knowledge areas.

Everything in life comes with a cost. Learn the costs associated with making the quality.

One of the main outputs of quality planning is to produce a checklist for all of the works to make sure that the product is achieving the requirements. Understand what is the checklist and how it is done through this lecture.

To produce a reliable, achievable schedule there always should be a process for that. See why specs are made and an example of schedule checklists to produce the realistic schedule.

Know what is communication plan? and what are the main communication activities?

Know how should you disseminate information? and in what basis? - Ensure that the information is disseminated effectively and efficiently.

What do you need to transfer your information? Do you really need to buy a fancy technology or you can do with what you have? - Learn how to choose the right communication for you and your company.

See a model of how the daily communication is conceived and how to assure that your message is delivered with the same intention you want.

Learn the main communication methods with examples and its efficiency.

Throughout the project life there are many reports required to be handed over to different stakeholders. Know the different types of reports for you to use and combine 2 or more types if required at anytime to disseminate the information required in a professional manner.

Everything has characteristics that defines it. Learn what are the main successful communication characteristics that you should apply to achieve what you want.

This is lecture is bigger than the rest of the lectures, but i wanted to make sure that you get all of the characteristics once and to imagine them all together.