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Strategic Project Management

All Start Dates

  • Time

    11:00 AM – 2:30 PM ET

  • Length

    4 consecutive Tuesdays

  • Cost

    $2,750

  • Registration Deadline

    May 27, 2024

  • Time

    8:30 AM – 4:30 PM ET

  • Length

    2 consecutive days

  • Cost

    $2,990

  • Registration Deadline

    September 1, 2024

  • Time

    8:30 AM – 4:30 PM ET

  • Length

    2 consecutive days

  • Cost

    $2,990

  • Registration Deadline

    November 12, 2024

Strategic project management: woman standing at table writing notes

Plan, manage, and execute projects that are essential to the success of your business.

What You'll Learn

Projects are the engines that drive change, innovation, and productivity. The ability to deliver projects on-time and within scope — strategic project management — has become imperative for organizations and a critical skill for advancing your career.

In this program, you will learn practical approaches and techniques to effectively analyze, plan, execute, and lead projects to meet your organization’s objectives. We will explore the reasons for high failure rates and examine key strategies for ensuring success through planning and execution. We will examine the leadership challenges of influencing others when you have limited formal authority. We will discuss the role of culture and the impact it has on our project’s success.

You will participate in a variety of highly engaging activities, interactive discussions, and mini- case studies to broaden your project management strategies. Through an in-depth examination of the principles of project management, participants will gain confidence in their ability to lead all aspects of projects.

Program Benefits

  • Identify key strategies for setting up a project’s success before work begins
  • Examine different project roles and necessary leadership characteristics
  • Learn how to assemble and develop a highly functional project team
  • Explore how to increase your level of influence in working with others
  • Develop an understanding of the tools and frameworks for each stage of a project
  • Gain strategies for addressing the challenges that most often contribute to project failure
  • Build confidence in your ability to lead both the technical and human side of all projects
  • Learn how to facilitate success beyond just the project itself such as achieving and sustaining benefits
  • Earn a Certificate of Participation from Harvard Division of Continuing Education

Topics Covered

  • Principles of project management and the reasons for high failure rates
  • Defining project goals and scope
  • Key roles of project sponsor and project manager
  • Planning a project schedule, budget, and risk plan
  • Executing a project: Instilling discipline, accountability, and productivity
  • Managing stakeholders through project stages
  • Implementing the project and transitioning to operations
  • Lessons learned from the experiences of real-life project managers

Who Should Enroll

This program is designed for those with at least three years of experience with projects, either as a team member or as a project manager.

June Schedule

Week 1

  • Phase One: Initiate

Week 2

  • Phase Two: Plan

Week 3

  • Phase Three: Execute

Week 4

  • Phase Four: Close

September Schedule

Day 1

  • Phase One: Initiate
  • Phase Two: Plan

Day 2

  • Phase Three: Execute
  • Phase Four: Close

November Schedule

Day 1

  • Phase One: Initiate
  • Phase Two: Plan

Day 2

  • Phase Three: Execute
  • Phase Four: Close

Instructor

  • Deb Cote.

    Deb Cote

    Deb Cote is a project management and change management instructor at Harvard Professional & Executive Development and Harvard Extension School. In her Strategic Planning & Performance role at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), a Harvard teaching hospital, she leads an organization responsible for setting standards, maintaining best practices, and measuring performance for projects and IS operations.

Instructor

  • Shannon Pettiford Headshot

    Shannon Pettiford

    Shannon Pettiford, M.S., PMP, PMI-ACP, specializes in program and project management, business process improvement, and operations management. He has successfully managed global projects and programs focused on digital marketing, information technology, human resources, finance, and strategic initiatives. Shannon also teaches graduate-level courses in project management at Harvard Extension School, Northeastern University, and the University of Kansas.

Instructor

  • Deb Cote.

    Deb Cote

    Deb Cote is a project management and change management instructor at Harvard Professional & Executive Development and Harvard Extension School. In her Strategic Planning & Performance role at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), a Harvard teaching hospital, she leads an organization responsible for setting standards, maintaining best practices, and measuring performance for projects and IS operations.