Project Management (Certificate) Curriculum

This introductory course provides students with a practical and concrete explanation of the concepts and techniques they will need as managers in today's new organizations. The sequence of topics follows the familiar pattern of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Throughout the course, the manager's role in leading and accommodating change is emphasized. The course also introduces the student to the issues of managing global businesses, especially the ways in which managers need to develop a global perspective in order to be successful. Issues in strategy, diversity, and entrepreneurship are covered extensively.

This course applies descriptive and inferential statistics to solve business problems. Student perform statistical analysis of samples, compute the measures of location and dispersion, and perform linear and multiple regression and correlation analysis. Other topics include constructing a hypothesis, performing one-way and two-way analysis of variance, and making decisions under risk and uncertainty. NOTE: Credit may not be awarded for both MA215 and MA230

This course examines critical thinking and the analysis of arguments in terms of premises, reasons, and conclusions. Course topics include obstacles to critical thinking, diagramming arguments, belief and doubt, logical fallacies, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, inferences, and judging scientific theories.

This course provides a framework for supply chain management that requires integrative approach from all functions of the business within the company and across the network of companies that make up the supply chain. It strikes a balance between quantitative and qualitative techniques of operations needed to provide operations and supply chain managers for the challenges and opportunities they face. Students are introduced to analytical tools that operations managers use for decision making in product development, process innovation, supplier strategies, sourcing and outsourcing, strategic alliances, inventory management, and forecasting. The course also emphasizes the importance of managerial issues such as designing processes, working with people, building relationships, and managing information flows. Amongst topics covered are managing operations and supply chain, operations and supply chain strategy, managing inventories, managing process and capacity, lean systems, and demand planning

This course focuses on Six Sigma and process improvement as a way to continuously improve quality within an organization. Six Sigma is an effective and validated approach in manufacturing and service organizations to improve products, services, and processes. Although Six Sigma brought a new direction to quality and productivity improvement, its underlying tools and philosophy are grounded in the fundamental principles of total quality and continuous improvement that have been used for many decades. Students are introduced to the Six Sigma Body of Knowledge promoted by the American Society for Quality (ASQ), assess the importance of metrics and measurement in Six Sigma, evaluate the DMAIC problem-solving methodology that forms the framework for project organization, process measurement, process analysis, process improvement, and process control. The course also covers the topic of the growing importance of Six Sigma in service organizations and for gaining competitive advantage. This course is highly recommended for students who are interested to pursue a career in operations management, industrial engineering, quality and performance management, as well as for professional development in their respective careers.

This advanced course identifies the components of modern project management and shows how they relate to the basic phases of a project, starting with conceptual design and advanced development, and continuing through detailed design, production, and termination. Topics covered include project organization and structure; project planning and control; human behavior in the project setting; and project management information systems. The course places stress on integrative concepts rather than isolated methodologies. It relies on simple models to convey ideas and avoids detailed mathematical formulations, though some of the more important mathematical programming models are presented.