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Project Management

Project management is the process of planning, organizing, and managing resources to achieve a specific goal or outcome. It involves defining objectives, coordinating tasks, managing timelines and risks, and ensuring projects are completed successfully. Strong project management helps teams stay focused, work efficiently, and deliver results that meet organizational goals.

Learn how to utilize project management in your role with the resources below. 

Please Note: The majority of these resources are curated, not created, by the MSU IT Training Team from external sources. If you experience issues with any of the resources or links, please reach out to us at train@msu.edu.
Foundations of Project Management
  • What is Project Management?
    In this short video, learn what project management is and the steps a project manager will work through to ensure a successful project.

    Modality: Video
    Source: Youtube
    Time: 2 minutes, 23 seconds

    Learn what project management is here
  • 12 Vital Project Management Principles

    This article outlines the 12 essential principles that form the foundation of effective project management, offering a structured yet flexible approach for teams of any size or industry. It emphasizes the importance of clear goals, well-defined roles, accountable teamwork, proactive risk management, and continuous monitoring to ensure projects deliver maximum business value.

    Learn how strong governance and collaborative processes support consistent project success from initiation through completion. The resource also highlights practical tools and strategies that help teams stay aligned, adapt to change, and deliver meaningful results.

    Modality: Article
    Source: Atlassian

    Learn about the vital project management principles here

  • Complete Google Project Management

    In this 2 hour video, David McLachlan provides a condensed overview of the Google Project Management. This video provides a condensed overview of the Google Project Management Certificate. It covers the foundations of project management, including its definition, the responsibilities and skills of project managers, and various roles within the field. The video then details the project management life cycle, breaking it down into four main phases:


    Initiation: Defining goals, scope, and resources, and creating a project charter.
    Planning: Developing schedules, budgets, and risk plans, and conducting kickoff meetings.
    Execution: Managing progress, communicating with stakeholders, and adjusting resources as needed.
    Closing: Verifying completion, getting formal acceptance, and conducting retrospectives.
    It also explores different project management methodologies like Waterfall and Agile, discusses organizational structure and culture, and explains concepts like quality management and data analysis in projects. Finally, it touches on leadership, communication, and real-world application of project management principles.

    Modality: Video
    Source: Youtube
    Time: 2 hours, 21 minutes

    Learn about project management here

  • Why is Project Management Important?

    This resource introduces the foundations and importance of effective project management in today’s data-driven workplace. Learners will explore key components of the project lifecycle—planning, execution, monitoring, and communication—along with widely used methodologies such as Agile, Lean, and Six Sigma.

    The guide also highlights the growing demand for skilled project managers across industries and the impact strong project leadership has on organizational efficiency and strategy. It serves as a helpful starting point for anyone considering professional training or certification in project management.

    Modality: Article
    Source: Purdue University

    Learn why project management is important here

Want to Continue Learning? 

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LinkedIn Learning - Project Management

Note: Requires a paid membership to LinkedIn Learning

  • Project Management Skills for Leaders
    In this course, instructor Dana Brownlee shows how project management skills can help you to become a better, more effective leader and make a measurable impact in the new world of work. Learn specific tactics and techniques based on project management principles and strategies. Get the skills you need to develop a schedule with realistic estimates, analyze risk, design a kickoff meeting, delegate tasks, elicit effective status updates, and build a strong team culture. Dana helps you understand more about how to leverage your new skills in an increasingly challenging virtual or hybrid workplace.

    Modality: Course
    Source: LinkedIn Learning (Requires paid membership)
    Time: 36 minutes

    Learn project management skills for leaders here
  • Project Management Tips

    Business moves fast, and project management moves faster. Many PMs don’t have time to study, take classes, or read books. So how can you get better at project management? This series helps you improve your skills, learn useful tips, and get answers to common project management questions—in short videos you can watch on your lunch break or listen to on your commute. Get quick and easy ideas for building a project plan, effectively communicating with your team, leading project meetings, and integrating agile practices. Instructor Daniel Stanton has designed this course to help all project managers—new and experienced alike—be more successful in their roles.

    This course includes AI-powered Role Play. Role Play allows you to practice what you’ve learned in interactive simulations of real-world conversations.

    Learning Objectives:

    • Describe the process of creating a project charter.
    • Explain the steps in preparing documents used in a project.
    • Determine the most effective means of communication during a project.
    • List purposes and goals of the various types of project status meetings.
    • Describe how a crisis can affect a project.
    • Implement the use of user stories in the agile project management process.

    Modality: Course
    Source: LinkedIn Learning (Requires paid membership)
    Time: 1 hour, 5 minutes

    Learn some tips for project management here

  • Agile Project Leadership

    In this course, instructor Kelley O’Connell covers leadership definitions, agile leadership objectives and techniques, and leadership stabilization. Kelley explains why leadership is necessary in agile environments, then goes over traditional leadership functions and how agile leadership is different. She defines essential new leadership skills and discusses how you can transform yourself into an agile leader and help your team and organization shift successfully to agile, as well.

    Kelley describes key agile leadership techniques, then concludes by sharing ways you can establish team values, apply organizational strategy, define priorities, and more.

    Modality: Course
    Source: LinkedIn Learning (Requires paid membership)
    Time: 41 minutes

    Learn how to be an Agile project leader here

  • Scrum: The Basics

    If you've spent any time in the project management world, you've likely heard of scrum—the popular framework for managing complex processes. If this mysterious-sounding framework has piqued your interest, this course can help provide you with a basic understanding of what scrum is and how you can start implementing it at work.

    Follow scrum expert Kelley O'Connell as she walks through why scrum has taken the business world by storm, and how it asks you to organize your team and work. Plus, she explains how to manage your projects and measure how they're faring, and set manageable improvement goals.

    Modality: Course
    Source: LinkedIn Learning (Requires paid membership)
    Time: 1 hour

    Learn about the basics of scrum here

  • Learning Program Management

    What is the difference between a project and a program? What do program managers do? These questions and others are answered in this course which covers the essentials of program management.

    Learn about the skills needed to be a program manager. Discover the milestones and phases involved in the life cycle of a program—from planning to delivery and beyond. Find out how to manage programs, align programs to business strategies, deliver beneficial results, communicate with stakeholders, govern program activities, map program schedules, and support integral program processes.

    Modality: Course
    Source: LinkedIn Learning (Requires paid membership)
    Time: 51 minutes

    Learn about program management here

  • Project Management Highlights

    Aspiring and experienced project managers: Discover all that LinkedIn Learning has to offer. Enjoy this selection of curated highlights from our very best project management courses.

    Explore core skills that are universal to every practice, such as persuasion, collaboration, and adaptability, and then dive into the most popular methodologies, starting with traditional approaches to integration, scheduling, budgeting, and more. Review agile and scrum workflows, and learn if certification is the right choice for your career. Our instructors also touch on popular topics such as innovation and cross-functional team building. Each video is a two- to four-minute consolidation of the top tips and insights from our industry-leading instructors.

    Modality: Video
    Source: LinkedIn Learning (Requires paid membership)
    Time: 39 minutes

    Learn some highlights of project management here

  • Artificial Intelligence for Project Managers

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer confined to the realm of science fiction. It's on track to disrupt the world of work in a very real way, and major changes—from the rise of productization to the demand for predictability—are driving its adoption.

    In this course, learn about the impact that AI will have on project management, how to prepare for the changes that lie ahead, and how to harness the power of AI to work smarter. Instructor Oliver Yarbrough goes over the factors that are contributing to the growing importance of AI. He also details how to prepare for the disruption that it will cause; hone the skills that AI cannot replace; and leverage AI to more effectively initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control, close, and integrate your projects.

    Modality: Course
    Source: LinkedIn Learning (Requires paid membership)
    Time: 41 minutes

    Learn about artificial intelligence for project managers here

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elevateU - Meeting Facilitation

Note: MSU Faculty and Staff Only

  • New Project Manager Essentials
    In this course, you’ll learn some of the foundational concepts, such as what a project and its project environment and scope are. You'll learn what you’ll be responsible for, and things you’ll need to understand before planning begins. You’ll also learn where to go to access useful information and how to identify the different types of people who will have an interest in the project – its stakeholders.

    Modality: Video
    Source: elevateU (Only available to MSU faculty and staff)
    Time: 28 minutes

    Learn the essentials to project management here
  • Selecting a Project Management Approach
    In this course, you will learn about project characteristics, including key terms and concepts and the project manager's role. You will also explore PM competencies, product and project life cycles, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets that can influence project outcomes.

    Modality: Video
    Source: elevateU (Only available to MSU faculty and staff)
    Time: 54 minutes

    Learn how to select a project management approach here
  • Project Management Introduction

    If you're responsible for managing projects, understanding the project basics is essential. Project management is affected at every stage by the organization, the social environment, the project stakeholders, and many other aspects of the context in which the project is carried out.

    The CAPM® is an asset that will enhance your credibility and effectiveness in project management, as CAPM training helps you understand what you need to know before planning begins. This course covers key project management concepts and terms, and provides information about the variables that can influence project outcomes.

    Modality: Video
    Source: elevateU (Only available to MSU faculty and staff)
    Time: 45 minutes

    Introduce yourself to project management here