How Villanova’s Project Management Program Offers Opportunity for Managers Across Industries

If you’re interested in becoming part of the growing tech field, you’ve probably run into dozens of articles about finding the right coding bootcamp. Coding bootcamps can be a great path to a career if they offer the right tools for the industry and career services to prepare you for the job-hunting process.

But what if you’re not interested in coding? For those with great people skills, there’s another route. When development teams are working on projects over long periods of time, they need someone to motivate and lead them through the tough times; someone who fosters communication and ensures that conflicts are quickly addressed. This manager needs to make hard decisions while keeping projects organized and on schedule.

These skills are the core of a project management skillset. Although often overlooked, project management is a key part of tech projects large and small. And as companies of all sizes continue to develop new products and update old ones, project management has become a key skill for anyone looking to enter the tech field.

Project manager positions were in the top 15 occupations by job posting volume in Q2 2021, according to the Dice Tech Jobs Report. The same report showed that requests for general project management skills grew the most in all job postings from Q1 to Q2. Requests for candidates with project management skills grew by 15 percent, while the second most requested skill, SQL, saw demand grow by nine percent.

As a keen observer of the job market, Villanova University prides itself on staying up to date with industry trends. Programs within its College of Professional Studies are designed to be focused, responsive and nimble, drawing inspiration from evolving workforce and career trends. The Certificate in Applied Project Management program gives students a quality curriculum based on practical management principles, people-based approaches, and key tools that can help you start a new career in this field.

What Is Project Management?

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements, according to the Project Management Institute (PMI). This discipline requires general planning, coordination, implementing, and finalizing projects according to stakeholder specifications. The ability to complete all of these tasks without going past a deadline or over a budget is a key part of this skillset as well.

Project managers can be in charge of pitching projects or seeing projects across a finish line, and throughout the product’s development life cycle, they offer consistent reports to all stakeholders. The project teams that they manage often comprise personnel from several departments, including IT, purchasing, marketing, distribution, and more.

According to Villanova project management adjunct professor Jeffrey Brown, project management as a profession arose out of a gap that consistently occurs in companies. For years, companies picked people to lead projects basically at random, without a codified skillset for creating quality products at the end of the process.

But as the years have gone on, many companies have started to rely on best practices dictated by PMI when completing projects. Though many companies use these best practices as a starting point for building their workflows, they still look for candidates who have PMI’s recommended skills.

In Villanova University’s program, you can acquire these skills and much more as you prepare to enter the industry. Though this job may sound enticing, and you’ve already heard a bit about the recent job market surrounding it, you may still be wondering what the future holds for project management.

Why Learn Project Management?

PMI projects that an average of 2.3 million new project-oriented roles will have to be filled by employers each year through 2030, according to its 2021 Project Management Talent Gap Report. These projections may not reflect local and/or short-term economic job conditions, and they aren’t guaranteed, but this organization’s research gives a general guideline to where the field is headed.

Project management skills aren’t just limited to the world of tech either. PMI projects industries including manufacturing, finance, utilities, and more to have a growing need for project managers over the next decade. This organization believes that across the globe, there’s a widening gap between employers’ needs for skilled project management workers and the availability of professionals to fill those roles.

PMI predicts that this gap could result in net losses of around $345.5 billion in global GDP by 2030. As companies scramble to increase efficiency, there’s a need for skilled project managers—preferably those with PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification. This shows that its holder is properly trained in project management principles and has had hours of project management experience to hone their craft.

Many organizations are hoping to upskill current workers to fill this gap, according to PMI, so you could stay at your current company after the program. You could possibly earn a higher salary potential, as the 2020 PMI Project Management Salary Survey – 11th Edition showed that respondents with a PMP® certification earned a median salary that was on average 22 percent higher across 42 countries.

You can also obtain a Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® certification, which shows that you have a measure of project management skills, but not the same level of mastery as a PMP® holder. This certification is good for people who want proof of project management skills on their survey without meeting the more extensive PMP® qualifications.

Villanova University’s program offers more than a chance to learn the hard and soft skills you need to start a project management career. It offers some hard evidence of your capabilities. But, how do you know if this program is right for you?

Who Should Take Project Management?

Project management candidates are adaptable, cool under pressure, good communicators, problem solvers, and quick decision-makers. We’ve already mentioned a range of the skills that successful project managers need, and you may be noticing a pattern at this point.

Project managers must be people with great communication and interpersonal skills, who can multitask and lead a team. It’s not easy keeping multiple people in many departments on the same page for a common goal, but it can also be difficult saying no to your boss to prevent scope creep that can slow progress to a crawl.

If you already think of yourself as an organized and communicative person with strong leadership skills and a talent for finances, then you may be a good candidate for project management. As we mentioned above, this program might be right for upskillers, as well as people who are looking to enter a field that better suits their personality.

Of course, you don’t have to possess all these qualities to succeed as a project manager. You’ll probably be attending an educational program to train for your transition anyway, and Villanova University’s program can help fill in some gaps to make you a more well-rounded candidate.

What Will You Learn in Villanova University’s Certificate in Applied Project Management Program?

This 100% online program is designed to prepare you for the PMP® or CAPM® exam. You can successfully earn the program’s certificate of completion by completing two required courses, Essentials of Project Management and Mastering Project Management, along with an elective of your choice.

Because of this program’s online structure, students get the chance to ask specific questions to industry experts. This exclusive opportunity allows students to deepen their understanding of the material with personal guidance. The quality of the instructors helps set Villanova’s program apart from standard project management bootcamps, whose instructors may not be up to a university’s standards.

And several qualified instructors lead these courses, including Jeffrey Brown. Brown is an Army veteran who worked in a biochemistry division. After completing his service, he studied biomedical engineering and engineering science in the University of Michigan’s bioengineering program.

Brown graduated with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees and went to work in academic research and building medical devices. After a few years, he switched to software development and consulting, and he now serves as a Director of Cybersecurity for GE Healthcare.

Brown has led countless projects over a career spanning decades. He uses his experience to give students a solid foundation in the Essentials of Product Management course.

Essentials of Project Management

In Essentials of Project Management, you’ll gain the practical knowledge, tools, and confidence to succeed in project management. You’ll start by learning the basic theory behind project management, then you’ll learn the tools you need to get the job done. You’ll practice the theory and tools with hands-on case study activities, including a chance to start and run your own project.

You’ll also engage in discussion and activities that give you advice on executing, controlling, and closing your projects. You’ll learn to communicate your project’s strategic value so that everyone is clear on what you’re working on and how it serves your organization’s mission.

Mastering Project Management

In Mastering Project Management, you’ll build on the skills you learned in the previous course and dive deeper into project plan development, people-based project management, project performance management, and practical project management. Though these facets of project management are all similar, they involve different phases of the process.

You’ll learn to identify key documents needed to build a project management plan. You’ll discuss project charters, case studies, and the process of categorizing stakeholders. This section covers several key parts of initializing a project that every project manager should know.

You’ll also study what it takes to build a good team, how to monitor and control projects, and how to give stakeholders estimates of a project’s cost and time. You’ll learn how to behave like a project manager and cater to the unique personalities that will form your team.

Once you’ve completed this required course, you’re ready to progress to your elective to complete your program track.

Depending on the elective you choose, you can also learn what you need to know to start applying project management principles to any workflow instead of going the project manager route.

Project Management Electives

Villanova offers a range of electives for different situations. These electives can help prepare you for many of the common fields that hire project managers, get you used to certain management styles, or prepare for the PMP® or CAPM® exam you’ll need to take.

• Essentials of Business Analysis is designed for business analysts, managers, and professionals who need to determine project requirements that drive IT-related projects.
• Essentials of Business Process Management gives you a deep understanding of the business process management methodology, which is designed to help companies identify inefficiencies and become more agile.
• Essentials of Cybersecurity is for cybersecurity professionals who want to add management skills to their portfolios.
• Essentials of Data Visualization is for workers in any industry who want to learn data visualization tools.
• Finance & Accounting for the Non-Financial Manager is a course for people outside of the financial field who want to learn finance and accounting concepts.
• Foundations of Agile Methodology is the first course of Villanova’s Certificate in Agile program, designed to give you a starting point in Agile methodology. People with project management and Agile skills stand out even further in the marketplace, and course like this one, Applications of Agile Principles and Leading Agile Teams can help you learn these skills.
• Maximizing Team Effectiveness helps students understand the practical tools and other strategies that they need to cultivate effective teams.
• The Project Management Capstone course is the suggested final elective for students interested in sitting for the PMP® exam. It uses a real-life case study to model project management best practices and to prepare students for the academic portion of the exam.
• The PMP® Exam Preparation course is a more condensed version of the capstone course for busy professionals.
• Strategic Organizational Leadership is designed to give entrepreneurs and individuals in middle-to-upper-level management the boost they need to attain leadership roles.

A Professional Introduction to a Growing Field

If you’re interested in project management in any industry, you don’t have to go the full route towards certification. This online program can provide an accessible entry point to learning industry principles. But if you decided you wanted to earn your PMP or CAPM, PMI has determined that this program provides a quality project management education and has awarded Villanova University the Authorized Training Partner status.

This status shows that Villanova University’s program is closely aligned with the goals and practices of PMI. The program’s curriculum aligns with the latest edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) guide. These courses are current and qualify for the Professional Development Units (PDUs) that PMI requires to keep certifications active.

If you’d like to know more about the program, request your program information from Villanova University today, and someone will be in touch to help you decide if it’s right for you.

*PMP, CAPM and PMBOK are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.