Are Online Project Management Courses Enough?

Author: sheila Mulrennan

Project management is one area of business that is undoubtedly valuable for any enterprise. As such project management courses abound just about everywhere, including via the Internet, all seeking to fill the need for the training of project managers who handle various initiatives for their organizations. However, the question is whether these project management courses, especially those found online, are enough to prepare participants to handle demanding projects that truly adds value to the business.

In part, successful projects define the forward motion of a business. Aside from the achievements of day-to-day operations, the success rate of individual projects within the organization determines the capabilities of the business organization. Good project management can add prestige as well as revenue to any business.

By definition, all projects are bound by time. They are not continuous activities but are set at specific timeframes. Some projects are recurring or periodic but nevertheless these projects last only for a short period, maybe weeks or months or a just a few years. To add to that restriction, resources may also be defined and inflexible. Thus the role of the project manager is to work with these restrictions and still achieve the objectives set for the projects.

Project management courses are therefore invaluable in training project managers to handle the complexities of each project. However, are investments into web-based project management courses sufficient for the needs of a business?

General Review of Online Project Management Courses

A quick online search on project management courses will yield millions of websites. A good proportion of this number are distance learning course offerings that are conducted using the Web. There are basic courses in project management and there are also advanced courses. The difference is in the course content with the advanced topics ranging from organizational culture, conflict management, risk management, contracts administration, critical chain, event chain and other such aspects and concepts of a full-blown enterprise project. A module on software-based project management is usually included for such courses and may also be provided in detail as a separate course.

The main drawback of some of these online courses is that it mainly leans onto technology related project management. It is almost always assumed that the course learnings will be applied on either a software development project or some other technical engineering type of endeavor. Nevertheless, there are other project management courses that are applicable to a wider range of business scenarios.

Getting Certified

Another area of online courses in project management that needs attention is with regards to certification. The better investment logically is a course that is university-certified or at least recognized by an appropriate professional board as providing equivalent education or fulfills examination requirements for their standards. Online courses that are not certifiable are best left to new project managers who just need a refresher or quick skills upgrade on project management.

Project management courses are indispensable in equipping your project leaders to gain success in your business projects. Online project management courses in particular are very convenient. However, ensure that the course content is appropriate to your particular industry or project goals and that certification is provided when applicable.

About the Author:

Sheila Mulrennan is a business author and journalist who regularly contributes articles on Management, Personal Development and project management training to leading business publications. Visit www.professionaldevelopment.ie for more information.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Are Online Project Management Courses Enough?

Promote your project management product on the Prince2 Weblog

Thanks for your interest in promoting your product/website or organisation on the Prince2 Weblog. In this article I’ll tell you how you can get into touch with a growing number of people interested in just one thing: Project Management!

It is efficient and to the point

Promoting your business on the Prince2 Weblog can be one of the most efficient, risk free ways to jump start online attention for your business. Whether it is more traffic you want, more sales or just more publicity, promotion on this site can accomplish all this and more!

Get attention from the audience of the Prince2 Weblog

If you have an project management product or organisation, you should consider using promoting it on the Prince2 Weblog to drive traffic to it. But what’s the Promotion deal actually? What ways does the Prince2 Weblog offer you for promoting your product or business? How can you market your business with us?

Promoting with us means:

• a preferred place in the weblogs Business Directory
• an advertorial promoting the product you want to focus on (can be placed on 3 weblogs) that remains on the frontpage (a.k.a. Article Marketing)
• banner placement

It is efficient and effective

Promotion on the Prince2 Weblog is one of the most efficient ways to advertise your business online. Here are just some of the reasons:

• You can reach a very specific audience, interested in Prince2 and project management, for promoting your products.
• You can effectively sell your project management related product or service you have – however expensive or inexpensive it is.
• You are establishing your and your business’ credibility by exhibiting your knowledge on the subject on a well known project management site.
• Promotion on the Prince2 Weblog costs almost nothing, but can gets niche-based international promotion for your project management products.

Why the Prince2 Weblog? I use other Article Directories.

Several companies are already investing significantly in promoting their products on management sites by Article Marketing. There are lots of Article Directories on the Internet with millions of articles on them promoting businesses. Your project management article would be unrecognisable in there. With the Prince2 Weblog you get very specific and interested attention.  It is an undeniable fact that Article Marketing on the Prince2 Weblog is the way to go.

How to start?

Getting started with us is very easy. Just contact us using the contact form.

Start promoting on the Prince2 Weblog now! Advertising price is €100 for 6 months for the whole package. Right now we have a discount: first 3 months 50% off!

Now only €75 for 6 months.

On articlebase.com I have publish an article about the value of publishing project management articles on the internet. The article is an open invitation for contractors who want to contribute on the Prince2 Weblog. Contact me if you have a strong opinion about Prince2 or if you have interesting thoughts, templates or best practises to share. Read the article why this is interesting.

How Project Management Articles Help to Promote Yourself??

Author: R.W. Bladder

How do project management publications help you promoting yourself??

On internet you can find several sites where you can post articles about topics of your interest. You can use it as marketing for your product, but also as a showcase for your knowledge.

Did you know that publishing articles can add value to you as a contractor?
Want to know what are the factors that make publishing worthwhile?

Let me tell you my story and the reactions I had on this topic.

In order to share my experience in the areas of project management, service management and programme management I started three weblogs: the Prince2 Weblog, the ITIL Weblog and the MSP Weblog. When I started it my main purpose was to share my best practises and templates that I created. I found out that by sharing my experience I not only helped out other people, but it also created some nice side effects:

• my social network has extended with managers all over the world that I otherwise would never had met;
• the reaction on my articles led to better understanding of some of the aspects.

The extended network can help you too! Publishing your articles about project management, service managent or programme management on one of the weblogs do not only bring your knowledge under the attention of the growing group of visitors. By putting your information and link to your weblog/profile you also bring yourself under the attention of the interested reader.

Here you can see some of the reactions on my question if publishing project management articles help to promote yourself:

Matt:

“This is a very interesting discussion. I believe that publishing articles does help you promote yourself – as long as you are more than just certain that the articles demonstrate that you have some knowledge in an area.”

Matt continues “I say ‘more than just certain’ because I believe the most critical success factor (CSF) is that you have to somehow know that there is an audience who will be interested and want to seek you out for your knowledge following on from the publication. It will also matter WHERE you publish the article – as in what medium that the publication uses to broadcast to its readership and whether the audience you specifically want for your facilitating awareness or interest in your knowledge uses it. ”

Matt has raised an interesting discussion. It is not only the article that matters, it is also the place where you publish it that matters. Think of it yourself, where would a project managent article be better read, on an general article site or on a ‘niche’ project management site where you can meet project management oriented people?

Matt made me look at the statistics of the Prince2 Weblog and this was my conclusion:

“Hi Matt, as always with a very profound and very good response. Looking at the statistics of my weblogs I notice that you are right.

About 50% of the people visiting are interested in knowledge about programme management, project management or service management in general. But the posts that get the most hits are specific themes, like: product breakdown structure or product flow diagram (both two Visio templates). (Besides the links to sample exams….) ”

In the same reaction I also added that writing about one specific subject per article helps to show your expertise. For example:

“If I talk about ITIL I always start with the Product Catalogue (I know, I should start talking about Service Catalogues now….) and embedding the delivery of products and services in the change management process. ”

” With Prince2 I like the product decomposition stuff and Management of Risk.”

” With MSP I like to start talking about the business objectives and the ambition of a company.”

So what are factors that make publishing valuable?

1. First of all publish only articles about topics that you have knowledge of. A good article generates interest in you as the author, but a ‘quick and dirty’ article can generate negative publicity.

2. Put structure in your article. Remember the classes you’ve had about writing reports at highschool. A structured article is much better to read!

3. Publish your article on websites like articlesbase.com but don’t forget to put it also on niche websites like the Prince2 weblogs.

4. Don’t forget the end your article with your credentials. Of course: don’t forget to link to your weblog or profile on Facebook/LinkedIn.

About the Author:

René Bladder is an innovator with a strong focus on (business) processes.He has more than 15 years of IT experience as a systems designer, project manager, service manager and programme manager. His drive is to successfully implement a process approach in organisations in order to improve the efficiency and quality.

His weblogs can be found at:
- http://prince2.healthcheck-online.com
- http://itil.healthcheck-online.com
- http://msp.healthcheck-online.com

René has also automated the project management health check, check: http://www.healthcheck-online.com.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – How Project Management Articles Help to Promote Yourself??