This course is for early career professionals and accidental project managers.

Technical requirements are minimal: participants must must be able to meet via Zoom® (or similar) platform.

The course is easy. Participants explore class content and take part in live sessions in any ways that they like, provided that they do not violate our ground rule at Cogent Language: “be kind”.

There are no prerequisite courses or certifications.  However, to achieve course objectives, participants must have prior experience in some team project(s), since modeling project experience is a key learning activity.

This course aims to enable participants each to grow their own project know-how, suited to their own real worlds. To this end, those who complete it successfully should be able to:

1 Model project know-how via specific constructs that help achieve essential team purposes:

• Engaging Stakeholders
• Teaming Up
• Appreciating Values
• Modeling Development
• Planning Responsibilities
• Empowering Co-workers
• Delivering Value
• Adapting in Turbulence

2 Help project teams achieve essential purposes by

• Analyzing team work individually (e.g. gap, root cause, SWOT analysis)
• Analyzing, coaching, collaborating, and mentoring, with humans and AI
• Identifying know-how needed for team purposes and planning to grow it
• Growing individual and team  know-how in the workplace

3 Collaborate in dispersed project teams by video conferencing and online platforms for visual collaboration, e.g. mindmapping

4 Inform project know-how by 6 great perspectives on it: Agile, Plan-driven (“waterfall”); General Business Management; Systems Analysis and Engineering; Kaizen (incl. Quality, Lean, Flow, etc.); Soft Systems Collaborative Design

5 Given a project history, critique decision-making in a principled, constructive way

6 Devise and continously improve a roadmap for expanding personal repertoire of project know-how going forward

• Personal Access to Cogent Language Online Resources
  
  • Case Study (PDF) "The Dilemma of a Project Manager"
  • Online workspace for note-taking and  mapping 1) root causes of project failure 2) personal repertoire of project know-how 3) roadmap for expanding ppersonal repertoire
  • Online community: "Exploring" 
• Live Session Resources
  • Session Schedule (Zoom®)
  • Session Agendas (At Cogent Language Site "Basic Project Know-how")
  • Optional session assignments (listed below)
  • Breakout room Collaboration
• Access to and advice on AI mentoring
• Access to “Project Constructs” video library blog

- Case Study PDF

- For participants who wish to do the tasks, 3 maps of their own project know-how: 1) root causes of project failure, 2)  personal repertoire of project know-how, and 3) roadmap for expanding repertoire

-Certificate of completion for the participants who develop substantive mappings as above, by the fifth and final week of the program. Note that these maps are eligible for review by the coach only on a batch basis in the fifth and final week the program (that is, not during the first four weeks).  

Learning in this course does not rely on textbooks, talking-head videos, slide decks, or practice tests. It relies mainly on situated experience, reflection on it, and individual practice. Classmate collaboration, facilitator coaching, and AI "mentoring” are available as well.

Key learning activities for those who wish to do them are assignments, task-based, personal, constructive, and cumulative. Each assignment addresses one basic purpose of any project team. Identified in the schedule above, there are eight (8) such purposes and task assignments.

In this class, participants may conduct one or two types of case study assignment (or none at all). One type addresses a published commercial case provided by the course. This is used by the coach to create an understanding of basic project know-how that is shared by all participants. 

The second case study assignment is unique to each participant who choses to do it. Each selects some “project(s) in focus” (PiF), done or nearly done, in which they had substantial experience. This should be a team project, 2 or more months long, one of the best that they have taken part in. Participants start this kind of assignment by reviewing PiF team work toward a single basic team purpose. They then identify project constructs that were key to achieving the PiF purpose and that seem to have the most potential for doing so in the future. To learn these constructs, participants can then create a personal, time-phased learning roadmap.

In the live sessions, the coach surfaces project know-how constructs and perspectives using the case study and/or the work of participants who wish to share. In each assignment, participants can create a job aid and a roadmap : a job aid helping them to contribute to a team purpose, and a roadmap for their own individual continued learning.

With all that said, again, for those in this Exploring Basic Project Know-how course, the goal really is exploring, not working to some pre-set goals on a pre-set  schedule. Thus, for participants in this program, all above assignments are optional.

“Be kind” is the one ground rule. No matter how “hard” and effective one may be at problem-solving or managing, in this course, it is essential to be “soft on people”, that is, kind, considerate, and respectful.

The first serious violation of this rule will result in a warning by the coach.  A second may result in limits to violator’s ability to participate. In cases of repeated or extreme violations, Cogent Language reserves the right to cancel violator’s class registration, with or without refunding tuition.

To maximize your learning, Cogent Language guidelines are:  Be here, be ready, be willing, and be brave.

• Re “be here”, please attend live sessions, craft your maps, and discuss freely
• Re “be ready”, please bring some new work “to the party” every week if you can
• To have new work ready every week, “be willing” to spend about 2 hours prepping. (Show your time management skills: schedule these early in the course!)
• Re “be brave”, don’t be afraid of sharing your work or of being “hard on problems”