Project Management & Other Tools for Career Development

Problem-solving and effective decision-making are essential skills in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing workplace. Both require a systematic yet creative approach to address today’s business concerns. This course will teach an overarching process of how to identify problems to generate potential solutions and how to apply decision-making styles in order to implement and assess those solutions. Through this process, you will gain confidence in assessing problems accurately, selecting the appropriate decision-making approaches for the situation at hand, making team decisions, and measuring the success of the solution’s implementation. Using case studies and situations encountered by class members, you will explore proven, successful problem-solving and decision-making models and methods that can be readily transferred to workplace projects. You will also learn to utilize frameworks like Root Cause Analysis and Decision Matrix tools. This course is for business professionals, managers, and team leaders seeking to enhance their strategic thinking and problem-solving skills. Upon completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Identify key terms, styles, and approaches to effective problem-solving and decision-making. 2. Explain how organizational decisions impact personal development, team dynamics, and company performance. 3. Reflect on how mindset and personal bias influence your ability to solve problems and make decisions. 4. Articulate how team decisions can benefit your professional growth and organizational strategy. To be successful in this course, you should have a basic understanding of business operations and team collaboration.

Effective writing is a powerful tool in the business environment. Learn how to articulate your thoughts in a clear and concise manner that will allow your ideas to be better understood by your readers. Improve your business writing skill by learning to select and use appropriate formats for your audience, use the correct medium and adjust your writing style accordingly, as well as identify your objective and communicate it clearly. You'll also learn to spot, correct and avoid the most common writing pitfalls, and gain valuable experience analyzing, writing and revising a wide spectrum of business documents. From a simple email to a complete report, learn how to put good business writing to work for you. Upon completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Write effective business communications, including bad news, good news, persuasive writing, presentations, emails, memos, business reports and press releases 2. Learn how to edit and proofread business documents 3. Learn how to write for a global market

The art of negotiation comes into play daily in the life of employees at all levels and in every position. Participants explore how current approaches to negotiation strategy and tactics are used, what negotiation entails, types of negotiation relationships that exist from hard bargain to win-win, to fully partnered relationships and personal ones. The course explores the personal and behavioral characteristics of an effective negotiator. Participants discuss how empowerment, power, and authority affect the negotiation process and outcome. Topics include how important it is to plan and prepare for a negotiation session. Upon completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Learn about the nature of negotiation and how it differs from selling 2. Gain awareness of the basic doctrines of negotiation and barriers to effective negotiation 3. Explain the role of authority and how to address it in negotiations 4. Explain the role of power in negotiations and how to address power inequities 5. Explain the positive and negative influences of empowerment 6. Learn the different “stances” or negotiation styles negotiators might adopt 7. Demonstrate the factors that influence which negotiation style is implemented 8. Describe the personal and behavioral characteristics of an effective negotiator 9. Demonstrate your grasp of emotional intelligence and how it impacts the effectiveness of a negotiator 10. Assess your own values and personal style and how they affect the negotiation process 11. Learn about the critical importance of planning and preparation in the negotiation process

The courses in the Introduction to Project Management Principles and Practices Specialization are a recommended precursor to UCI's Applied Project Management Certificate. Successful projects require careful upfront planning. In this course, you’ll learn the key roles and responsibilities of the project manager and project team. You’ll also learn to answer some key questions upfront to help you meet project objectives: What will this project accomplish? Why is this project important? Who benefits from this project? How will we plan for successful outcomes? Upon completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Identify the key characteristics of a project 2. Identify primary project constraints 3. Define the role and responsibilities of the project manager 4. Identify Project Organizational Structures 5. Understand the definition of a Project Stakeholder 6. Identify project stakeholders 7. Identify information needs of the project stakeholders 8. Define responsibility for managing stakeholder and controlling stakeholder engagement 9. Define the purpose of using a project charter 10. Summarize the key elements of a project plan 11. Identify common sources of conflict within a project environment 12. Describe the difference between authority and influence