Course list

On the surface, project management seems straightforward. However, at best, only 80% of projects end up being economically successful. The remaining 20% of projects usually cost more than estimated, run late, or fail to satisfy goals or meet objectives.

In this course, Linda Nozick, Professor and Director of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell, shares clear, understandable, and practical methods for achieving better results. You will practice breaking down a project into pieces that can be scheduled, tracked, and controlled.

While this is not a prep course for a project management certification, it will be quite valuable for anyone who is interested in pursuing one. This program will equip you with the concepts, tools, and language of project management that can be applied to any size and type of project.

The course is not specific to any formal project management software (e.g. Microsoft Project), but will require that learners have Microsoft Excel with its free Solver add-on installed.

  • Jun 11, 2025
  • Jun 25, 2025
  • Jul 9, 2025
  • Jul 23, 2025
  • Aug 6, 2025
  • Aug 20, 2025
  • Sep 3, 2025

Research shows that a high percentage of projects take significantly longer than expected and cost more than anticipated. Moreover, if you ask people for an estimate of how long a task will take them to complete, their estimate will usually be overly optimistic.

Sometimes, if you bring in extra people to help with a task, that actually slows down progress instead of accelerating it. Why is this so? And what can you do about it? In this course, from Linda K. Nozick, Director and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell, you will examine these questions. Students will identify strategies to integrate resource availability constraints into project planning, scheduling, and control.

This course is designed for project managers who seek better practical results for aligning available resources with tasks and bringing activities to completion on time. Students will examine compression strategies for bringing a project that's running late back on track and will explore how to handle common types of project creep, such as handling customer requests that require extra time, and working with team members who decide independently to invest extra effort in a task.

This course combines a focus on formal project management mechanisms with an emphasis on the human element: what can project managers do to resolve issues brought about in the normal course of working with customers, team members, and stakeholders?

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

  • Organizing the Project and Its Components
  • May 14, 2025
  • May 28, 2025
  • Jun 11, 2025
  • Jun 25, 2025
  • Jul 9, 2025
  • Jul 23, 2025
  • Aug 6, 2025

Risk management is a key function in project management. Project managers should be able to apply a variety of risk-management tools in their work, including performing risk identification, quantification, response, monitoring, and control.

In this course from Professor and Director of Civil and Environmental Engineering Linda K. Nozick, you will examine the nature and types of project risk and learn to apply specific mitigation strategies.

You'll have an opportunity to analyze a past project you've worked on and assess what the risks might have been and why. Then you'll analyze the outcomes: Did the known risks come to fruition? What were the leading indicators? What could they have done for contingency planning at the beginning? By asking these questions, you'll then be able to perform several calculations to compute the probability that a project will finish on time.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

  • Organizing the Project and Its Components
  • Planning and Managing Resources
  • May 14, 2025
  • May 28, 2025
  • Jun 11, 2025
  • Jun 25, 2025
  • Jul 9, 2025
  • Jul 23, 2025
  • Aug 6, 2025

In traditional project management, we tend to make assumptions: the customer knows precisely what they want, or the team's workflow and tasks will go according to plan and in sequence.

Practically speaking, this is rarely the case. Sometimes the customer doesn't know what they need until they see an early iteration of your team's work and can provide feedback. Because of this, work is usually done incrementally. We must build flexibility, even agility, into the model in order to succeed.

This course is designed for project managers who want to get better practical results with adaptive approaches to projects. Students in this course will be most successful if they have a foundational understanding of traditional project management tools and processes including project networks, budgets and schedules.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

  • Organizing the Project and Its Components
  • Planning and Managing Resources
  • Assessing, Managing, and Mitigating Project Risk
  • Using Earned Value Management for Project Managers
  • May 14, 2025
  • May 28, 2025
  • Jun 11, 2025
  • Jun 25, 2025
  • Jul 9, 2025
  • Jul 23, 2025
  • Aug 6, 2025

Symposium sessions feature three days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The Leadership Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium in which we’ll discuss the ways that leaders across industries have continued engaging their teams over the past two years while pivoting in strategic ways. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to relevant topics for leaders. Throughout this Symposium, you will examine different areas of leadership, including innovation, strategy, and engagement. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from various industries.

          All sessions are held on Zoom.

          Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.

          Symposium sessions feature three days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The Project Management Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

          Join us for the next Symposium, in which we’ll share experiences from across industries, inspiring dialogue around best practices, innovation, and the future of project management. You will support your coursework through discussion and application of your knowledge, exploring pressing challenges and trends. By participating in relevant and engaging with eCornell classmates, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections.

          All sessions are held on Zoom.

          Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.

          This course focuses on the psychological element of negotiation. You will learn how understanding your own and your partner's psychological state can have a significant effect on how your negotiation unfolds. You will be introduced to techniques that will allow you to develop your emotional intelligence for better communication with the other party. You will also learn about negotiations that failed as a result of certain feelings, and what to do in order to save them.

          This course requires 2 live negotiation sessions per course with a partner from your class. You will be asked to submit information on your time zone within 24 hours after the course starts  so that you are matched with a negotiating partner in time to complete the required negotiating assignments. Please be prepared to coordinate your schedule with an assigned partner. Specific instructions will be provided in the course. 
          • May 21, 2025
          • Jul 30, 2025
          • Oct 8, 2025
          • Dec 17, 2025

          Even experienced project leaders often find that regular meetings and status updates don't lead to meaningful communication. When the team doesn't fully understand project goals or how the work is going to get done, that lack of clarity will have a direct impact on whether the project is on time, within budget, and will lead to quality output. At the same time, team members may mislead you about their progress. Stakeholders may not always explain their expectations. Customers may be unclear about what they want and need. What's going wrong? And how can a project leader do better?

          In this course, authored by Cornell Instructor Robert Newman, you will examine typical project-related communication problems and explore practical strategies for overcoming them. You'll learn to host kick-offs and lead meetings that actually guide the team toward successful outcomes. You will practice communicating with a fresh, even sometimes unfamiliar, perspective in order to bring about productive and high-functioning working relationships.

          You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

          • Leverage Emotional Intelligence for Project Results
          • May 14, 2025
          • May 28, 2025
          • Jun 11, 2025
          • Jun 25, 2025
          • Jul 9, 2025
          • Jul 23, 2025
          • Aug 6, 2025

          Seasoned project leaders sometimes apply the same leadership approach to every situation. In this course, authored by Cornell Instructor Robert Newman, you'll explore a number of leadership styles to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses. You'll learn how to manage safety concerns, when to be directly coercive, and see how creative collaboration and a shot of inspiration can turn things around for a team.

          After taking this course, you'll be ready to employ a particular style or model of leadership just as a carpenter would a tool. Does the occasion call for a hammer or a saw? Every style of leadership has its merits and its place. Find out what style works best for the situation. 

          You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

          • Leverage Emotional Intelligence for Project Results
          • May 14, 2025
          • Jun 11, 2025
          • Jun 25, 2025
          • Jul 9, 2025
          • Jul 23, 2025
          • Aug 6, 2025
          • Aug 20, 2025

          Most managers only think about performance once a year when they have to conduct annual appraisals for their direct reports, or when things are going poorly. This course equips managers to move beyond this approach and develop an ongoing and proactive developmental process that helps their employees to perform best in their jobs. When your people are performing well, you're performing well and your organization can succeed.

          • May 21, 2025
          • Jun 4, 2025
          • Jun 18, 2025
          • Jul 2, 2025
          • Jul 16, 2025
          • Jul 30, 2025
          • Aug 13, 2025

          Important business decisions require justification, and while we often have data that can help us make those decisions, the skill with which we analyze the data can make the difference between a good and bad outcome. This course, developed by Professor Chris Anderson, is designed to move learners beyond making decisions focused solely on averages. In this course, you will develop a working familiarity with the grounding principles of data analysis. You will learn to derive the greatest benefit possible from the data available to you while ensuring that the conclusions you draw remain valid. You will apply a decision-making framework within which you'll interact with the data to achieve the best outcome.

          This course includes valuable tools and help sheets for data handlers along with the insight and perspective you need as a data consumer. While this course is not a replacement for a full-length statistics course, you will have a basic grounding in many statistics concepts by the time the course is over. You should be able to complete this course without any prior knowledge of statistics.

          Project Management Institute (PMI®) Continuing Certification: Participants who successfully complete this course will receive 6 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from PMI®. Please contact PMI ® for details about professional project management certification or recertification. PMI is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

          • Jun 11, 2025
          • Jul 2, 2025
          • Jul 23, 2025
          • Aug 13, 2025
          • Sep 3, 2025
          • Sep 24, 2025
          • Oct 15, 2025

          Summary statistics are one way to forecast uncertain outcomes, and the statistical results can be used to make decisions or guide strategy. Since summary statistics are based on a data sample, they typically inform intuitive decision-making. That is, the model requires interpretation which relies on the business intuition of the person using it.

          You'll learn how to examine sample data scientifically to limit any generalizations to only the patterns that have the strongest statistical support. As always, intuition and business knowledge play an important role in the process, but this course will prepare you to apply a level of scientific rigor that will lead to better results. 

          You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

          • Understanding and Visualizing Data
          • May 21, 2025
          • Jun 11, 2025
          • Jul 2, 2025
          • Jul 23, 2025
          • Aug 13, 2025
          • Sep 3, 2025
          • Sep 24, 2025

          Have you ever known a very intelligent person who made a very bad decision? If so, you know that having a high IQ does not guarantee that you automatically make critically thoughtful decisions. Critically thoughtful problem-solving is a discipline and a skill—one that allows you to make decisions that are the product of careful thought, and the results of those decisions help your team and organization thrive.

          In this course you will practice a disciplined, systematic approach to problem solving that helps ensure that your analysis of a problem is comprehensive, is based on quality, credible evidence, and takes full and fair account of the most probable counterarguments and risks. The result of this technique is a thoroughly defensible assessment of what the problem is, what is causing it, and the most effective plan of action to address it. Finally, you will identify and frame a problem by assessing its context and develop a well-reasoned and implementable solution that addresses the underlying causes.

          • Jun 18, 2025
          • Jul 2, 2025
          • Jul 16, 2025
          • Jul 30, 2025
          • Aug 13, 2025
          • Aug 27, 2025
          • Sep 10, 2025

          When trying to persuade someone, the tendency is to begin in advocacy mode—for example: “Here's something I want you to agree to.” Most people do not react positively to the feeling of being sold something. The usual reaction is to literally or figuratively start backing up. To make a convincing case, it is more effective to engage with the decision maker as a partner in problem-solving. This makes your counterpart feel less like someone is trying to get them to buy something and more like you are working together to bring about an outcome that is desirable to both parties. Begin by asking yourself: “What is the problem you and the decision maker are solving together?”

          By the end of this course, you will have learned how to deeply analyze a problem, possible solutions, and the associated risks as well as the most persuasive and efficient ways of presenting your proposal.

          You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

          • Solve Problems Using Evidence and Critical Thinking
          • May 21, 2025
          • Jun 4, 2025
          • Jun 18, 2025
          • Jul 2, 2025
          • Jul 16, 2025
          • Jul 30, 2025
          • Aug 13, 2025

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