PMP vs PgMP: What Is the Difference and Is It Worth the Upgrade?

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If you already have your PMP, program management is a natural next step. Here is everything you need to know to decide whether the PgMP is the right move.

The Salary Difference

According to PMI’s Earning Power Report, the average US salary for a PMP holder is $135,000. PgMP holders earn around 10% more at $146,000. That gap alone makes it worth considering if you have the experience to qualify.

What Each Certification Represents

The PMP demonstrates project management expertise. It shows you can lead individual projects through initiation to closing with at least three years of experience behind you.
The PgMP positions you as a leader capable of managing multiple related projects as a unified program, delivering sustained business value across an organization. It is a step up in both scope and seniority.

Application Requirements

For the PMP you need either a high school diploma with five years of project management experience or a bachelor’s degree with three years, plus 35 contact hours of project management education.

The PgMP requirements are more involved. You need four years of project management experience or a current PMP. On top of that you need program management experience: seven years with a high school diploma, four years with a bachelor’s degree or three years with a master’s degree.

The Exam

The PMP has 180 questions to be completed in 230 minutes, roughly one answer every 75 seconds. It covers people, process and the business environment.

The PgMP has 170 questions with 240 minutes to complete them, giving you slightly more time per question at around 84 seconds each. Only 150 questions are scored and 20 are unscored test questions for future exams. The content covers strategic program management, the program life cycle (initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing), benefits management, stakeholder management and governance.

Cost

The PMP costs $405 for PMI members or $655 without membership. The 35 contact hours of education are also required and can be completed through PMI, Udemy or other providers.

The PgMP costs $800 for PMI members or $1,000 without. There is no contact hours requirement for the PgMP. The focus is entirely on demonstrating program management experience.

What to Study

For the PMP the core resources are the Exam Content Outline, the PMBOK Guide, the Process Groups Practice Guide and the Agile Practice Guide.

For the PgMP the approach is similar. Download the PgMP Exam Content Outline free from PMI’s website as your study guide. Then work through the Standard for Program Management Fifth Edition and the PMBOK Guide. The PMBOK Guide is currently in its eighth edition.

If you have been managing programs for several years and want credentials that reflect that, the PgMP is a well-recognized way to demonstrate it. The experience requirements are substantial but so is the return.

– David McLachlan

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 28 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
PgMP Program Management CourseLearn Program Management – the PgMP Prep Course
Full PMP Exams to Pass on the First TryFour Full PMP Practice Exams (180 Qs each) to pass your PMP on the First Try!
Scrum Master Course PSMScrum Master Course (PSM)
Product Owner Course PSPOProduct Owner Course (PSPO)
Business Analyst CourseBusiness Analyst Course

Also available are my Project Management Templates – these don’t have a coupon code but they’re a great way to save 100s of hours when you’re first starting out:

50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Templates: Save 100 HOURS!

 

The Lazy Man’s Guide to Passing the PMP Exam

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Someone recently passed their PMP in four weeks and shared exactly how they did it, including what they studied each week and what helped most during the exam itself. Here is the full breakdown.

The Four-Week Study Plan

The Lazy Man_s Guide to Passing Your PMP (4 Week Guide)Week one was mostly procrastination dressed up as preparation. They made a study schedule, compiled resources and watched two videos: my complete PMBOK summary video on YouTube and Ricardo Vargas’ popular breakdown of the PMBOK Sixth Edition processes. Not a bad start, but mostly avoidance of the real work.

Week two was where the heavy lifting happened. The entire week was spent on one resource: my 150 PMBOK 7 scenario-based PMP exam questions and answers video on YouTube. The format mirrors the real exam closely, with two seemingly correct answers per question and a clear explanation of how to arrive at the right one. They skipped the 200 agile questions and 100 waterfall questions, feeling the PMBOK 7 set was comprehensive enough on its own.

Week three was a rest week. They acknowledged it was probably a mistake but took it anyway.

Week four was focused and practical. One day was spent speed-reading Third Rock’s study guide, which comes up frequently in PMP success stories. The rest of the week was dedicated to PMI Study Hall practice questions, reading the guide each morning and working through questions for the remainder of the day.

Four Study Tips

Start practice questions as soon as possible. This was the clearest theme across the entire four weeks. There is a scientific reason it works: retrieving information from memory strengthens the neural connections that hold it. Reading embeds information passively. Practice questions force active recall and that is what makes it stick.

Do not read the PMBOK Guide cover to cover if that is not how you learn. Watch a good summary video instead and move to practice questions quickly. The goal is not to memorize the book. It is to develop the right exam mindset.

Do not over-invest in the 35-hour education course. You need it to apply but do not treat it as your primary study tool. Use it to fulfill the requirement and then shift your focus to practice questions.

Do not stress about memorizing every framework, formula and diagram. Ishikawa diagrams, Tuckman’s ladder, earned value formulas: most of what you need to know will surface naturally once you start working through practice questions regularly.

Four Tips for the Exam Itself

1. Look before you leap.

Almost every PMP question presents multiple answers that appear equally valid at first glance. Slow down, follow the project management process (initiate, plan, execute, monitor and control, close) and talk to the relevant stakeholder before taking action. Gather information before making a move.

2. Stop making assumptions.

Even experienced project managers fall into this trap. Ten years in one organization can create blind spots. If something is not explicitly stated in the question, do not assume it is true. Ask yourself whether you are reading it in the question or bringing it from your own experience.

3. Know your role.

The project manager is not the sponsor, the product owner or the engineering team. The sponsor funds the project and handles escalations. The product owner prioritizes the backlog. The engineers do the engineering work and provide estimates. Do not answer questions by doing other people’s jobs for them.

4. Avoid the snaky answer.

If an option involves going around someone, ignoring a request or doing something that feels slightly underhanded, skip it. The right answer is almost always direct and collaborative. Go straight to the source, work with people and tackle problems head on.

Four weeks, one rest week included, and a pass. The formula was simpler than most people expect: get the mindset right, do the practice questions and trust the process.

– David McLachlan

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 28 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
PgMP Program Management CourseLearn Program Management – the PgMP Prep Course
Full PMP Exams to Pass on the First TryFour Full PMP Practice Exams (180 Qs each) to pass your PMP on the First Try!
Scrum Master Course PSMScrum Master Course (PSM)
Product Owner Course PSPOProduct Owner Course (PSPO)
Business Analyst CourseBusiness Analyst Course

Also available are my Project Management Templates – these don’t have a coupon code but they’re a great way to save 100s of hours when you’re first starting out:

50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Templates: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Product Manager vs Product Owner: Roles, Differences and Salaries

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If you have spent time in agile or project management, you have probably come across both the product manager and product owner titles. They sound similar, they are often described in similar ways, and both are sometimes called the CEO of the product. But they are not the same role, the responsibilities differ and as it turns out, so do the salaries quite significantly.

The Salaries

Product managers earn between $272,000 and $326,000 a year, and more in high-growth environments where stock and bonus considerations come into play. Product owners earn an average of $107,000 a year in the US. Both are strong salaries, but the gap is significant and comes down to scope.

What a Product Manager Does

Sharif Mansour spent 16 years as a product manager at Atlassian, the company behind Jira. He describes the role as driving the development of a product, defining its strategy and building out its roadmap and features.

In practice that means identifying and understanding user needs, monitoring the market, developing competitive analyses and aligning those insights into a clear product vision. From there the product manager prioritizes features and capabilities to deliver on that strategy, aligning stakeholders and teams to turn it into reality.

What a Product Owner Does

The product owner role comes primarily from agile and scrum. The Scrum Guide describes the product owner as accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the scrum team.

In practice the responsibilities look similar to a product manager: developing and communicating the product goal, creating and prioritizing product backlog items and ensuring the team is always working on the highest-value features. The key difference is scope. A product owner typically works with one team on one product. A product manager often oversees multiple projects or multiple teams, operating more like a program manager across the product landscape. That broader scope is largely what drives the salary difference.

Both roles require a strong understanding of the user, the technology and the business. If you are closer to a single agile team, product owner is likely the more relevant path. If you are thinking about product strategy across a broader organization, product manager is the direction to explore.

– David McLachlan

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 28 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
PgMP Program Management CourseLearn Program Management – the PgMP Prep Course
Full PMP Exams to Pass on the First TryFour Full PMP Practice Exams (180 Qs each) to pass your PMP on the First Try!
Scrum Master Course PSMScrum Master Course (PSM)
Product Owner Course PSPOProduct Owner Course (PSPO)
Business Analyst CourseBusiness Analyst Course

Also available are my Project Management Templates – these don’t have a coupon code but they’re a great way to save 100s of hours when you’re first starting out:

50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Templates: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Microsoft Project: From Beginner to Expert in One Session

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More than 20 million people use Microsoft Project to manage their projects, including teams at Coca-Cola and hundreds of other Fortune 500 companies. If you have been meaning to get up to speed, here is everything you need to know to build a real project plan from scratch.

Setting Up Your Project

When you open a new blank project, the first thing to do is switch tasks from manual to automatic scheduling. You will find this toggle at the bottom of the screen. It saves a lot of pain later. While you are at it, right-click the Gantt chart area and add light gridlines under Grid Lines to make the chart easier to read.

Building Your Work Breakdown Structure

Start by entering your high-level features in the task name column. Once those are in, right-click to insert tasks underneath each feature and indent them using the indent button in the task tab. This creates your work breakdown structure: features at the top level with their individual tasks nested below.

Add an overall project name at the very top and indent everything beneath it. Microsoft Project will then calculate a total project duration automatically. Color-coding your feature rows makes the structure easier to read at a glance.

Adding Durations and Linking Tasks

Enter duration estimates against each task. As you do, the Gantt chart starts to populate on the right. To bulk-edit tasks with the same duration, select them, go to Task and then Information and apply the duration across all of them at once.

Once durations are in, select all tasks and click Link Selected Tasks. This sequences them from finish to start and gives you a realistic overall project duration. You can then adjust individual dependencies by double-clicking the arrows between tasks and choosing from finish to start, start to start or finish to finish. Leads and lags can be added here too: a positive number adds lag and a negative number brings a task forward.

To mark a release or key milestone, insert a task and set its duration to zero. A diamond will appear on the Gantt chart.

Critical Path and Slack

Go to Gantt Chart Format and select Critical Tasks to highlight the tasks that directly affect your end date. Add the Slack option to see where there is wiggle room. If you want a network diagram view instead of the Gantt chart, right-click the left panel and switch to Network Diagram. Red boxes indicate critical path tasks.

Resources and Cost

Right-click the left panel and open the Resource Sheet. Add your team roles as work resources with hourly rates. Physical items like computers and desks are added as material or cost resources with a fixed rate.

Once resources are set up, double-click any task and go to the Resources tab to assign people and set their allocation. Four developers on one task is entered as 400%.
When your plan is complete, go to Project and Set Baseline. This locks in your original plan so that any future changes can be tracked against it. Microsoft Project will always show you where you stand versus where you started.

– David McLachlan

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 28 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Templates: Save 100 HOURS!
PgMP Program Management CourseLearn Program Management – the PgMP Prep Course
Full PMP Exams to Pass on the First TryFour Full PMP Practice Exams (180 Qs each) to pass your PMP on the First Try!
Scrum Master Course PSMScrum Master Course (PSM)
Product Owner Course PSPOProduct Owner Course (PSPO)
Business Analyst CourseBusiness Analyst Course

 

Four Ways to Recover a Failing Project

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Every project manager has experienced a project going off the rails. Here are four reasons  I’ve seen projects fail, over and over again, and what to do about each of them.

1. Disruptive Noise

When a project starts to struggle, the stakeholders around it get “loud”. Executives start poking around, stakeholders start asking more questions – and rightly so because they sense that something isn’t quite right. But the increased scrutiny creates a cycle that disrupts the project further. They might replace key people that you need, or they might even make some decisions that you know will have a negative effect.

The fastest way to break the cycle of “disruptive noise” is to deliver small, early wins.

Break the project into smaller pieces and showcase something real as soon as possible. A working prototype, a test environment delivery or a completed milestone. Follow it up with a clear communication far and wide – to the right people showing what has been achieved.

Speaking of the right people: check the organizational chart. Missing a high-influence stakeholder is one of the most common ways projects run into trouble. Identifying and engaging them early prevents much bigger problems later.

2. No Resources or Authority

Being asked to deliver a project without the funding or access to make it happen is a situation that catches many project managers off guard. The fix is to get commitment in writing before work begins.

A signed project charter that includes the project sponsor’s commitment to funding and resources is not just a formality. It is a forcing function. If a sponsor is not willing to commit resources to paper, that tells you something important before you have spent months working toward a goal that was never properly supported.

3. Unrealistic Timeframes

An executive wants it done in two months. The people doing the work say six months. This is one of the most universal project management experiences there is.

Always get estimates from the people actually doing the work, not from the people requesting it. Use ranges rather than single-point estimates, especially early in the project when complexity is highest. Experienced project managers on large construction projects routinely build in a 40% contingency. Things change over one to two years in ways that cannot be fully anticipated at the start.

If the pressure for an unrealistic timeframe continues, raise it formally as a risk. Document the potential impacts: reduced scope, increased cost or both. Assign an owner to that risk. Often the right owner is the executive applying the pressure in the first place. Once the risk is documented and assigned, everyone is on the same page if things deteriorate further.

4. Frequent Change Requests

Constant changes to scope are usually a symptom of unclear scope from the start. The solution is to get specific about what is being delivered before work begins.

Involve subject matter experts and break the work down into a work breakdown structure. Prototypes, wireframes, storyboards and process maps are all useful tools for making the scope visible and testable early. The more concrete the picture of what is being delivered, the less room there is for misalignment later.

When change requests do come in, make the impacts transparent. Every change affects the triple constraint: scope, schedule and cost. If someone wants to add something, show them exactly what it will cost in time and money. When the person requesting the change understands the tradeoffs, the conversation becomes much more straightforward.

None of these problems are unusual. Most experienced project managers have encountered all four. The difference between a project that recovers and one that does not usually comes down to how quickly the root cause is identified and addressed.

– David McLachlan

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 28 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Templates: Save 100 HOURS!
PgMP Program Management CourseLearn Program Management – the PgMP Prep Course
Full PMP Exams to Pass on the First TryFour Full PMP Practice Exams (180 Qs each) to pass your PMP on the First Try!
Scrum Master Course PSMScrum Master Course (PSM)
Product Owner Course PSPOProduct Owner Course (PSPO)
Business Analyst CourseBusiness Analyst Course

 

Agile from Start to Finish: Everything You Need to Know

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More than 86% of software development teams have used agile in some form. If you have been meaning to get your head around Agile here is everything you need to know, from the history through to the daily practice.

Where Agile Came From

Agile did not appear from nowhere. It traces back to the Toyota Production System and lean thinking developed decades earlier. Kanban was created at Toyota in 1953. Scrum grew from a 1986 paper called “The New New Product Development Game.” Extreme programming, feature-driven development and several other lightweight frameworks followed.

In 2001, 17 practitioners representing these different approaches came together and agreed on a shared set of values. The result was the Agile Manifesto, which prioritizes individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation and responding to change over following a plan.

Agile Roles

Three roles sit at the center of most agile teams.

The Product Owner represents the customer. They maintain the product backlog, which is a prioritized list of features to be delivered, with the highest-value item always at the top. They are one person, not a committee. They have the final say on what gets worked on next.

The scrum master is a servant leader. They help the team remove blockers, facilitate cere

monies or “events” and protect the team’s focus. They are a neutral third party in problem solving to help unblock the work.

The team does the work. In software that usually means developers, but agile applies equally to research, design and any other knowledge work.

How a Sprint (or Iteration) Works

Work is organized into iterations, typically two weeks long. Here is how one flows from start to finish.

Sprint planning kicks things off. The team selects the highest-priority user stories from the product backlog, enough to fill the sprint based on their velocity. Velocity is simply how many story points the team completed in recent sprints. If the last few averaged 25 points, the next sprint is filled to 25. This keeps the pace sustainable.

Every day the team holds a 15-minute standup around the Kanban board. Each person shares their progress and flags any blockers. The goal is to surface problems quickly so the team can swarm around them and keep moving.

During the sprint, backlog refinement happens in parallel. The three amigos (someone representing the customer, a developer and a tester) come together to break upcoming features into user stories, add acceptance criteria and estimate their size relative to each other.

At the end of the sprint, the team holds a sprint review. A real, usable increment is demonstrated to the customer. Not a presentation. Not a report. The actual thing. The customer gives feedback and the backlog is updated accordingly.

The sprint closes with a retrospective. What went well, what did not and what will improve next time. Actions are agreed and carried into the next sprint.

The 12 Agile Principles

The signatories of the Agile Manifesto later published 12 clarifying principles. They are worth knowing.

  1. Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of working software.
  2. Welcome changing requirements even late in development.
  3. Deliver working software frequently, with a preference for shorter timescales.
  4. Business people and developers must work together daily.
  5. Build teams around motivated individuals and trust them.
  6. Face-to-face communication is the most efficient way to share information.
  7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
  8. Maintain a sustainable and constant pace.
  9. Pursue technical excellence and good design continuously.
  10. Simplicity, maximizing the work not done, is essential.
  11. The best solutions emerge from self-organizing teams.
  12. At regular intervals, reflect and adjust.

Agile works because it is built around real feedback, real increments and continuous improvement. Once you understand the logic behind it, the events and the roles all start to make sense.

– David McLachlan

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

PMP Project Management Course Specials for May 2026

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If you’re looking for a fast, cheap and enjoyable way to study project management this year, you can get my courses at a VERY low price with the coupon code:

  • MAY2026

Only during May 2026 😊 It’s a great way to get PDUs – ranging from 10 to 35 PDUs in one go, to help you renew your PMP or other PMI Certification.

Here are the courses:

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 28 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
PgMP Program Management CourseLearn Program Management – the PgMP Prep Course
Full PMP Exams to Pass on the First TryFour Full PMP Practice Exams (180 Qs each) to pass your PMP on the First Try!
Scrum Master Course PSMScrum Master Course (PSM)
Product Owner Course PSPOProduct Owner Course (PSPO)
Business Analyst CourseBusiness Analyst Course

Also available are my Project Management Templates – these don’t have a coupon code but they’re a great way to save 100s of hours when you’re first starting out:

50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Templates: Save 100 HOURS!

– David McLachlan

From Zero to Jira Hero: Everything You Need to Run Your Jira Projects

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Jira is one of the most widely used project management tools for agile teams. Here is everything you need to get from first login to sprint reporting.

Creating Your Account and First Project

Jira is free for teams of one to ten users. Once you are in, create a new project, select Software Development and choose the Scrum template. For most users, Team Managed is the right choice as it keeps your project self-contained. Company Managed is worth knowing about if you have multiple projects that need central administration by Jira admins.

Give your project a name and Jira will generate a short key that appears on every card.

Setting Up Your Epics

Your two main workspaces are the Backlog and the Board. Start in the Backlog.
Open the Epic panel by pressing E or clicking the option in the panel. Epics are your high-level features. Click Create Epic to add one and assign each a different color so you can track which work belongs where as the board fills up.

Building Your Backlog

With epics in place, start adding user stories by clicking Create. Each card can be typed as a story, bug or other work type. Custom types like risks or spikes are available through Manage Types.

Click any card to open its details. From there you can assign it to an epic, set its status, assign it to a team member and add story point estimates. Add a description to capture acceptance criteria and any supporting information.

Creating and Starting a Sprint

Click Create Sprint, set the duration and select a start date. Jira calculates the end date automatically. Add a sprint goal to give the team a clear focus.

Move cards into the sprint by dragging them from the backlog or right-clicking and selecting the target sprint. Keep an eye on story point totals and match them to your team’s velocity. When ready, click Start Sprint and your cards move onto the board.

Working the Board

The board displays your active sprint in columns. Add new columns by clicking the plus symbol on the right and dragging them into position. Custom filters through Manage Custom Filters use JQL (Jira Query Language) to adjust the board view. A simple filter showing only cards assigned to the current user is a good starting point.

Completing a Sprint and Reading Reports

At the end of the sprint, click Complete Sprint. Unfinished cards roll over automatically. Review your backlog, confirm priorities with the product owner and start the next sprint when the team is ready.

After two or three sprints, navigate to Reports to start tracking performance. The Velocity Report shows story points committed versus completed across recent sprints, giving you a reliable average to plan against. The Sprint Burndown Chart tracks work coming down over the course of a sprint against the ideal trend line, making it easy to spot if the team is falling behind mid-sprint.

Using the Timeline as a Roadmap

The Timeline view shows your epics and user stories laid out across time, similar to a Gantt chart. Drag items to adjust dates and use this view to communicate progress and upcoming features to stakeholders. It is one of the clearest ways to show where the product is heading and when things will be delivered.

Set up your epics, build your backlog, match your work to your velocity and use the reports to keep improving. It is a straightforward tool once you know where everything lives.

– David McLachlan

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

Navigate to Free Project Management and Leadership Articles through the links on the right (or at the bottom if on Mobile) 

PMI PMP 35 PDUs CourseThe Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)
Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)The Complete PMI-ACP Course: (28 PDUs) 
50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)
Project Management Plan TemplatesPre-made Project Management Plan Template: Save 100 HOURS!

 

Everything You Need to Know from the Google Project Management Certificate

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More than two million people have enrolled in the Google Project Management Certificate. It covers six courses, 27 modules and takes most people over 240 hours to complete. Here is the entire program distilled into a single read.

The Foundations

A project is a unique, temporary endeavor with a start and end date, designed to deliver value. That sounds simple enough until you are six months in, the scope has doubled and nobody can agree on what done looks like. Project management exists to prevent exactly that.

Core responsibilities include gathering requirements, developing a plan, tracking progress, communicating milestones and managing the budget. Career paths run from junior project manager through to program and portfolio manager. In agile environments, the scrum master and product owner are the key roles to understand.

Two broad methodologies dominate the field. Waterfall follows a sequential order of phases and works best when scope is clearly defined. Agile delivers in short iterations of one to four weeks, gathers real customer feedback after each and adjusts course. Lean Six Sigma rounds things out with a focus on reducing defects and waste through DMAIC: define, measure, analyze, improve and control.

Initiating a Project

Every project starts with a problem or an opportunity. Before anything else, a cost-benefit analysis confirms it is actually worth solving. Goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timebound. The difference between “improve customer experience” and “reduce checkout time by 10% within six weeks” is the difference between a project that drifts and one that delivers.

The project charter formalizes the goals, scope and resources and gives the project manager authority to proceed once the sponsor signs off. Without it, you are running on goodwill.

Planning

Good planning is not bureaucracy. It is what separates projects that succeed from ones that quietly fall apart. Build a work breakdown structure, map milestones to a Gantt chart, assign resources and involve the team in estimating durations. They know their work better than anyone.

Build in buffers, identify risks early and rate each one by multiplying probability by impact. Plan a response for the ones that matter most. A communication plan that defines what gets shared, with whom and how often is not optional: some practitioners argue communication is 90% of the job.

Executing and Closing

Execution is where plans meet reality. Track everything: tasks, milestones, costs, scope changes and risks. A weekly status report with a red, amber or green indicator keeps stakeholders informed without overwhelming them. Hold retrospectives regularly to surface what is working and fix what is not before it compounds.

When closing, get formal sign-off, archive documentation and produce two things: a project closeout report (planned versus actual) and a project impact report showing the real value delivered. Executives respond to metrics and visuals. Give them both.

Agile and Scrum

Agile was formalized in 2001 and scrum is now used by 72% of agile teams. The product owner prioritizes the backlog, the scrum master removes blockers and the team decides how the work gets done. Keep user stories small, match sprint capacity to velocity and use retrospectives to keep improving. When agile works well, it really works.

Project management is one of the most transferable skills in any industry. This is the foundation.

The Scrum Guide: Everything You Need to Know

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More than 87% of people working in agile use scrum or some part of it. Yet many teams do not fully understand where it came from or how it was intended to work. The Scrum Guide, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland and last updated in 2020, is the authoritative source. It is free at scrumguides.org. Here is the whole thing explained plainly.

What Is Scrum?

Scrum is a lightweight framework for solving complex problems and delivering value through adaptive solutions. It works best when you cannot know everything upfront. Rather than planning in detail for a future you cannot predict, you deliver something real, get genuine feedback and adjust. That is the core logic.

The Scrum Team

A scrum team has three roles: developers, a product owner and a scrum master. No sub-teams, no hierarchies. Ten people or fewer.

Developers deliver a usable increment every sprint. They create the sprint plan, maintain quality and hold each other accountable. The term applies to anyone doing the work, not just software engineers.

The product owner manages the product backlog: defining the product goal, ordering backlog items by priority and keeping everything visible to the whole team. One person, not a committee. Others can suggest changes but only by convincing the product owner. When organizations trust this role and give it room to operate, decisions get made faster and the product improves faster.

The scrum master is a coach who also clears the path. They help the team stay self-managing, remove blockers, escalate issues and keep events productive. They serve the team, the product owner and the broader organization.

The Artifacts

The product backlog is the single source of work for the team: an ordered list of everything needed to meet the product goal. One product goal at a time.

The sprint backlog is the set of items selected for the sprint plus the developers’ plan for delivering them. Its commitment is the sprint goal: one clear objective that keeps the team focused.

The increment is the real, usable piece of value delivered at the end of a sprint. It must meet the definition of done before it can be released. If it does not, it goes back to the backlog.

The Events

The sprint is the container for everything else. One to four weeks, fixed length. The sprint goal must not change mid-sprint. Only the product owner can cancel a sprint, and only if the goal has become obsolete.

Sprint planning kicks off the sprint (timeboxed to eight hours for a one-month sprint). The team answers three questions: why is this sprint valuable, what can be done and how will the work get done?

The daily scrum is 15 minutes, same time and place each day, for developers only. Inspect progress toward the sprint goal and adapt the plan for the next 24 hours.

The sprint review (timeboxed to four hours) is where the team presents the real increment to stakeholders. Not a recording, not a mockup. The real thing. Together they discuss what was learned and what comes next.

The sprint retrospective (timeboxed to three hours) closes the sprint. What went well, what did not and what will improve next time. The most impactful changes are acted on immediately.

Theory and Values

Scrum runs on three pillars: transparency (make the work visible), inspection (regularly examine progress) and adaptation (adjust quickly when something is off track). The longer you wait to course-correct, the harder it gets.

The five scrum values tie it together: commitment, focus, openness, respect and courage. When a team genuinely lives these, trust builds and scrum works.

Scrum is simple by design. The challenge is not understanding it. It is applying it honestly and giving the team the trust and space to do the work.

– David McLachlan

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