Take My Liberty MGMT 620 Class

The first five weeks read selected chapters from the McGraw-Hill Create text. They cover why projects are evaluated, how evaluation differs from routine monitoring, how to design an evaluation that sponsors and funders will trust, and how to measure progress and performance while the work is under way.

The chapter on progress and performance measurement is the technical center of the course. It teaches earned value management: comparing the budgeted value of work scheduled with the budgeted value of work actually done and with what that work really cost, then turning the gaps into variances, efficiency indices and forecasts of the final cost.

From week six the course moves to Thomas, whose chapters deal with evaluation in practice: planning a review, gathering information from the people involved, analyzing it, reporting it and, above all, turning lessons learned into changes that stick.

Each week carries a short presentation. Quizzes fall in weeks one, seven and eight; discussions in weeks two, four and five; the application exercises in weeks three and four; the research paper in week six; and the training project in week eight.

MGMT 620 is carried in two halves: the measurement work in the early weeks and the evaluation writing in the later ones.

Each application exercise is worked in Microsoft Word with tables built or pasted in, as the instructions require, and a title page. Every figure is shown with its formula. If a project has a planned value of $480,000 at the status date, earned value of $420,000 and actual cost of $460,000, the exercise shows a schedule variance of minus $60,000, a cost variance of minus $40,000, and indices of 0.875 and about 0.91, then explains in a sentence what each means for the sponsor.

Where the exercise asks for forecasts, the estimate at completion, the estimate to complete and the variance at completion are calculated under the assumption the question states, with a note on which assumption fits the project's situation.

The research paper surveys current practice in project evaluation, organizes it into a handful of best practices and tests them against three or more real cases, some that went well and some that did not.

The training project designs a session that teaches project teams to capture lessons and, harder, to use them on the next project, delivered as a deck of at least twenty slides and a one-page summary.

You post and submit everything, and the quizzes are yours.

MGMT 620 work goes to someone who measures and reviews projects for a living: a project controls analyst, a PMO manager or an evaluation consultant, usually with the PMP and a background in cost and schedule control.

That background matters most in the application exercises, where the difference between a cost index of 0.91 and 0.97 is a conversation with the sponsor, and the write-up says so.

It also shows in the research paper, where cases are chosen because their evaluations were documented, such as government programs reviewed by auditors or large IT projects examined after they ran over.

In the training deck it shows in the design: activities that make teams practice turning a lesson into a checklist item or a planning rule, rather than slides that simply explain why lessons matter.

A second reviewer recalculates every figure in the exercises and reads the papers for sources and APA before delivery, and one writer stays with your course.

Earned value is the first difficulty. The terms look alike, and mixing up planned value and earned value reverses the sign of every result.

Forecasting is the second. Different formulas for the estimate at completion suit different situations, and choosing the wrong one gives a confident but wrong answer.

The research paper is the third. It needs at least three documented cases plus eight references, five of them peer-reviewed, as well as a course text and the Bible.

The training project is the fourth, since twenty useful slides and a crisp one-page summary take design skill as well as content.

The three discussions come fifth, since every main answer must combine journal research, the course text and Scripture, and every reply must bring something of its own.

The first quiz falls in week one and the first discussion in week two, so handing the course over early is easiest.

Discussion answers reach you at the start of weeks two, four and five, with replies later in those weeks.

Application Exercise Part 1 arrives before week three ends and Part 2 before week four ends, each with a worked table and explanations.

The research paper arrives before week six closes, and the training deck and summary before week eight closes.

The quote prices each item separately, with the research paper and the training project the two largest lines.

Students who start late are quoted only for what remains.