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project reference library

Personal 1-to-1 Instruction
Tailored to Your Pace & Schedule

Designed for Busy Professionals: How it works

We tailor the course to your individual needs and we adapt so the course fits your pace and schedule. You decide when to do the reading assignments, when to attend lectures and when to do your assignments.

Your personal instructor, a certified PM, gives you feedback on every assignment and answers all your questions within 24 hours. You contact your instructor directly by phone or e-mail whenever you want. You start when you wish, and proceed at your pace and schedule; there are no time limits or set class times.

  1. You do the reading and watch lectures from anywhere, whenever it fits into your busy schedule.
  2. You talk to or email your personal instructor whenever you wish to discuss the course or projects at work.
  3. You master the skills of project management by actually managing a project through the whole lifecycle in project simulations.
  4. When you complete each assignment, your instructor, a PMI certified project manager, gives you personal feedback and coaching.
  5. Your instructor gives you advice, helps you correct your mistakes and role plays in presentations and negotiating sessions with you.
  6. You finish class with a set of practical skills and techniques you know how to apply.

Compare Us to the Competition

 

Course features

4PM 1-to-1 Instruction

Competitor' s
In-person Classes

Competitor's
On-line Learning

Class schedule

We give you unlimited access to lectures 24/7 from anywhere and you decide when to do your assignments. No time limits

They have rigid class dates & times with time limits

They have rigid class dates & times with time limits

How do I ask questions?

You phone or email your instructor directly and always get a personal answer in 24 hours, 7 days a week.
They make you compete with 30 people trying to ask questions

They make you compete with 120 other people trying to ask questions

Interaction with other project managers

You participate in our project management blog visited by 100s of PMs each day from all over the world.
They make you listen to other people's questions
 They put you in a chat room with 120 others
How do I practice PM techniques?
You practice by managing a project from start to finish: plan, schedule & negotiate 1-to-1 with your instructor
They make team assignments with no individual coaching
They use computer scored multiple choice tests

Do I learn a complete methodology in 1 class?

 Each of our classes (foundation, intermediate or advanced) teaches you a complete methodology
They make you take 5-7 classes to cover everything
 They teach one part of managing a project in each class
Is there feedback?

Your instructor sends you personal written or phone feedback & coaching on each assignment

They use only mutiple-choice tests

 They use only mutiple-choice tests

Are there reading assignments

We send you a paper-bound book written by our 4PM instructors & access to our project repository with 100's of articles.

They sell you an academic textbook with vague theories

 You must use an electronic textbook that you read off your PC screen
How big is the class?

You & your instructor work together privately at your pace

They lump you with 25-40 other people in a classroom

They put you in a chat room with 120 other people
Interactive Assignments
Experiential Learning

We guide you through project simulations with live interaction and video case studies plus "PMs in Action" videos

They give you no interaction beyond the team assignments
They give multiple choice tests

Step-by-step Through Our Courses

Personal Instructor interaction

 

What makes the quality of our Instruction Online superior to online or in-person courses is the quantity and intensity of the interaction you will have with your Personal Instructor. You’ll have more Personal Instructor interaction than you would in a small in-person class. On average, our students have 63 e-mail or phone exchanges with their Personal Instructor during a course. Your Personal Instructor will answer all your questions, review each of your assignments and send you written feedback and coaching. You’ll also work on project case studies with your Personal Instructor who will play the role of project sponsors or stakeholders so you can practice answering the tough questions that project managers have to answer.

You'll work directly with your Personal Instructor on every assignment in the course. If you have a question about the reading you can ask your Personal Instructor. If you want to discuss applying the techniques you’re learning to your projects at work you can call your Personal Instructor. When you have questions, you’ll ask them directly and privately to your Personal Instructor who’ll send you an answer by e-mail or call you to discuss your issues within 24 hours, 7 days a week.

On-demand lectures & videos of PMs in action

You have access to your lectures whenever you want; you set the schedule and pace and fit the lectures into your busy schedule. You can listen to a lecture several times or repeat a specific section. Best of all, you have access to the lectures even after the course is over so they are an ongoing reference. The lectures are given by experienced and certified project managers who show you proven, real world techniques. The 20 - 30 minute lecture for each module is richly illustrated so it’s easy to attend a lecture over lunch, in the evening or while you travel. You don’t need an Internet connection to attend a lecture and there are no slow downloads. You have the lectures on your CD and you have access forever.

Assignments & feedback

You will learn by reading and lectures and then practicing the techniques of project management. Unlike other programs, your assignments involve realistic project case studies where you’ll negotiate directly with sponsors and stakeholders in live and e-mail exchanges. You’ll use our templates to build project plans and then present them, just like you would at work, and answer the tough questions about completion dates and costs. Next you’ll use project management software to build, present and track an actual project schedule. We don't teach you with multiple choice questions, you’ll learn by actually doing it and your Personal Instructor work with you and may even ask you to redo an assignment until you have it right.

Project case studies live over the web

Because so much of project management involves dealing with people, you will have several project case studies where your Personal Instructor plays the role of the project sponsors, stakeholders or team members and asks questions so your can practice your presentation skills. You Personal Instructor will challenge your plan and status presentations so you learn to think on your feet and become confident in your ability to present project information. Your Personal Instructor will also give you feedback on your techniques so your skills improve at each step.

Textbook reading
You get both electronic and hardcopy versions of your textbooks. They are written by our certified project managers with 15 or more years of PM experience so they offer practical solutions and techniques that work in the real world, not vague academic theories.

MS Project® Training

Because you will utilize project management software as a practicing PM, we integrate the use of Microsoft Project® software into all your course case studies so the software becomes part of the step-by-step process you learn. You’ll actually build and optimize project schedules and budgets as well as track progress against the baseline plan. You will learn to model options and give sponsors tradeoffs to consider. Your Personal Instructor will send you status data from your team members, presenting you with challenging project problems you have to solve. You’ll get Personal Instructor feedback on all your software plans and schedules.

Summary

To succeed at project management you need practical skills you can immediately apply at work. Our training gives you those real world skills and an opportunity to practice them in a safe, private environment with an expert project manager as your coach.

We don't use chat rooms or bulletin boards. You can telephone or e-mail your Personal Instructor directly whenever you wish and you will always get a response within 24 hours, 7 days a week. It’s this personal coaching that makes our students so successful in applying what they’ve learned to their “real world” projects.