Project Management & Other Tools for Career Development Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 6 months to complete
Suggested 1 hour/week
Project management has been proven to be the most effective method of delivering products within cost, schedule, and resource constraints. It is an essential skill in the modern digital constantly changing world.
This intensive and hands-on series of courses gives you a blend of skills from project management. Successful projects require careful upfront planning. In this specialization, you will gain a strong working knowledge of the basics of project management. You’ll learn the key roles and responsibilities of the project manager and project team and to answer some key questions upfront to help you meet project objectives, as well as managing project risk.
Additionally, this specialization will train you in essential career success skills that have become indispensable, like business writing, negotiation and effective problem-solving. Thus, in addition to introducing you to project management, this specialization will help you build, develop and hone the essential skills needed to improve your employability and advancement in today’s dynamic workforce, giving you a complete, comprehensive skill set.
Through the Project Management & Other Tools for Career Development Specialization, you will experience hands-on projects which including reviewing case studies, videos, and lectures to understand scope, stakeholder input, project communication, managing risk, document communication, negotiation, and decision making methods.
Project Management Principles and Practices Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 5 months to complete
Suggested 1 hour/week
Project Management Principles and Practices. Work Better, Together.
This specialization is a precursor to the Applied Project Management Certificate. Project management has been proven to be the most effective method of delivering products within cost, schedule, and resource constraints. This intensive and hands-on series of courses gives you the skills to ensure your projects are completed on time and on budget while giving the user the product they expect. You will gain a strong working knowledge of the basics of project management and be able to immediately use that knowledge to effectively manage work projects. At the end of the series you will be able to identify and manage the product scope, build a work breakdown structure, create a project plan, create the project budget, define and allocate resources, manage the project development, identify and manage risks, and understand the project procurement process.
Learners will complete a series of projects and assignments that will identify and manage the product scope, build a work breakdown structure, create a project plan, create the project budget, define and allocate resources, manage the project development, identify and manage risks, and understand the project procurement process.
Leading People and Teams Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 5 months to complete
Suggested 3 hour/week
Leading Effectively. Learn proven management techniques in just four courses.
In this specialization, you will learn essential leadership skills, including how to inspire and motivate individuals, manage talent, influence without authority, and lead teams. In this specialization, you will not only learn from Michigan faculty. You will also learn directly from exceptional leaders including Jeff Brodsky, Global Head of HR for Morgan Stanley, and John Beilein, Head Coach of the University of Michigan Men’s Basketball Team. We will share with you our research on how to lead people and teams effectively, and work with you to apply these insights to your own teams and leadership. In every course, you will have an opportunity to apply new leadership skills by working through a series of practical leadership assignments. In addition, the capstone will enable you to work on live leadership challenges faced by senior leaders from premier Fortune 500 firms and receive their feedback on your ideas and solutions.
Top students completing the Specialization will be eligible to receive one or more of the following: office hours with your faculty, one credit toward Michigan Ross’ Distinguished Leader certificate, a waived application fee to Michigan Ross graduate programs, or a LinkedIn recommendation/endorsement by Ross faculty.
Construction Management Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 5 months to complete
Suggested 4 hour/week
Construction Project Management and Planning. Develop and understand the foundations of project planning and scheduling techniques
Construction Management is the planning, coordinating, and building of a project from conception to completion. This specialization is intended for Construction industry professionals, engineers, and architects looking to advance their careers. Students interested in learning about construction project management would also benefit from this specialization.
Real-world projects will be included in each course of the specialization to enforce the skills being taught. The projects will build on information you have learned in the courses and allow you to add your own research. Projects will be peer-reviewed by your classmates, in turn you will peer-review the work of others. Instructions on how to conduct peer-reviews will be included in the course. Upon completing the series, you will be able create a work-breakdown structure, build a project schedule, work on a project plan, create a project budget, identify risk and who is responsible for those risks.
Human Resource Management: HR for People Managers Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 6 months to complete
Suggested 3 hour/week
Become a better manager of people. Develop strategies and skills for hiring, managing performance, and rewarding employees.
Do you have people reporting to you that need managing? Or perhaps you want to consider a career in human resources? Or freshen up your HR knowledge?
This specialization provides a robust introduction to the key principles, policies, and practices of human resource management. The specialization begins with a foundational course that considers alternative approaches to managing human resources, provides a background to the U.S. legal context in which employees are hired, fired, rewarded, and managed, and outlines the different reasons that people are motivated to work. The remaining three courses tackle three core areas that all managers should understand: hiring employees, evaluating their performance, and rewarding them. Throughout the courses, an accessible, scientific approach is embraced such that best practices and practical tips are informed by research, but presented in accessible, applied ways.
Upon completing the specialization, learners will have a deeper understanding of what works in the workplace, including a toolkit of best practices for hiring, managing, and rewarding employees.
The specialization will be valuable for managers and entrepreneurs taking on these responsibilities as well as anyone else interested in the fundamental principles of human resource management. The Capstone Project will provide an opportunity to apply this knowledge to a real situation, including your own organization or work unit if desired.
The projects apply the knowledge learned to specific work groups of your choosing (e.g., your own work team). You will learn how to proactively identify key challenges around staffing, performance management, and compensation and then use this to construct strategies and plans for addressing these challenges in the context of your chosen work group.
Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 8 months to complete
Suggested 3 hour/week
Leadership and Business Skill for Immediate Impact. Apply practical strategies to becoming an effective organizational leader.
Enhance leadership and business skills for immediate impact. Practice everyday leadership, manage people, learn and apply concepts and techniques to effectively manage organizations through organizational design, and formulate and implement strategy.
Through the courses in this specialization, you will learn the fundamentals to effectively lead people and teams, manage organizations as well as tools to analyze business situations and develop strategies. The Specialization covers the strategic, human resource, and organizational foundations for creating and capturing value for sustainable competitive advantage – including how to manage people and organizations, analyze the competition, and develop strategies both within a business and across a portfolio of businesses.
The capstone is a strategic leadership and management plan where you’ll apply what you will learn to an actual business situation with participation by one or more focal companies. The deliverable will be designed to create value from the perspective of potential employers while achieving pedagogical and experiential goals for learners.
This Specialization is part of the University of Illinois Masters of Business Administration degree program, the iMBA. Learn more about the admission into the program here and how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into the program. You can also start with for-credit courses within the Illinois iMBA degree program.
Financial Management Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 8 months to complete
Suggested 4 hour/week
Become a Strategic Financial Manager. Develop an integrated financial management framework.
This Specialization covers the fundamentals of strategic financial management, including financial accounting, investments, and corporate finance. You will learn to evaluate major strategic corporate and investment decisions and to understand capital markets and institutions from a financial perspective, and you will develop an integrated framework for value-based financial management and individual financial decision-making.
The Financial Management Specialization is part of the University of Illinois iMBA Program. Each course in this Specialization also fulfills a portion of the requirements for a University of Illinois course that can earn you college credit.
When you complete the Financial Management Specialization, you will:
- Have a solid foundation in developing an integrated framework for strategic financial decision-making.
- Have a thorough understanding of financial statements and the financial information they provide, and be able to critically evaluate and analyze cash flows statements.
- Understand the management and evaluation of portfolios and firm valuation techniques.
- Understand how to incorporate risk and uncertainty into investment decisions and understand how companies make financing and investment decisions.
Strategic Management and Innovation Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 6 months to complete
Suggested 2 hour/week
Manage 21st Century Business Strategy. Develop and implement an innovative business approach in just three courses.
This Specialization explores the evolving world of business strategy, focusing on the increasingly important roles of design, user experience, and innovation in shaping competitive advantage. You’ll learn about concepts such as goal setting, value creation, global integration, and diversification, and you’ll critique classic theories and frameworks in the context of new business realities. In the final Capstone Project, you’ll create and defend a holistic business strategy in response to a realistic case study prompt.
Inspired Leadership Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 8 months to complete
Suggested 2 hour/week
Leading to inspire and engage others. Learn concepts and skills to inspire and engage others for performance, innovation and satisfaction.
In this specialization you will learn how to overcome the ravages of chronic stress and renew your body and mind by building better relationships and positive approaches to leadership. You will learn the power of asking questions to become a more inclusive and self-confident leader, and how to effectively coach others toward sustained, desired change, learning or increased motivation in life and work.
Organizational Leadership Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 7 months to complete
Suggested 2 hour/week
Successfully Lead in an Ever-Changing Business Environment. Master key strategies to successfully lead an organizational change effort in just five courses plus a final capstone project.
Equip yourself to successfully lead organizations through clarity of purpose and effective collaboration — by building and motivating teams; designing and delivering powerful stories; developing strategies to appropriately influence; understanding underlying customer analytics and applying innovative approaches to deliver impact.
How do aspiring managers succeed in an ever-changing business environment? How do they lead different groups to action? This specialization equips aspiring managers to lead change and leverage different roles and functions within for-profit institutions to create lasting value in the marketplace. Throughout the five courses, we will explore how great leaders assess themselves and lead collaborative teams that effectively manage negotiations and conflict. We will discover how leaders communicate through storytelling and employ other communication strategies to influence. Furthermore, we will learn how organizations start with the clarity of purpose that comes from an understanding of customers’ needs, including leveraging data analytics, and use that focus to drive the design of products and services to meet those needs effectively. At the end of the coursework, students will create a capstone project that allows them to apply what they have learned.
Achieving Personal and Professional Success Specialization
100% online courses
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Flexible Schedule
Set and maintain flexible deadlines.
Beginner Level
No prior experience required.
Approx. 4 months to complete
Suggested 2 hour/week
Learn How to Maximize Your Potential. Define Success, Communicate Effectively, and Use Influence to Accomplish Personal and Career Goals
Based on four of the most popular courses taught at the Wharton School, Achieving Personal and Professional Success is designed to introduce the tools and techniques for defining and achieving success at home and at work. You’ll learn how to find your passion and core values, how to apply these values to your own life, how to work well with others, how to communicate effectively, how to set goals, how to use influence to achieve these goals, and even how to say you are sorry. Through exercises, self-diagnostic surveys, quizzes, and many case studies, you’ll discover how to define not only what you want, but also the best way to get it. While many business courses cover topics related to successful organizational practices, these courses provide key insights into successful personal practices, whether you are in the office or in your home. We all bring ourselves to work every day, and these courses will help you be your best self wherever you are.
Learners will discover their core values, create a personal success plan, learn how to apply their values for the best results at home and work, and develop a method for communicating effectively and using influence to achieve their goals.
These courses will help you be your best self wherever you are.