15+ Best Project Management Courses & Certifications in 2023
When it comes to effective project management it is very important that you tick the boxes when talking of the main skills a project manager must have.
For project management, you must nail down communication, time management, organizational awareness, problem solving as well as leadership skills.
If you don’t have these nailed, your projects will always be behind schedule.
In this article we are going to look at the best project management courses and certifications that will help you pick up these skills in record time even if you already have a full time job.
To begin with, you’ll take a crash course in Agile project management, which is essential for both development and not development teams.
In addition to that you’ll also get your hands on Azure DevOps Boards for project management, as well as tools like Trello.
So let’s get started.
Here is a detailed summary of what you’ll learn in each of these project management courses on Coursera.
We’ll look at what each course is about, what you’ll be able to do after the course as well as the requirements and skill level you need to have before starting any of these courses
1. Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects
This project management course on Coursera gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines.
You’ll learn about how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information.
The instructors will also cover:
- Illusions of learning
- Memory techniques
- Dealing with procrastination
Best practices are shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects.
Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels are in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life.
If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights…
That will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets.
And if you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track.
If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide. And this is why it appears in this list of best project management courses on Coursera.
Rating: 4.8 stars (65, 412 stars).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 2, 507, 004.
Duration: 15 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Tamil, Arabic, French, Bengali, Ukrainian, Portuguese (European), Serbian, Chinese (Simplified), Greek, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Vietnamese, Dutch.
2. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills
We all negotiate on a daily basis, or don’t you?
On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, car sellers, and employers, among others.
Did you know that negotiation is also the key to business success?
Well, within a company, negotiation skills can lead to your career advancement. Since no business can survive without profitable contracts.
In this Coursera course for project management, you’ll learn about and practice the four steps to a successful negotiation:
- Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
- Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
- Close: Create a Contract
- Perform and Evaluate: The End Game
To successfully complete this course and improve your ability to negotiate, you’ll need to test your negotiation skills by completing the negotiation in Module 6.
You can negotiate with a local friend or use discussions to find a partner from another part of the world.
The instructor has also developed several free negotiating planning tools that are related to this course.
Rating: 4.8 stars (11, 590 ratings).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 879, 229.
Duration: 16 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Ukrainian, Portuguese (European), Chinese (Simplified), Portuguese (Brazilian), Vietnamese, Russian, English, Spanish.
3. Design Thinking for Innovation
Today’s innovation is everyone’s business.
Whether you are a manager in a global corporation, an entrepreneur starting up, in a government role, or a teacher in an elementary school, everyone is expected to do better with less.
And that is why we all need design thinking.
At every level in every kind of organization, design thinking provides the tools you need to become an innovative thinker and uncover creative opportunities that are there but you’re just not seeing them yet.
In this course for project management on Coursera, developed at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and taught by top-ranked faculty…
The instructors provide an overview of design thinking and work with a model containing four key questions and several tools to help you understand design thinking as a problem-solving approach.
You will also look at several stories from different organizations that used design thinking to uncover compelling solutions.
Rating: 4.6 stars (5, 583 ratings).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 293, 198.
Duration: 6 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Arabic, French, Vietnamese, Korean, Russian, English, Spanish.
4. Project Management: The Basics for Success
This project management course combines the essential elements of Project Management and Team Leadership into one course.
Through course engagement and reflection, you will acquire further understanding of the responsibilities of leadership and become better prepared to apply this knowledge to the project environment.
Upon completing this course, you will be able to:
- Know about the role of high-performance teams and leadership in project management
- Learn about the stages in the project cycle
- Apply best practices to develop competencies and skills in planning and controlling projects to ensure successful outcomes
- Learn how to monitor project activities and assess progress
The instructors will also teach you how to communicate proficiently to report project status and performance to stakeholders.
Additionally, you will also contribute to the organizational knowledge base.
In this course for project management on Coursera, you’ll learn about the tools and techniques for developing and strengthening high-performance teams and team members.
Since this course talks deeply about the basics of success, it qualifies as one of the best Coursera courses for project management.
Rating: 4.6 stars (7, 761).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 279, 961.
Duration: 8 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Arabic, Portuguese (Brazilian), Vietnamese,Korean, English, Spanish.
5. Initiating and Planning Projects
Successful projects require careful upfront planning.
In this best selling project management course, you’ll learn the key roles and responsibilities of the project manager and project team.
Additionally, you’ll also learn to answer some key questions upfront to help you meet project objectives: What will this project accomplish? Why is this project important? Who benefits from this project? How will we plan for successful outcomes?
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Identify the key characteristics of a project
- Identify primary project constraints
- Define the role and responsibilities of the project manager
- Identify Project Organizational Structures
- Understand the definition of a Project Stakeholder
This project management course on Coursera can be applied to multiple Specializations or Professional Certificates programs.
Completing this course will count towards your learning in any of the following programs:
Project Management & Other Tools for Career Development Specialization.
Project Management Principles and Practices Specialization.
Rating: 4.7 stars (7, 761 ratings).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 250, 337.
Duration: 7 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Croatian, Arabic, Catalan, Vietnamese, Afrikaans, Thai, English, Spanish.
6. Fundamentals of Project Planning and Management
Projects are all around us.
Virtually every organization runs projects, either formally or informally.
Did you know that we are engaged in projects both at home and at work?
Across settings, planning principles, and execution methodologies can offer ways in which projects can be run more effectively and efficiently.
Project management provides organizations and individuals with the language and the frameworks for:
- Scoping projects
- Sequencing activities
- Utilizing resources
- Minimizing risks
This is an introductory course on the key concepts of planning and executing projects.
You will identify factors that lead to project success, and learn how to plan, analyze, and manage projects.
Furthermore, you will be exposed to state-of-the-art methodologies and considering the challenges of various types of projects.
As a Project Management Institute (PMI®) Registered Education Provider, the University of Virginia Darden School of Business has been approved by PMI to issue 12 professional development units (PDUs) for this course, which focuses on core competencies recognized by PMI.
Rating: 4.7 stars (4, 4044).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 152, 613.
Duration: 8 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: English, Spanish
7. Budgeting and Scheduling Projects
A good project schedule helps all team members work together to meet project objectives.
A project budget with realistic cost constraints is also an essential bedrock of any project.
In this project management course, you’ll learn to plan and stick to time and cost constraints in order to ensure the success of your projects.
The tutors will teach you to identify the resource needs of the project and to decompose work packages into activities.
You will also learn how to define what is needed to estimate activity durations and also define milestones and create a milestone schedule.
And by the end of this best courses for project management on Coursera, you’ll be able to:
- Determine the critical path and calculate float
- Describe the purpose of using leads and lags in a project schedule
- Estimate the quantities and costs of resources required to perform project activities
Finally, you’ll be able to select one of three common cost estimating techniques to determine a project budget.
Rating: 4.7 (6, 563).
Level: Intermediate.
Students: 100, 480.
Duration: 6 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Arabic, French, Portuguese (Brazilian), Vietnamese, Russian, Thai, English, Spanish.
8. Managing Project Risks and Changes
This course for project management on Coursera will help you manage project risk effectively by identifying, analyzing, and communicating inevitable changes to project scope and objectives.
You will understand and practice the elements needed to measure and report on project scope, schedule, and cost performance.
Also, you will be equipped with the tools to manage change in the least disruptive way possible for your team and other project stakeholders.
But that’s not all, the instructor will teach you how to define components of a communications management plan.
You will understand the importance of communication channels and define the key elements needed to measure and report on project scope, schedule, and cost performance.
Not only will you identify project risk events but you will also prioritize identified risks.
By the end of this course, you will learn to:
- Develop responses for a high priority risk
- Identify and analyze changes to project scope
- Describe the causes and effects of project changes
- Define the purpose of conducting a lessons learned session
Since this course, gives you many details about managing project risks and changes, it qualifies to be one of the best Coursera courses for project management.
Rating: 4.7 stars (6, 248 ratings).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 90, 894.
Duration: 6 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Arabic, French, Ukrainian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Vietnamese, Russian, Thai, English,Spanish.
9. Managing the Company of the Future
The aim of this project management course is to provide you with a comprehensive framework for understanding both the traditional principles of management inside companies today.
As well as the alternative principles that are becoming increasingly important.
This course provides you with both theoretical and practical perspectives on the nature of management in today’s organizations.
This course will also help you gain knowledge about how to run your company in a good manner.
The instructor will also provide you with examples that describe real-world scenarios that are very helpful to you.
Though this is a wonderful course, it has things that should be worked on.
For example, you will need to wait for several days in order to be assessed, this is a huge waste of time if you really want to get assessed quickly.
By the end of this course, you will have gained skills like:
- Strategic Management
- Leadership
- Management
Rating: 4.8 stars (2, 312).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 68, 124.
Duration: 13 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: Arabic, French, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, English, Spanish.
10. Agile with Atlassian Jira
This course project management discusses common foundational principles and practices used by agile methodologies. Providing you with a flexible set of tools to use in any role (e.g. project manager, team member) on any agile team.
This course mainly discusses agile and lean principles, the kanban and scrum agile methodologies, and uses Atlassian Jira Software Cloud as the main software tool to apply hands-on learning of the topics.
The course includes instruction on “classic” Jira projects as well as the new “next-gen” Jira projects.
By the end of this course, you will have a strong foundational understanding of agile principles and practices, and strong hands-on experience with Atlassian Jira Software Cloud.
Since you will be the site administrator for your Jira account, you will be able to perform basic administration tasks on your site.
You should be able to continuously configure your Jira project(s) to match your team’s custom agile methodology.
This course tries to be as concise as possible.
I highly encourage that you apply what you learn to manage personal agile projects after you complete the course.
Rating: 4.7 stars (2, 442).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 55, 794.
Duration: 14 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: French, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, English, Spanish
11. Innovation Management
What is innovation management?
How do firms bring in new business models and get new products and services to the market?
Guided by world-class academics, you will develop an innovative mindset and expertise in how firms successfully create new ideas for marketing new products.
This project management course also includes sessions about innovation strategy, idea management, and social networks.
During this course, you will learn how to:
- Use the main innovation management terminology and concepts
- Explain the adoption life cycle and innovation adoption at the individual level
- Define creativity and explain how creativity can be stimulated
- Recognize and describe three types of idea management systems
- Explain what an innovation strategy is and why it is important
Finally, you will explain how innovation projects should be selected and managed. And also explain the importance of teams, team structures, and networks for innovation.
There is no fee to participate in the program.
Rating: 4.7 stars (1, 099 ratings).
Level: Beginner.
Students: 49, 130.
Duration: 13 hours.
Language: English.
Subtitles: English, Vietnamese
Conclusion
If you signup for any of these project management courses you’ll gain a better foundation in project management best practices, and also learn how to utilize resources more effectively.
A good project management certification can improve your credibility and capability to deliver projects successfully and on time.
These courses will give you the answers to some of the most asked questions like:
- What will this project accomplish?
- Why is this project important?
- Who benefits from this project?
- How will we plan for successful outcomes?
I hope these project management courses help you learn the ins and outs of project management and launch a successful career in this lucrative field.
Have you ever taken any of these best Coursera courses for project management before?
If yes, pleases share your experience in the comments below.
