The Default Library
Majors / Minor

Project Management

Getting things built on time and on budget with other people: scoping, estimating, scheduling, agile and plan-driven methods, risk and cost, and leading a team through it.

A minor: a short route that sits beside a major and adds a skill many degrees need. It pairs well with Civil Engineering, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, Architecture, Business Administration, Marketing and Environmental Science.

For: engineers, architects, developers and scientists who will end up running projects whether or not anyone calls them a project manager, students in any major about to do a capstone, and anyone who has watched a project slip and wondered why.

Shaped by the main bodies of knowledge: PMI's PMBOK Guide and Standard for Project Management, PRINCE2, the APM Body of Knowledge (UK), IPMA's Individual Competence Baseline and the Scrum Guide, and by university project-management courses and research on why large projects overrun (Bent Flyvbjerg).

7readings
1.6 hoursof reading
2stages
6 reads · 1 deep dive
Not started
Start the path
Stage 1

Part 1 · Planning the work

3 readings · 36 min
  1. 01ReadInteractiveQuiz11 min

    Project Management Foundations: Why Good Plans Keep Meeting Reality

    What a project is, the life cycles, the plan-driven and agile families and why projects fail.
  2. 02ReadInteractiveQuiz11 min

    Scope, Estimation & Scheduling: Counting the Work Before You Count the Days

    Breaking work down, estimating honestly and finding the critical path.
  3. 03ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Operations Management: Where Work Waits

    Queues, bottlenecks and flow: the operations ideas every schedule depends on.
Stage 2

Part 2 · Running the work

4 readings · 57 min
  1. 04Deep diveInteractiveQuiz16 min

    Agile, Scrum & Kanban: Working in Small Loops, and Knowing When Not To

    Sprints, boards and work-in-progress limits, and when agile fits.
  2. 05ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Risk, Cost & Project Control: Knowing Early That You Are Late

    Risk registers, contingency, earned value and keeping a project under control.
  3. 06ReadInteractiveQuiz14 min

    Leading Projects: Stakeholders, Communication & Teams: The People Half of Every Plan

    Stakeholders, communication, teams and closing a project well.
  4. 07ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Organizational Behavior & Leadership: People Are the System

    Motivation, teams and decisions: the people side of every project.

Study it in depth, for free

These pieces give you the intuition. To learn the major properly, these are the courses and texts universities use, free to read or audit, and the standard textbooks if you want to own one. Links checked November 2026.

The whole major, free: MIT OCW 1.040 Project Management for the plan-driven core (planning, scheduling, cost and control), then the Scrum Guide and the Kanban Guide for the adaptive side, then the US GAO's free Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide for risk, cost and earned value.

Free courses and texts

  1. Project Management · MIT OCW 1.040 · planning, organisation, scheduling, finance and control of engineering projects; Parts 1 and 2
  2. Manifesto for Agile Software Development · the four values and twelve principles, with the 2001 signatories; Part 2
  3. The Scrum Guide · Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (2020) · accountabilities, events and artefacts, in thirteen pages; Part 2
  4. The Kanban Guide · the minimal Kanban practices: visualising work, limiting WIP, managing flow; Part 2
  5. Scrum and XP from the Trenches · Henrik Kniberg, free book (2nd edition) · how one team actually ran it; Part 2
  6. Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide (GAO-20-195G) · US Government Accountability Office, free PDF · estimating, schedule risk analysis and earned value; Part 2 risk and cost
  7. Understand Team Effectiveness · Google re:Work · the Project Aristotle findings on what makes teams work; Part 2 leading projects

The standard textbooks

  • A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) (Project Management Institute, 8th edition) · the reference most courses and the PMP exam follow; Parts 1 and 2
  • Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling (Harold Kerzner) · the standard university text; Parts 1 and 2
  • How Big Things Get Done (Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner) · evidence from thousands of projects on why they overrun and what works; Part 1
  • Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (Steve McConnell) · honest estimating, useful far beyond software; Part 1
  • The Mythical Man-Month (Frederick P. Brooks Jr.) · why adding people to a late project makes it later; Part 2
  • Essential Scrum (Kenneth S. Rubin) · Scrum in practice, beyond the guide; Part 2
Next path →

Product Management

Deciding what to build and why: finding real problems, choosing among ideas, measuring what changed and launching products people keep using.