New: Roadmaps ordered paths through our cheat sheets and flashcards, so you always know what to study next.
Explore themSee what's new on GitHubFrom the business case that gets a project approved to the schedule, risk, and reporting that keep it on track.
A 15-step learning path. Follow it in order, or jump to what you need.
For anyone who wants project delivery to run on a repeatable method instead of instinct: new project coordinators, engineers stepping into PM duties, or professionals prepping for a PMI-aligned credential like CAPM or PMP. Plan on about 8 weeks at a few hours a week. This path stays on the PMI-style planning-and-control canon: scope, WBS, scheduling, risk, earned value, governance, and choosing waterfall, agile, or hybrid; it does not go deep on Scrum's ceremonies, roles, and events (see Agile & Scrum in Practice). By the end you can build a work breakdown structure and a critical-path schedule from real requirements, run a risk register that captures threats and opportunities, report cost and schedule performance with earned value, and choose and blend a delivery approach that fits the project in front of you.
Expected: no formal project experience. Helpful but not required: having been part of any project delivery, even informally, so the vocabulary in the first few steps has something real to attach to.
Start here because Waterfall's five sequential phases are the shared vocabulary of any later step, and you can map a real project onto them the same day you read this.
Names the formal structure behind step 1's phases: PMI's process groups and knowledge areas, the map every later step in this path sits inside.
Answers what Waterfall's Initiating phase and PMBOK's process groups both assume already happened: the feasibility case and stakeholder analysis that get a project approved before any plan gets written.
You can build a feasibility-backed business case and place any project inside PMI's process groups instead of guessing where you are. Next up: turning that approval into a plan that survives contact with reality.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
Goes deeper on the stakeholder needs step 3's business case only sketched: eliciting, prioritizing, and tracing requirements so what gets built actually matches what was asked for.
Turns step 4's requirements into a scope baseline with a hard edge, plus the change-control process that keeps 'just one more thing' from quietly doubling the project.
Decomposes step 5's scope baseline into the concrete work packages a schedule, budget, and estimate can actually be built from.
This is where the critical path clicks: turning step 6's work packages into a network diagram that reveals which delays actually threaten the finish date, and which ones don't; expect to redraw it more than once before it sticks.
You can trace a scope baseline down through a work breakdown structure into a critical-path schedule, and explain which delays actually threaten the finish date. Next up: keeping that schedule honest while the real work is happening.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
Puts a name on what step 7's network diagram left implicit: the threats and opportunities that could still move that finish date, tracked in a register instead of a gut feeling.
Clarifies who actually owns each risk response from step 8 and each work package from step 6, so accountability survives contact with a busy cross-functional team.
Puts step 9's ownership map to work: routing the right level of detail to the right audience instead of sending everyone the same status email.
Finally gives step 5's baseline and step 7's schedule one shared unit of measure: CPI and SPI, the two numbers a sponsor actually trusts, and reading them cleanly takes real practice before it clicks.
You can run a risk register, clarify who owns what, and read CPI and SPI without flinching at the acronyms; a few minutes of due flashcards keeps the WBS and scheduling vocabulary from chapter 2 fresh while you build on it here. Next up: putting that data in front of the people who decide if the project continues.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
Brings step 11's performance numbers and step 9's ownership map in front of whoever decides if a project continues: the gate reviews and escalation paths that turn data into a go or kill call.
Take this if you're aiming past single projects toward managing a whole slate of them: prioritizing, funding, and killing initiatives across the portfolio that step 12's gates decide one project at a time.
Worth a look if you're coordinating several related projects toward one strategic outcome, the layer between step 6's work packages and step 13's portfolio-wide view.
Closes the loop this path opened in step 1: choosing and blending Waterfall's structure with agile iteration for the project actually in front of you, using every discipline from scope to governance as the ingredients.
You can frame a project's business case, build a schedule and risk register that hold up under scrutiny, report performance in numbers a sponsor trusts, and choose or blend the delivery approach that actually fits. That's what the Project Management Fundamentals badge certifies: you can run a project through its full lifecycle, not just one phase of it.
Finish this section to unlock.
+100 XP
Finish every required step, at least 70% of them genuinely done (not skipped), to earn this badge and 500 XP.