This course will focus on skills and tools utilized to manage a successful information systems and technology project.  These projects are usually organizational investments that commit considerable time, staff, and other resources to the completion.  Students will be exposed to the application Microsoft Project which is software designed to plan, manage, monitor, control, and support large-scale projects.  Students will get hands-on experience with a project during the semester where they will work with a client and implement an information systems project.  

The class teaches the students techniques for managing projects.  They will be creating a number of project management documents based on requirements they get from the sponsor during meetings or other communication.  The student teams generally do a great job.  I will give them guidance along the way, but the team of students will be responsible for completing the project.  

The project should take 240 to 300 hours with 50% of the time spent on planning and developing documentation.  The teams can create websites, databases, smartphone apps, CRM systems, and write business applications in Visual Basic or Asp.Net.  Students have the skills to implement open-source web or application technologies to help manage business processes.  Some teams work on big data projects where they create management decision making dashboards based on analysis of data.   I will work with the team to make sure the scope of work can be done in the 240 to 300 hours.