1.1: Preface
- Page ID
- 49170
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Welcome to Project Management – A Practicum. This is not a course where you will sit back, listen, and memorize. It is a course where you will lead.
This book—and the course it supports—is designed to prepare you for real-world project management by placing you inside a simulated business environment from Day 1. Each chapter immerses you in a professional challenge, gives you just enough structure to begin acting, and then asks you to deliver. What you learn will not come from watching someone else solve a problem. It will come from grappling with ambiguity, navigating team dynamics, making judgment calls, and standing behind your decisions.
You will not be reading about project managers. You will become one.
At the heart of this course is a fictional company called C-Bay Inc., a fast-growing tech firm facing complex infrastructure decisions. Through the lens of C-Bay’s challenges, you will encounter every major phase of project work:
- Initiation
- Planning
- Scope definition
- Cost estimation
- Risk identification
- Execution and control
- Closure and reflection
But unlike a typical textbook, you won’t be asked to define these terms. You’ll be asked to act on them. You’ll read a memo from the Director of IT, meet with your team, and decide how to respond. You’ll produce a Project Charter, develop evaluation criteria, score options, and deliver a live executive presentation. You will submit deliverables that look and feel like they came from a real project team—because they will.
The goal of this book is not to prepare you for a test. The goal is to prepare you for the moment when someone turns to you and says, “Can you lead this project?”
Whether you're new to project management or looking to sharpen your practical skills, this book gives you the opportunity to think, decide, build, and revise—just like professionals do. And you won't be doing it alone. This is a team-based course, and your success will depend not only on what you produce, but how you collaborate, communicate, and lead alongside others.
At times, this approach may feel uncomfortable. There will be no tidy checklists, no step-by-step walkthroughs, and no guaranteed outcomes. You will have to make assumptions, defend trade-offs, and own your mistakes. That is by design.
Because in the real world, the people who succeed in project management are not the ones who memorize the most. They are the ones who can move a project forward—when the clock is ticking, the path is unclear, and everyone else is waiting for direction.
This textbook is your practice field. We’ve designed each chapter to give you a realistic challenge, professional tools, and a safe space to fail, recover, and grow. You will leave this experience not only with knowledge—but with stories, confidence, and a working portfolio of your project leadership skills.
We’re excited to see where you take it.