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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Project Initiation: Starting a Successful Project by Google

4.8
stars
19,217 ratings

About the Course

This is the second course in the Google Project Management Certificate program. This course will show you how to set a project up for success in the first phase of the project life cycle: the project initiation phase. In exploring the key components of this phase, you’ll learn how to define and manage project goals, deliverables, scope, and success criteria. You’ll discover how to use tools and templates like stakeholder analysis grids and project charters to help you set project expectations and communicate roles and responsibilities. Current Google project managers will continue to instruct and provide you with hands-on approaches for accomplishing these tasks while showing you the best project management tools and resources for the job at hand. Learners who complete this program should be equipped to apply for introductory-level jobs as project managers. No previous experience is necessary. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - Understand the significance of the project initiation phase of the project life cycle. - Describe the key components of the project initiation phase. - Determine a project’s benefits and costs. - Define and create measurable project goals and deliverables. - Define project scope and differentiate among tasks that are in-scope and out-of-scope. - Understand how to manage scope creep to avoid impacting project goals. - Define and measure a project’s success criteria. - Complete a stakeholder analysis and explain its significance. - Utilize RACI charts to define and communicate project team member responsibilities. - Understand the key components of project charters and develop a project charter for project initiation. - Evaluate various project management tools to meet project needs....

Top reviews

AA

Feb 14, 2022

This has been a good learning experience. I now know the different project management tools available. I have a good understanding of project initiation and how to determine the success of a project.

SP

Jan 23, 2024

Although I took this course first before the foundation of project management I found I have known many terms in my real life so eager to start to learn more in-depth qualities of project management.

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51 - 75 of 4,012 Reviews for Project Initiation: Starting a Successful Project

By Hichem B

Jun 27, 2021

Great job, I was really amazed by the way the instructor was performing. keep up

By Luiz F M

Mar 21, 2021

Very good! It provides tools and concepts to start a project in the right way!

By Hannie N

Dec 28, 2022

Though I like the concepts and information that this course provided, I personally think that some quizzes were irritatingly confusing to learners.

For example, in one quiz, we were asked to choose between "impact" & "influence". I know these terms are different to some extent, they still have some similar aspects (i.e, power). The options for multiple choice quizzes should be improved for learners to better understand concept rather than to trick them, especially when these quizzes are not for grading.

Another example of confusing information is "stakeholders". In a lesson, we learnt that "team members" are "primary stakeholders". However, in a final quiz, we have to choose "only stakeholders", "only team members", "team members & stakeholders", and the correct answer went to "stakeholders & team members", while the concept "stakeholders" already includes "team members".

Hopefully my inputs can help to improve the course as I do like how interactive, practical and useful it is :)

By Mária L

Dec 30, 2022

I was so exciting to do the course. I just had difficulty- because I don't have any experience with PM-to understand what exactly the peers assignment is about and how to do it. As I saw more people got confused with the instruction.

By Soumyarup M

Jun 2, 2022

Peer assignemnt review is not a good way at all ! We have to wait and literally have to beg for grading ! As we complete the course, we have to have our certificate. Peer reviews is not at all important at least from my point of view.

By Erica J

Nov 2, 2023

The training as a whole was good. The instructor didn't keep my attention as well as Foundations of Project Management is my only feedback.

By Дорфман И Д

Dec 24, 2022

The teacher's accent is kind of annoying

By Colton F

Mar 14, 2023

I appreciate the presenter's enthusiasm. She's very sweet and welcoming. I like the congratulations and attempt at motivation. I found some of the content too vague for the verbatim questions in the exams. The problem I kept having was understanding her constant mumbling. She also didn't finish about 20% of her words causing me to have to read the text to follow along. Speakers should enunciate and be clear. By the final week, it was getting disruptive.

I very much enjoyed the direct examples, the hands on learning, and the tools provided, despite not using them at all. I hope we have hands on tutorials with some tools.

I loathed the peer review assignment. Even though I received 100%, I think it's terrible to have peers review each other on a convoluted assignment that is very rough around the edges as is. It's like having a college and no teachers. Students all give each other A's or F's based on their own uncertainty! Woohoo... no.

They should really stick with the honor system. Those who want to change, grow, and learn will do so faithfully, and not waver into cheating, etc. Those who do like to plagiarize, cheat, and skimp will do so regardless. We shouldn't have to stress about being graded by that or have our grade depend on that risk. Banter, discussion, and unscored things are fine for peer review.

I much prefer to attempt an assignment, do my best, and then go to the next section and correct it myself. I did learn some things. After all, we all go to the university of YouTube/Google now days... doesn't matter if it's Harvard or the University of Phoenix, lol. It's all the same and we need to be accountable for our learning ourselves.

I took good notes. I appreciated the effort provided by Google employees. My favorite part was the "accessibility" presenter who was brief but amazing. Hopefully she does a course coming up!

By Esky M

Feb 1, 2023

Some part of this course was very helpful and deep in explanation, yet the other part was where I somehow felt that there could have been more to be digged and articulated by Google and learners like myself: For example, classification and clarity on who are (or should be) stakeholders, and who are (or should be) project sponsors/owners and customers. I know that asking stakeholders as many questions as I can during the initiation phase of every project is crucial, but if I meet and ask all the stakeholders including customers, end-users, I can hardly put all their desires into my project charter... A skill of negotiating thru, not with, as many stakeholders as possible is also crucial in reality, I guess. Demonstration and hands-on practices with OKRs, RACI charts, and project charter were great and I enjoyed them. Thanks

By Shxxx K

Jan 2, 2023

The course was top. I learned a lot. it was really well done.

but after finishing two of 6 certificates I have to say that the work needed for each certificate is much MUCH more than what was written in the program.

first of all - this is a GLOBAL course!! not everyone is english native speaker!!!

readings that are expected to take 20 minutes take at least one hour for me. everything that I need to write takes much longer. I have to read things more often, listen to videos more often etc. this takes me a massive amount of time!!

all together each course should be certificated with much more than 20 hours of work and this estimation should be put down in the program. If i have to spend at least 35 hours on a certificate than I need this to be written down and appreciated

By Reed M

Mar 24, 2022

It could have been more explicit with specificites. I wasn't rying to get into a new carreer. I was only wanting a well rounded understanding of the field and pick up a few tools that I could benefit from in my current field. The amount fo time I am putting in is not what I meant to sign up for.

By Ranndi R

Nov 26, 2021

This course was a little frustrating for me because things weren't as clearly defined for a person like me who's new to Project Management and would like to continue to take the course. Some of the questions were unclear and the language was confusing. I will continue and push forward.

By Jessica M

Apr 27, 2022

I completed my work and never received the peer reviews needed to complete the course. Very frustrating that my completion is based on external participants that are not invested in other classmates.

By Dijana B

Apr 17, 2021

I do not like the fact that the assignments are reviewed and graded my the team mates! Otherwise, the the course is very informational with great insight and information.

By Cory D

May 16, 2021

I really do not like the peer review assignments. I put way more work into the assignments and the I am grading people with min effort material.

By Kapil M

Mar 19, 2022

The presenter was not so convincing as compared to the Foundation course one. Course content seems to be stretched at some point.

By Nelson N P

Dec 21, 2022

The peer grading delayed my progress since I'm off work right

By Brianne S

Aug 2, 2021

The primary instructor for this course came across as trying too hard to be sincere so the effect was somewhere between patronizing , insincere and fake-enthusiastic. In particular, her body language (and especially very limited facial expressions, which were thrown off by what appears to be excess use of botox, so every time she raised her eyebrows for effect, the effect was unintended), cadence of speech, and posture were unnatural. This certificate was painful to complete because it was so hard to get motivated, and the delivery of the materials and teaching were poorly designed. I truly hope the other certificates are taught better, more clearly, sincerely, and led by someone with a talent for communication, because otherwise it's going to be a chore to get through the whole certification.

By elle j

Apr 6, 2021

Although the course talked about project management software, leaving the trials open as a do it on your own activity was not very helpful. It would have been much more helpful to have our peer graded projects actually be conducted within the software. Although I passed this course, I am still VERY unclear on which software platforms to use at what times. I would not be able to confidently say I could plan, communicate, or complete a project using any one of the software platforms mentioned in this course. I had anticipated we would be using these platforms for our assignments, but this has not been the case, and I feel completely unprepared to use these platforms in a true project management setting.

By Yurii H

Nov 23, 2022

1) Contradicting (e.g., team members belong to stakeholders, and then stakeholders are separated from team members).

2) Confusing (e.g., tangible and intangible deliverables vs tangible outcomes)

3) Unordered properly (e.g., OCRs are expanded after the asignment about OCRs which requires expanded knowledge).

4) Incomplete (e.g., "deliverables" which are covered only in general, without info on Internal D., External D., Project D., Planning D., Activity D. etc.)

5) Misleading (e.g., "overcommunicate your H/H stakeholder who needs time to complete the task" -- in real-life environment, you don't want to know where this leads the relationship between such overcommunicating PM and the specialist)

By DeAnne D

Jan 5, 2022

The content was very good, however, the instructor YuAnn was extremely annoying. She mispronounced so many words that it became distracting and I could not watch the videos at all, instead I read the script. You really should make sure your instructors can speak clearly if they are going to teach

By Jalissa L

Dec 29, 2022

Course was very informative. Peer review assignments require more oversight. Fellow learner was allowed to torpedo my progress because they did not understand the grading rubric. UNFAIR. Students should be allowed to challenge grades or request a third party review.

By Deryk M

Nov 13, 2022

I'm sure this course is teaching me exactly what I need to know but for whatever reason I blew up on OKR. I went from I can do this to, I want out of here, I will never be confident enough to set goals with so little data. im out.

By Mark “ M

Aug 23, 2022

Confusing and vague, without clear explination before requireing in detail application of knowledge. Puts the cart before the horse often.

By Sarah G

May 29, 2022

The information is great, the platform is terrible. I loved learning from Google PM's, I love the practice activities, and the scinarios the teachers used, but I hated the peer reviewd documents. I have ben an educator for 12 years prior to my career move and everything I know to be true about assessment was ignored in this entire 6 course program.

Peer reviews are incredably frustrating. One peer accesses your work and give you great marks with awesome feedback. The next person has trouble opening your document so they give you all 0's and you have to start again. This occured for most of my work in this program. I spent the last week of my "learning" begging my peers to review my work in the discussion boards. On average, I would say that I had to resubmit each one of my peer reviewd assignments 3 times. Then there was the posting in the discussion board and "returning the favor" by grading even more of my peer's work. This is not a system that works. With the course fee being what it is, I'd prefer to have my work graded by instructors.

Lastly, when I did finish a course I was prompted by Coursera to "verify my ID." I've been verifying my ID for completed coursrses for weeks now, every time I log in, and the promt never goes away. So I figured when I did complete the course, it would be a surprise what name appeared on my certificate. I've completed and I'm being prompted now to "purchase certificate." Clicking on that button, again, does nothing. I've been doing this for 3 days. I don't know how much the purchase is, who's name (if any) will be on it, or how long it will take to get it.

I begin a new career in July and I thought starting this course in late April would be enough time to complete it and provide my new employer with certification. I worked really hard to get the classwork done quickly, little did I know that the hardest and most time consuming part of the process was just getting Coursera to work. Also, don't count on the moble app to be any help. As long as you have the work posted, it shows you have completed 100%. This is great until you log into the website and it says 97% and tells you that you failed 3 more of your peer reviewed assignments (with feedback saying "I can't access your PDF or Google Doc." Then the cycle continues: re-posting, begging for help in the discussion board, returning the favor of grading MORE of your peers work, praying people who can't access your work don't fail you (and just skip past yours). It is infuriating!

I am a Google Certified Educator and I loved that program. I learned so much! I was really hopeful that this learning would be of the same quality. Sadly, it was not.