Master of Engineering in Project Management
Graduate Certificate in Engineering - Project Management

Project Management Online Program

For more information contact:

Al Santos, Academic Coordinator
Civil & Environmental Engineering
1173 Glenn L. Martin Hall
301-405-1977
email: asantos@umd.edu

Project Management Core (ENCE 661, 662, 665 are required for GCEN plus either ENCE 664, or 667)

ENCE 661 Project Cost Accounting & Finance (3) Effective engineering project managers have complete command of their project costs. This course reviews the fundamentals of accounting, examines project cost accounting principles, applications, and impact on profitability; examines the principles of activity based costing; covers the elements involved in cash management; introduces the framework for how projects are financed and the potential impact financing has on the projects; and a framework for evaluating PC based systems and what resources are needed for an effective project cost system.

ENCE 662 Introduction to Project Management (3) Introduction to engineering project management including: overview and concepts of project management (principles, body of knowledge, strategies); planning successful projects (defining, specifying, delivery options, scheduling, budgeting); implementing (organizing the team, work assignments, team building, effective leadership); executing (performance measurement, maintaining the schedule, adjustments/mid-course corrections, record keeping, status reporting, communications, managing conflict, time management); and closeout (performance measurement, contract documentation, data transfer, lessons learned, administrative closure).

ENCE 664 Legal Aspects of Engineering Design & Construction (3) Examines ways in which the legal system affects the design and construction process, focusing on contract types and the relationships between the parties in different delivery systems. Topics include contract law, the relationships between parties, tort and negligence law, and statutory principles affecting construction.

ENCE 665 Managing Project Teams (3) Examines managing engineering project teams and understanding effective communications. Course includes: team performance; team building; leadership; motivation; organizational and team dynamics; conflict management; change management; and understanding communication process models.

ENCE 667 Project Performance Measurement (3) Examination of various techniques and models used to measure the performance of projects. Topics will include: critical path method (CPM), Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT), Gantt charts, project crashing, resource management, capital allocation, forecasting, hypothesis testing, regression analysis, learning curve analysis, goal programming, Monte Carlo simulation, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Pareto optimality and tradeoff curves as well as basics in linear programming and uncertainty modeling.

Technical Electives

ENCE 420 Construction Equipment and Methods (3) Evaluation and selection of equipment and methods for construction of projects, including earthmoving, paving, steel and concrete construction, formwork, trenching, cofferdams, rock excavation, tunneling, site preparation, and organization.

ENCE 421 Legal Aspects of Engineering Practice (3) This course presents the study of legal principles relevant to engineering design and construction contracts.  Specific subjects covered include engineering contracts, torts, agency, product liabilities, sales and warranties, professional liability, labor laws, surety and insurance, expert testimony, mediation and arbitration, intellectual property, patents and copyrights, and ethics.

ENCE 422 Project Cost Accounting & Economics (3) This course: reviews the fundamentals of accounting; examines project cost accounting principles as they apply to project management; project cost accounting; reading financial statements; cash management; cash flow analysis; depreciation and taxes; and impact on profitability; examines the principles of activity based costing; net present value analysis; introduces the framework for project performance measurement, cost performance indices, and earned value analysis.

ENCE 423 Project Scheduling, Planning and Control (3) Application of planning and scheduling techniques for construction work; introduction to resource leveling and time-cost tradeoffs; cost estimating, cost indices, parametric estimates, and unit price estimates.

ENCE 600 Global Project Management (3) ENCE 662, Introduction to Project Management, is recommended prior to this course. This course provides an overview of global project management from initiation through planning, execution, and closing and with general emphasis on control. Designed to augment the basics of domestic project management with information pertinent to the global project environment, the course begins with a practical look at investigating the cultural environment in order to understand the context of managing a global project. The course will also cover step-by-step initiation of a global project with emphasis on organizational culture as it relates to global projects; global project planning aspects that augment typical domestic project planning (i.e. managing foreign offices and multinational teams); fundamentals of Virtual Project Management in the context of global projects; fundamentals of communicating with different cultures; familiarization with global law as it applies to engineering; global contracts and business alliances; generalities of negotiating in different cultures; and basic concepts for control and close-out of global projects.

ENCE 601 Program and Portfolio Management (3) A view of managing projects from an organizational perspective will be presented. The principle areas of discussion will be strategic alignment, marshalling organizational assets through an enterprise project office, portfolio management, and program management. Using a case study approach, students will explore the importance of using organizational strategies to align projects, how to use an enterprise project office as a governance process, and apply practices to create portfolios and programs to leverage organizational assets. Principle topics will include establishing a governance process, project selection techniques, project portfolio methodology, and application of project practices to program management.

ENCE 603 Management Science Applications in Project Management (3) The fundamentals of Management Science techniques in Project Management including: linear and integer programming, goal programming, multi-objective optimization, simulation, decision analysis, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), deterministic and stochastic dynamic programming. Applications will be drawn from the Critical Path Method (CPM), resource management, and other areas of Project management.

ENCE 607 Real Estate Development & Planning for the Project Manager (3) Real estate investment and development is fundamentally the acquisition, financing, construction, leasing, and disposition of land and buildings. Successful development is a function of business planning, management of economic risk, entrepreneurial spirit, timing, experience, and education. While many courses examine the traditional elements of project management, few courses prepare students for the complex interaction of property acquisition, financing, design, and construction. In the evolution of construction management, owners award projects to the construction team that demonstrates a comprehensive grasp of the investment process, identifies and evaluates the impact of construction and design issues in a timely and meaningful manner, and offers valuable insight and information. To succeed and be valued by owners, the construction manager must recognize the mechanics and perils of real estate investment and communicate in the language of development.

ENCE 620 Risk Analysis in Engineering (3) Sources of hazards, definition of risk, system analysis, functional modeling and analysis techniques, probabilistic risk assessment procedure, risk methods, risk acceptance, assessment of failure likelihood, consequence assessment, risk benefit assessment, uncertainty sources and types, modeling uncertainty, risk analysis and decision making under uncertainty, collection of data, expert-opinion elicitation, human-machine interface and human factors engineering.

ENCE 622 IT Project Management Fundamentals (3) This course puts emphasis on the differences between PM fundamentals and the requirements for IT project management, and does not cover the basics. This course has a strong focuses on project success factors; components of IT projects; relationship to systems engineering techniques; applicability of standards; risk management; schedule management and controlling scope; configuration management; testing techniques; specification and prototyping; selecting and using 3rd party software; and intellectual property rights.

ENCE 623 Introduction to Advanced Scheduling (3) This course teaches students about the various scheduling approaches that are currently being used in the design and construction industry: how to plan a project by defining items of work for the project, setting up calendars & activity coding structure, creating activities & relationships between them, and assigning resources to activities using CPM scheduling software. On completion of the schedule, students will learn how to organize, format and filter the schedule, as well as assign target schedules for managing and troubleshooting the project and communicate the schedule by setting up reports, using Primavera Post Office & Email and the Web Publishing Wizard.

ENCE 624 Managing Projects in a Dynamic Environment (3) Experience has shown that excellent project managers function at a level well beyond the classic linear mindset of traditional project management. “Simultaneous managers” subscribe to the rational and scientific approach but also adopt a new mindset of flexibility, one of expecting goals and means to be resolved simultaneously and interactively rather than sequentially. This course examines the 9 principles simultaneous managers use interdependently, and presents a theory of project management that is intellectually rigorous and consistent with pragmatic knowledge.

ENCE 625 Project Administration (3) This course examines the principals of project administration procedures, specifically addressing the project administration responsibilities of the project manager/project engineer in engineering, design, and construction industries. The course takes a project team approach for improved job efficiency, outlining a project team operation in which the office project administrator delegates to the greatest possible extent all those project administrative functions that can be done more efficiently in the field. The class also addresses the responsibilities and risks that a project administrative manager is likely to encounter. The course is suitable for students, engineering and design professionals, project managers, experienced contract administrators, and owners interested in the special administrative problems of engineering or construction.

ENCE 626 Web-based Project Management (3) This course discusses applications of the world wide web and e-business approaches to managing engineering projects and distributed project teams. Reviewing the historical and technical background of the web, web tools, and associated information technology, this course investigates concepts underlying knowledge management and the use of KM systems to support engineering organizations, including project communications, knowledge archiving, and e-learning. This course covers topics related to data management and the extension of data management, query, and retrieval in web environments, OLAP, and OLTP; ERP systems solutions and applications to project management, collaborative engineering, managing virtual teams, security in project management systems, and online procurement and vending.

ENCE 627 Project Risk Assessment & Decision Analysis (3) This course is an introduction to identifying, analyzing, assessing, and managing risks inherent to engineering projects. Students will learn about probability modeling, choice and value theory, schedule and cost risk, risk mitigation and transfer, and contract considerations of project risk. Examples are drawn from construction, software development, systems integration, and other large engineering projects, and cover probability basics, subjective probability, statistical data analysis, introduction to decision theory, Monte Carlo simulation, value of information, and risk-based decision making.

ENCE 663 Management of Design & Construction Organizations (3) This course covers the management of design and construction organizations at the company, project and activity levels. Topics covered include legal organizational frameworks; strategic planning; functional planning (including marketing, project and activity planning); organization; implementation; control; compensation, benefits, and incentives. The course includes case study analysis and selection of appropriate project delivery systems and related forms of agreement.

ENCE 666 Cost Engineering & Control (3) This course covers analytical techniques for project estimation and cost control, including site investigation, quantity takeoff, work analysis, and bid preparation, examination of popular software, systematic cost control, the fundamentals of different types of cost estimation, and appropriate applications of each. Case studies on cost engineering and controls during the life cycle of a project using simulation techniques to analyze and prepare the estimate, bid, control budget, change order process, schedule impacts, and cost impacts will also be used to reinforce cost engineering techniques.

ENCE 688G Probabilistic Optimization in Project Management (3) This course will help project managers make difficult decisions when there is more than one competing objective. For example, in a generic engineering project, you might have the following competing objectives to try: minimize environmental impacts and costs and maximize production and reliability. This course will present methods for resolving these types of problems and examine case studies in project management. Some optimization experience/coursework and/or up to multi-dimensional calculus is suggested but these can be waived with permission of the instructor.

ENCE 721 Investment Theory for Project Engineers (3) This is an introductory graduate course designed to expose students to investment theory as well as its application to project evaluation and selection. Topics include basic theory of interest and fixed income securities, portfolio selection and modification, capital asset pricing; asset price dynamics, derivative securities, and project evaluation using real options.

ENCE 722 Market, Spatial, and Traffic Equilibrium Models in Project Engineering (3) This course is an introduction to equilibrium models involving economics and engineering, concentrating on models involving markets (Nash-Cournot, etc.) wherein activities are spatially diverse as well as those involving energy activities or traffic flow. Areas covered include: review of relevant optimization theory; presentation of the nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) and variational inequality problem (VIP) formats to solve equilibrium problems as well as introduction to existence and uniqueness results; review of relevant game theory notions; presentation of specific models for market, spatial, energy, and traffic equilibrium problems; and presentations for algorithms to solve these equilibrium problems.

ENCE 723 Project Decision Making with Competing Objectives (3) This course is an introduction to the theory and algorithms behind optimization under competing objectives, also called "multi-objective optimization." This course explores the concepts of dominated solutions, Pareto optimal or "efficient" solutions, as well as developing theory for general nonlinear multi-objective optimization problems, but concentrates the majority of effort on the linear case for the algorithms. The course also considers other multi-objective models such as goal programming to solve problems with competing objectives.

ENCE 724 Nonlinear Programming in Project Management (3) This course provides mathematically rigorous motivation and introduction to nonlinear programming theory relevant to numerous problems in economics, engineering, and other disciplines. The course will focus on models necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality of nonlinear programs.