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Adam Minahan

Instructional Designer / e-Learning Developer

Google Project Management Certificate

  • Writer: Adam Minahan
    Adam Minahan
  • May 23, 2024
  • 17 min read

Updated: Sep 20, 2024

I recently completed the Google Professional Certificate in Project Management on Coursera. I have compliled some of my notes here to create a brief overview of what I have learned so that I can apply it to future projects.



Foundations of Project Management

What is a "project"?

  • A unique and temporary pursuit that usually includes unique deliverables

  • A series of tasks to reach a desired outcome with a defined beginning and end

What is "project management"?

It is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet project requirements and achieve desired outcomes.

Why use project management?

It helps a project deliver expected outcomes within budget.

What does a project manager do?

Essentially, they use organizational and interpersonal skills to manage projects from start to finish and work as guides for the team to facilitate effciency.


They are not necessarily the boss of the people on a team, simply the manager of the tasks the team must complete.


They are involved in:

  • Planning and organizing

    • Gathering requirements from stakeholders, customers and team members through kick-off meetings, surveys, interviews, etc.

    • Keeping everyone aligned and tasks moving

  • Managing tasks

    • Keeping everyone in the loop on what they should be doing

    • Communicating milestones to larger team or customers

  • Budgeting

  • Controlling costs and other factors

What is the value of a project manager?

  • Add value to their teams by effectively prioritizing the tasks required to complete a project

  • Act as a liason between the team and the stakeholders

  • Delegate tasks to the right people with the right skills

  • Prioritize tasks appropriately to maximize efficiency

  • Communicate effectively with team and stakeholders

    • Keep in regular contact with teams

    • Identify areas where team members may need support

How do project managers impact organizations?

  • Focuses on the customer by asking questions such as:

    • What is the problem you would like us to help solve?

    • How is the problem impacting your organization? 

    • What prompted you to ask for help now?

    • What is your hope for the outcome of this project?

  • Builds a great team

    • Knows all team members' motivations, strengths, and weaknesses

    • Considers the skills and the available resources needed

    • Ensures all team members feel valued, trusted, and appreciated

  • Fosters relationships and communication

    • Takes the time to check in daily with team to see how they're doing and to see if they need anything

  • Manages the project

    • Sees impact of each process within the project and communicates impacts to team

      • Ensures that everyone working on the project understands their task goal as well as the big picture goal for the finished product

  • Breaks down barriers

    • Allows team to innovate and empowers them to share ideas

    • Exemplifies ingenuity and collobration and encourages team to follow suit

What are a project manager's key roles and responsibilties?

  • Plans and organizes

    • Makes use of productivity tools and creating processes

    • Creates plans, timelines, schedules and other forms of documentation to track project completion

  • Budgets and controls costs and other factors

    • Monitors and manages the budget

    • Tracks issues and risks

    • Manages quality

    • Removes unforeseen barriers

  • Delegates and keeps track of project tasks (activities that need to be accomplished within a set period of time by either team or stakeholders)

  • Teaches and mentors

    • Explains expectations to avoid rework, confusion, and frustration

  • Builds relationships

    • Shows that they care about team as people, not just employees

    • Communicates with customers, clients, vendors, and other stakeholders to gain insights

  • Controls change

    • Needs to be flexible and adjust to statekholder needs

    • Protects team from constant change and rework

      • Documents initial expectations of project to clearly indentify changes being requested

    • Understands impact of changes on budget and lets stakeholder know

  • Empowers team

    • Lets them work directly with stakeholders to show they are trusted

    • Lets them share ideas and find solutions

      • Uses their input in the planning and execution of project

    • Delegates responsibilities and lets them make decisions

  • Communicates status and concern

    • Maintains an open door policy and builds trust

What is a project manager's role within a team?

  • Clarifies goals

  • Gets team members with the right skills

  • Holds all team members accountable for their assigned tasks

  • Ensures that issues and risks are tracked and visible, and establishes escalation paths

  • Understands and helps teammates adopt effective workflows

  • Measures progress

  • Collaborates with other teams at the organization to deliver solutions that meet the requirements based on project scope, schedule and budget

  • Recognizes and rewards effort

What are the core skills of a project manager?

  • Enabling decision making

    • Gathering insights/data and communicating to relevant people

  • Communicating and escalating

    • Documenting plans, sending emails about project status, holding meetings with stakeholders to communicate progress, concerns, etc.

  • Flexibility

    • Prepared for unpredictable moments

    • Stay cool under pressure

  • Strong organizational skills

    • Uses:

      • Planning and scheduling software (templates, workflows, calendars)

      • Collaboration tools (email, collaboration software, dashboards)

      • Documentation (files, plans, spreadsheets)

      • Quality assurance tools (evaluations, productivity trackers, reports)

  • Handling ambiguity

    • Keep calm

    • Express empathy

    • Communicate knowledge clearly

    • Make decisions and stick to them

    • Trust expertise of team

How does a project manager demonstrate leadership?

  • Influences without authority

    • Guides teammates to complete work without acting as boss

  • Uses key interpersonal skills

    • Communication

      • Checks in with teammates to understand progress

      • Provides clear feedback

    • Negotiation

      • Compromises on need deadlines

    • Conflict mediation

      • Sets up meetings between teammates with disagreements

    • Understands motivations

      • Learns how teammates prefer to receive feedback

What are the phases of the project management "life cycle"?

  1. Initiate the project

    1. Define project goals and deliverables

    2. Identify budget, resources and people needed

    3. Document all this information

    4. Get approved

  2. Make a plan

    1. Outline important tasks

    2. Build schedule

    3. Create itemized budget

  3. Execute and complete tasks

    1. Monitor progress

    2. Remove obstacles

    3. Address weaknesses

    4. Adapt to changes

    5. Keep team aware of deadlines and expectations

  4. Close the project

    1. Evaluate how project went

    2. Use key lessons for future projects

What are some project management methodologies?

Project management methodologies can be broken down into two approaches:

  • Linear: Blueprint is created beforehand and followed systematically.

  • Iterative: Some phases and tasks overlap. Adjustments are made to different parts of the project all along the way.


Waterfall vs. Agile

Waterfall is a traditional methodology that has team members compelte tasks and phrases sequentially. Each stage should be completed before embarking ont he next.


Agile uses short, collaborative phases that produce work that is given feedback and changes are implemented in the next phase.


Waterfall

Agile

Project manager's role

Serves as active leader; prioritizes and delegates tasks to team members

Serves as a facilitator; removes barriers; takes more of a backseat as team members have more responsibility for their work

Scope

Project plan and deliverables are established and documented in early stages of initiating project

Focused on delivering value quickly, so project is developed in short iterations; feedback or unforeseen issues inform future iterations

Schedule

Follows a linear path that includes initiating, planning, executing, and closing a project

Project organized into short phases called sprints, which have a defined duration anda list of deliverables to be completed

Cost

Costs are carefully estimated upfront and closely monitored

Costs could change often

Quality

Project manager clearly defines criteria to measure quality at the outset

Team tests product to get user and stakeholder feedback and implements improvements

Communication

Project manager constantly communicates progress to stakeholders

Team and customers communicate constantly to improve project

Stakeholders

Project manager manages and monitors stakeholder engagmente

Deliverables are steadily provided to stakeholders to receive feedback and implement relevant changes on the go

Lean

This methodology is all about removing waste from processes. It should be implemented if you would like to use limited resources, reduce waster, and streamline processes. The Lean S5 quality tool can be used to maximize benefits:

  • Sort: Remove all items not needed for the project and use only the essentials.

  • Set in order: Label and arrange tools so that they are easy to find and use.

  • Shine: Keep everything organized.

  • Standardize: Perform processes in the same way every time. 

  • Sustain: Maintain correct procedures and instill discipline in the team.


The Lean methodology uses a Kanban to keep things organized:



Six Sigma

This methodology uses seven principles to ensure that quality processes are always followed in order to reduce variation and maintain consistency in a project. The principles should be applied to measurable aspects of a product or processes, like time, cost, or quantity, to see if they meet the set standards. These principles are:

  1. Always focus on the customer.

  2. Identify and understand how the work gets done. Understand how work really happens.

  3. Make your processes flow smoothly.

  4. Reduce waste and concentrate on value.

  5. Stop defects by removing variation.

  6. Involve and collaborate with your team.

  7. Approach improvement activity in a systematic way.


Six Sigma uses a process improvement approach called DMAIC:

  • Define

  • Measure

  • Analyze

  • Improve

  • Control


Lean and Six Sigma can be combined to both reduce waste and ensure consistency. This new methodology is called Lean Six Sigma.

What are different types of organizational structures?

  • Classic: Top-down or functional structures; follows a chain-of-command

  • Matrix: Not only accountable to those above in the hierarchy, but also must report to adajacent departments

How does organizational structure impact project management?

  • Tells us who to report to

  • Tells us how to get the resources a project needs

  • Sets amount of authority and responsibilty a project manager has

    • Classic: Not much authority; need permission for certain tasks or obtaining resources; might need to go through a chain of approval for things such as a budget adjustment

    • Matrix: Employees often have two or more people they need to report to; may need to share resources and negotiate priorities with other teams

What is the role of a Project Management Office (PMO)?

It is a group within an organization that defines, sets, and helps maintain project management standards and processes throughout that organization. It often acts as a coordinated center for all of the organization’s projects, helping them run more smoothly and efficiently.

A PMO's functions:

  • Strategic planning and governance

    • Selects projects suitable for business goals

    • Provides case for projects to management

    • Defines project criteria

  • Best practices

    • Share lessons learned from previous projects

    • Provides guidance about processes, tools, and metrics

    • Ensure consistency

  • Common project culture

    • Trains employees to follow optimal approaches

  • Resource management

    • Allocates resources

    • Sets budgets, processes, schedules, etc.

    • Define roles and responsibilities

    • Provides training, mentoring, and coaching

  • Creation of project documentation, archives, and tools

    • Invests in and provides software and templates

    • Maintains history of all projets in organization


How does organizational culture impact project management?

Organizational culture is defined as an organization's values, mission, and history as well as the values that the employees share.


It is important to understand an organization's culture to minimize conflict and complete a project with support and harmony.


We should align the project to the values of the organization and the stakeholders to get buy-in.


To get an idea of an organization's culture, make observations and ask:

  • How does communication happen?

    • Meetings, emails, over the phone?

  • How are decisions made?

    • Majority vote vs. top-down

  • What kind of rituals are in place when new employees start?

    • Taken out to lunch, given tour, introduced to others

  • How are projects typically run?

    • Classic vs Matrix

  • What kinds of practices, behaviors, and values are reflected by the people in the organization?

    • Overtime/weekend work an expectation, social events

What is a project manager's role in change management?

There are three core concepts related to a project manager's role in change management. They are:

  • Creating a sense of urgency and ownership around the changes/project

    • Get others to feel responsible for making the changes/project successful

  • Figuring out right combination of skills and personalities

  • Effective communication

    • Be up front with plans and ideas

    • Make information available and make sure everyone is up to date


When thinking about your role as a project manager during changes, ask:

  • How will the organization react to change?

  • Which influencers can affect change?

  • What are the best means of communication? 

  • What change management practices will lead to the successful implementation of my project? 


Best change management practices include:

  • Be proactive

    • Create a feedback document so people can address concerns

    • Create demonstrations, question and answer forums, or marketing videos

  • Communicate about upcoming changes

  • Follow a consistent process

  • Practice empathy

    • People will be resistent to changes due to challenges and anxiety

  • Use tools

    • Surveys to gain input and insight

    • Flowcharts to visualize the process

    • Culture mapping to show how company's values, norms, and employee behavior will be affected by changes



Project Initiation: Starting a Successful Project

What are the key components of project initiation?

  • Cost-benefit analysis

    • Comparing the expected value of a project (benefits) to the dollar cost; the benefits should always outweigh the costs

      • To determine benefits ask:

        • What value will this project create?

        • How much money could it save the organization?

        • How much money will it bring in?

        • How will time be saved?

        • How will users benefit?

      • To determine the costs ask:

        • How much time will people have to spend on this project?

        • What will be the one-time costs?

        • What are the ongoing costs?

        • Any long-term costs?

      • Intangible benefits include:

        • Customer satisfaciton

        • Employee satisfaction

        • Employee productivity

        • Brand perception

  • Goals

    • What have you been asked to do and what are you trying to achieve?

  • Scope

    • Work that needs to happen to complete the project

  • Deliverables

    • Products/services made for client (tangible or intangible)

  • Success Criteria

    • Standards used to measure success of project reaching goals

  • Stakeholders

    • People who have an interest in the success of project

  • Resources

    • Budget, people, materials at disposal for project

    • Should be planned ahead of time

  • Project charter

    • Define project, its goals, and what is needed to accomplish goals

    • Review with key stakeholders

What are "SMART" goals?

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-bound

What are "OKRs"?

Objectives and Key Results


These help establish and clarify goals and measurable outcomes.


Objective:

  • Defines what needs to be achieved

  • Describes desired outcome


Key Results:

  • Measurable outcomes that show that objectives were met


Example:

  • Objective: Decrease employee errors with software

  • Key Results: 70% reduction in errors


OKRs can be set at three levels (and they should all be aligned):

  1. Organizational

  2. Departamental

  3. Project


Strong objectives are:

  • Aspirational

  • Aligned with organizational goals

  • Action-oriented

  • Concrete

  • Significant


To make strong objectives ask:

  • Does the objective help in achieving the project’s overall goals?

  • Does the objective align with company and departmental OKRs?

  • Is the objective inspiring and motivational?

  • Will achieving the objective make a significant impact?


Strong key results are:

  • Results-oriented

  • Measurable and verifiable

  • Specific and time-bound

  • Aggressive yet realistic


To make strong key results ask:

  • What does success mean?

  • What metrics would prove that we’ve successfully achieved the objective?

How is a project's scope determined?

Find out what will be and what will not be included in the project related to:

  • Budget

  • Timeline

  • Resources


Questions to ask:

  • Where did the project come from?

  • Why is it needed?

  • What is it expected to achieve?

  • What does the project sponsor have in mind?

  • Who approves the final results?


Think about:

  • Stakeholders

  • Goals

  • Deliverables

  • Resources

  • Budget

  • Schedule

  • Flexibility

What is "scope creep" and how can it be avoided?

Scope creep is when the work of the project grows larger than what was originally planned and agreeed upon.


To avoid it:

  • Define your projects requirements: Communicate with stakeholders and document their exact requests during the initiation phase.

  • Set a clear project schedule: Time and task management are essential.

  • Determine what is out of scope: Communicate what is out of scope and the consequences of including those things. Document agreements.

  • Provide alternatives: A cost-benefit analysis may be needed.

  • Set up a change control process: Determine the process for defining, changing, and approving/rejecting proposed changes.

  • Learn how to say no: Document costs incurred for changes.

  • Collect costs for out-of-scope work:

How can we manage project scope?

To mange scope, project manager's can refer to the Triple Constraint Model. Each constraint impacts the other. Changing one impacts the others.


The three constraints of the Triple Contraint Model are:

  • Time

    • Project timeline and schedule

  • Scope

  • Cost

    • Budget


Here is an article on the Triple Constraint Model.

What is the difference between "launching" and "landing" a project?

Launching: Delivering deliverables of the project to the client or user


Landing: Measuring the successful of the project using the success criteria established at the project's outset

How should we choose a project team?

First, consider:

  • Required roles for the team to complete each task

  • How many people are needed for the team (consider project size)

  • Think about the necessary skills to know who will do what

    • Technical, problem-solving, leadership

  • Availability of team members

  • Motivation levels of team members

What are the essential project roles?

  • Project manager

  • Stakeholders

    • Primary: Directly affected by project outcome

  • Project team members

  • Project sponsor

    • Initiates the project and is responsible for presenting a business case for its existence, signing the project charter, and releasing resources to the project manager

What are the responsibilities of the project roles?

  • Project manager

    • Monitor quality of work

    • Manage the timeline

    • Scope accurately

    • Use team-building techniques

    • Manage the budget

    • Plan and direct project work

  • Project sponsor

    • Advise on key business decisions

    • Advocate for alignment with senior management

    • Approve budget and resources

  • Project team member

    • Possess specific expertise

    • Contribute to individual project objetives

    • Work independently and collaboratively

What is a "RACI Chart" and how do I build one?

Why do projects fail?

  • Unclear expectations

    • Make sure to ask:

      • What is the end goal?

      • What are the expected deliverables and schedule?

      • What is the budget?

      • Who are the stakeholders?

  • Unrealistic expectations

  • Miscommunication

  • Lack of resources

  • Scope creep

What are some important project documents?

Project proposal: Persuades client to move forward with project


Project charter: Clearly defines key details of project; serves as a point of reference through the project life cycle; makes clear that benefits outweigh costs; shows agreement with stakeholders on details of project and matches needs of organization

What should a project charter include?

  • project summary

  • goals and objectives 

  • benefits and costs

  • project team

  • scope

  • success criteria

  • major requirements or key deliverables

  • budget

  • schedule and milestones

  • constraints and assumptions

  • risks

  • OKRs

  • approvals

What are some benefits of project management tools?

  • Track tast deadlines

  • Provide visibility to teammates

  • Manage a budget

  • Create helpful diagrams

  • Manage contracts


Project Planning: Putting It All Together

Tips for leading a successful kick-off meeting

  • Choose a time that works for everyone

  • Choos an appropriate length of the meeting

  • Invite the appropriate people

  • Designate a notetaker

  • Make an agenda and send it out ahead of time

  • Stick to the agenda

  • Send a follow up email summarizing the meeting and delegating action items

Milestones vs tasks

Milestone: An important point during a project where something is completed such as a deliverable or a phase


Milestones help keep the project on task and help us see that the project is progressing on pace. They also help motivate the team and demonstrate progress to stakeholders.


Task: An activity that needs to be completed within a set period of time; assigned to one or more individuals


Many tasks make up a milestone.

Best practices for setting milestones

Top-down scheduling: Project manager breaks down milestones into project tasks


Bottom-up scheduling: Project manager looks at all tasks and then rolls them into managable chunks that turn into milestones


  • Don't set too many milestones as that would downplay their importance or it may make the project look bigger than it actually is

  • Don't mix up tasks and milestones; milestones are moments in time and tasks are what need to be done to get to those moments

  • Don't list milestones and tasks seperately

What is a "work breakdown structure (WBS)"?

It is a tool that creates a hierarchy for milestones and tasks and puts them in the order they need to be completed. It should show the tasks that need to be done to reach each milestones. Team members will have a clear picture of what they need to do.


The three main steps to making a WBS are:

  1. Begin with a high-level view of the project. List major deliverables and milestones

  2. Set the tasks needed to complete those milestones..

  3. Find the subtasks that need to be done to finish the main tasks.


You can make a Gantt Chart for your WBS.

What is a "critical path"?

Check out this link and this link.

Project budgeting best practices

  • Reference previous projects that were similar

  • Get the opinions of your team and manager

  • Time-phase the budget

  • Make sure the budget is accurate and error-free

  • Categorize direct (wages, materials, rentals, licenses, transportation, training) and indirect costs (utilities, insurance, secruity, general office supplies, etc.)

  • Create a baseline budget for start up costs

  • Conduct a reserve analysis to see how much buffer funds you have available

What is the procurement process?


  1. Initiating: planning what is needed to meet your project goals

  2. Selecting: deciding which suppliers and vendors to use

  3. Contract writing: developing, reviewing, and signing contracts

  4. Controlling: making payments and maintaining and ensuring quality

  5. Completing: measuring success

Risk vs Issue

Risks are potential "what ifs" that could happen and "issues" are the problems a project actually has.

Risk management helps us understand:

  • What could go wrong

  • Who you'll need to consult

  • How to mitigate risks

The phases of risk management

  1. Identify the risk.

  2. Analyze the risk.

  3. Evaluate the risk.

  4. Treat the risk. 

  5. Monitor and control the risk.


See this article for more information on the process of risk management.

Tools for risk management

  • Fishbone diagram

  • Risk register

  • Risk assessment

  • Probability and impact matrix

Types of risks

  • Time

  • Budget

  • Scope (possibility that a project will not produce the results outlined in the project goals)

  • Single point of failure

  • Dependency (one task of the project cannot be completed or begin before another task)

    • Internal vs external

Risk mitigation strategies

  • Decision tree

  • Risk management plan

  • Communicate risks to stakeholders

Risk management template

Access it here.

Communication plan template

Click here.



Project Execution: Running the Project

Items to track

  • Project schedule

  • Action items, key tasks and activites

  • Progress toward milestones

  • Costs

  • Key decisions, changes, dependencies, and risks

Tools for project tracking

Key components of a project status report

  • Project name

  • Summary

  • Status

  • Milestones and tasks

  • Issues

Project status report template

Click here.

Dependencies

"Dependencies are the links that connect one project task to another, and as we mentioned, they're often the greatest source of risk to a project. Two or more project tasks may have a relationship with one another in which the completion of one task is reliant on the initiation of another task, and vice versa."

ROAM analysis template

Click here.

Quality managemet concepts

  • "Quality standards provide requirements, specifications, or guidelines that can be used to ensure that products, processes, or services are fit for achieving the desired outcome. These standards must be met in order for the product, process, or service to be considered successful by the organization and the customer. You will set quality standards with your team and your customer at the beginning of your project. Well-defined standards lead to less rework and schedule delays throughout your project."

  • "Quality planning involves the actions of you or your team to establish and conduct a process for identifying and determining exactly which standards of quality are relevant to the project as a whole and how to satisfy them. During this process, you'll plan the procedures to achieve the quality standards for your project."

  • "Quality assurance, or QA, is a review process that evaluates whether the project is moving toward delivering a high-quality service or product. It includes regular audits to confirm that everything is going to plan and that the necessary procedures are being followed. Quality assurance helps you make sure that you and your customers are getting the exact product you contracted for."

  • "Quality control, or QC, involves monitoring project results and delivery to determine if they are meeting desired results. It includes the techniques that are used to ensure quality standards are maintained when a problem is identified. Quality control is a subset of quality assurance activities. While QA seeks to prevent defects before they occur, QC aims to identify defects after they have happened and also entails taking corrective action to resolve these issues."

Retrospective template

Click here.

Tuckman's Stages of Group Development

Click here.

Cogner's four steps to persuade

  1. Establish credibility

  2. Frame for common ground

  3. Provide evidence

  4. Connect emotionally 

Meeting agenda template

Click here.

Project closeout report template

Click here.


Agile Project Management

Agile Manifesto

Find it here.

VUCA

Find it here.

Scrum founding principles

(Copy and pased directly from the course)


  • Built-in instability: In the Scrum world, teams are given the freedom to achieve important outcomes with “challenging requirements.” Takeuchi and Nonaka explain that this gives teams “an element of tension” necessary to “carry out a project of strategic importance to the company.” 

  • Self-organizing teams: Scrum Teams were intended to operate like their own start-up, with a unique order that lacks true hierarchy. These teams are considered self-organizing when they exhibit autonomy, continuous growth, and collaboration.  

  • Overlapping development phases: Individuals on a Scrum Team must “work toward synchronizing their pace to meet deadlines.” At some point throughout the process, each individual’s pace starts to overlap with others, and eventually, a collective pace is formed within the team.

  • Multi-learning: Scrum is a framework that relies heavily on trial and error. Scrum Team members also aim to stay up-to-date with changing market conditions and can then respond quickly to those conditions. 

  • Subtle control: As we mentioned, Scrum Teams are self-organizing and operate like a start-up, but that doesn’t mean there is no structure at all. By creating checkpoints throughout the project to analyze team interactions and progress, Scrum Teams maintain control without hindering creativity. 

  • Organizational transfer of learning: On Scrum Teams, everyone is encouraged to learn skills that may be new to them as they support other team members. 

Scrum pillars and values

Pillars of Scrum:


  • Transparency

  • Inspection

  • Adaptation


Values of Scrum:


  • Courage

  • Commitment

  • Focus

  • Openness

  • Respect

Scrum Guide

Find it here.

Characteristics of a great Scrum team

Find it here.

Product backlog template

Click here.

Product Roadmap First Principles

Find it here.

This is nothing

It won't allow me to delete it.

The influencer change framework

Three keys to influence:

  • Clarify measurable results

    • Make your SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals transparent

  • Find vital behaviors Real change occurs by identifying and encouraging vital behaviors at pivotal moments, informed by expert consultation, research, and cultural assessment.

  • Use the six sources of influence

    1. Personal motivation

    2. Personal ability

    3. Social motivation

    4. Social ability

    5. Structural motivation

      1. Incentives

    6. Structural ability


Click here to read a summary of the book The Influence Change Framework.


Applying Project Management in the Real World

Project charter template

Find it here.

Stakeholder analysis template

Here it is.

Project plan template

Closeout report template

Personal closing report



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