Do you believe applying project management skills to training projects leads to higher-quality training? Does working with subject matter experts, Web developers, programmers, and graphic designers tempt you to obtain Project Management Professional (PMP) certification?

The Project Management Institute’s PMP certification has created a cottage industry in training. SkillSoft, for example, offers more than 40 online courses and more than 600 project management-related online books through Books24x7 to help people fine-tune their project management skills.

This review focuses on Skillsoft’s course on the ethical and legal requirements of being a project manager; the course also addresses the responsibility of a project manager to contribute to the body of project management knowledge.

800-pound gorilla of business e-learning

SkillSoft (www.skillsoft.com) is the 800-pound gorilla of asynchronous e-courses on a multitude of business subjects. I approached this review with a touch of awe, trepidation, and self-interest. As a student of the tutorial-style asynchronous Web course, I understand the historical significance of SkillSoft’s pioneering work in the field of business e-learning.

The company has been both applauded and emulated and sometimes maligned for being first to market with content that’s online but not very interactive. The challenge of this relatively static Webpage format is how to get beyond the Web-delivered slide show. When is it faster to just read a book offline?

Nevertheless, when you consider volume pricing for large and small companies, widespread availability, and the quality of content delivered, I give this e-course four stars. Ethics and Professional Knowledge succeeds because its high-quality writing engages learners and demands understanding and judgment.

As a PMI Charter-Global Registered Education Provider, SkillSoft courses meet continuing education requirements, which are prerequisites to sit for the certification exams (in other words, the company knows its stuff).

In project management, there’s a continuum from managers who try, or are instructed, to apply basic principles of managing vendors, project costs, schedules, and timelines for multiple projects to certified PMPs who fill in issue logs, risk assessments, context matrices, GANT charts, and the like. This course is valuable for both types and anyone in between.

Course content and design

The course is well-organized into three sections: 1) Understanding Ethical Standards, Following Legal Requirements, Avoiding Conflicts of Interest; 2) Components for Knowledge-Based Management, Sharing Lessons Learned, Transferring Knowledge Effectively, and Dimensions of Competency; and 3) Assessing Personal Strengths and Weaknesses.

As a t+d project management generalist, I found the content held my attention and challenged me. I especially liked the main menu feature of showing completion status. The pre-test and main menu listings helped me create a learning path based on my lesson pre-test scores. Links are provided to Skill Briefs that contain relevant Project Management Institute information and checklists.

For training development managers, the content provides many “ah ha!” moments leading towards a better understanding and appreciation of the value of project managers. The ability to follow contract specifications, recognize conflicts of interest, and document what worked and what didn’t are skills that can improve most training development initiatives.

SkillSoft courses reflect a disciplined e-course development effort. The use of templates for interactivity and the consistent user interface result in more effective e-learning. Most users should be able to navigate the main menu with ease. For example, Skill Briefs and Job Aids can be accessed anytime from the main navigation bar located at the bottom of the course template.

SkillSoft has invested generously in expert copywriting of problem-based learning scenarios. This use of practice with ample feedback elevates the course to an interactive level of three on a four-point scale. Frequent use of multiple-choice quizzes and incorporation of audio narration and real-world scenarios make for effective learning and maintain the learner’s attention.

(For people who dislike being scored on every instructional quiz, an “explore mode” is offered occasionally.)

The problem-based learning approach succeeds because of the depth of writing. It’s not so simplistic that you can breeze through the course. The use of audio on each page makes for easy viewing and learning by people with different learning styles (I found the use of headphones kept me tuned in and focused). This is especially true for people not accustomed to reading quickly. Fast readers have the option of turning the audio off.

It’s difficult to evaluate the learning effectiveness of a single SkillSoft e-learning course, because it often comes with a supporting cast. When taken as a whole, the entire project management curriculum, the SkillPort LMS, Books24x7, the mentoring capability, and links to PMI material provide real value and a turnkey solution to preparing for the PMP exam or just beefing up your department’s understanding of project management.

People who have a propensity to be good project managers because of their attention to detail and ability to get things done on time and on budget will appreciate the SkillSoft approach to e-learning and will probably agree with my four star rating. Those who expect e-learning to creatively entertain and offer complex branched simulations may disagree. In the end, I side with the 800-pound gorilla whose success in the business e-learning marketplace speaks for itself.

What I liked about the course

· pre-test and scoring on main menu

· audio on each page

· multiple real-life scenarios

· “explore mode” option

· links to study aids

· access to hundreds of project management books through SkillPort

Concerns I have about the course

· I would like to see more exercises that require learners to reflect on their own experience.

· Revealing content by requiring the learner to click on buttons to learn more is old hat and should be dropped from the SkillSoft bag of templates.

·  The drag-and-drop moves are small and require sensitive mouse work

Recommendation

I highly recommend the Ethics and Professional Knowledge e-learning course to anyone interested in learning what it means to be a professional project manager or pursuing a PMP certification.

Project Management: Ethics and Professional Knowledge

Product Rating