The School of Commerce & Enterprise · business, money & management
Project & Operations Management
Plans, queues, and bottlenecks — the craft of delivering what was promised, when it was promised.
Defining done, sequencing the work, and forecasting honestly when it slips.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~18 hours
Unit I — Defining the Project
The charter: why, what, who · Scope and the work breakdown structure · Stakeholders and what each one fears
Unit II — Scheduling
Estimating: the planning fallacy and its cures · Dependencies and the critical path · Buffers: where slack belongs
Unit III — Running the Work
Status reports that state things · The risk register: likelihood times pain · Change control without bureaucracy
Unit IV — Landing It
Definition of done, enforced · Handover and documentation · The retrospective that changes the next project
Short cycles, visible work, and plans that expect to be wrong early instead of late.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~12 hours
Unit I — Why Iterate
Waterfall's honest failure mode · Small batches and fast feedback · The agile manifesto, read plainly
Unit II — The Mechanics
Backlogs and ruthless ordering · Sprints, standups, and demos · Kanban: limiting work in progress
Unit III — Making It Stick
Estimation with story points, loosely held · Retrospectives that produce one change · Scaling: when ceremonies multiply
Forecasting, capacity, inventory, and quality — the machinery behind every promise to a customer.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~26 hours
Unit I — Processes
Mapping a process end to end · Throughput, cycle time, and Little's law · Bottlenecks: the constraint rules the plant
Unit II — Forecasting and Capacity
Simple forecasting: averages to seasonality · Capacity planning and utilization · Queues: why ninety percent busy means long waits
Unit III — Inventory
Why inventory exists at all · Economic order quantity and reorder points · Safety stock and service levels
Unit IV — Quality
Statistical process control at a glance · Root cause: five whys and fishbone diagrams · Continuous improvement as routine
Sourcing, logistics, and the fragile choreography that puts things on shelves.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~16 hours
Unit I — The Chain, Mapped
Tiers: from raw material to retail · Make, buy, or partner · The bullwhip effect, demonstrated
Unit II — Sourcing and Suppliers
Selecting and auditing suppliers · Contracts, lead times, and penalties · Single source versus resilience
Unit III — Logistics
Modes: ship, rail, truck, air · Warehousing and cross-docking · Customs and the paperwork of borders
Unit IV — Risk and Resilience
Disruption: pandemics, ports, politics · Buffers, dual sourcing, nearshoring · Measuring the chain: on-time-in-full and inventory turns
Waste, flow, and statistical control — the Toyota lessons that travel beyond factories.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — Seeing Waste
The seven wastes, spotted on a walk · Value-stream mapping · Flow versus batch, demonstrated
Unit II — Lean Tools
Pull systems and kanban cards · 5S and visual management · Setup reduction and small lots
Unit III — Quality by Numbers
Variation: common cause versus special cause · Control charts, read and kept · Capability: is the process good enough
Unit IV — The Improvement Habit
Kaizen events and daily improvement · A3 problem solving · Sustaining gains after the consultants leave