BACKGROUND | PROGRAM DETAILS | CURRICULUM | COST & TIME | SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
One of the World’s Most Advanced Online Project Management Training!
A Virtual Simulation-Based Course Developed
by and for
NASA Program and Project Managers
In an on-demand world, highly interactive
web-based skills training courseware
delivers immediate results.
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Return to Mars Program Details
Content
Case-based asynchronous learning that brings relevance to the user experience. Build competency. Practice skills in a virtual environment.
Learn from the experts. These groundbreaking, interactive, media-rich learning experiences recreate many of NASA's innovative projects, including the Pathfinder Mission to Mars (PMI's Project of Year) and two case studies based on the NEAR and IMAGE missions.
Learning Design
Return to Mars blends over 40 movies, 350 screens, state-of-the-art sound, animation, interface facility - and even Leonard Nimoy - into 14 powerful, 45-minute modules. NEAR and IMAGE are modeled on the Harvard Business Case Study Method.
Overview
The course uses an advanced project to create a dramatic context for a learner to build skills and practice project management techniques within a subsystem of the Pathfinder mission/project and puts you in the hot-seat of a bold attempt to land a spacecraft on Mars. The budget is tight: $150 million, though the last mission to Mars cost over $1 billion. The schedule is rigid: do it in 3.5 years, or you'll miss the launch window. Since participants get to simulate a real project, they come away with skills and information they can immediately apply to their own projects.
Performance Focus
The courseware gives participants a clear understanding of the dynamics and challenges of project management, and provides the tools and techniques to manage the entire life cycle of a project. The course develops essential soft skills by immersing the participant in a simulation of Pathfinder's unique project environment, stressing performance and creativity, as well as innovation under tight budget and schedule restraints. Alongside its critical insights into the value of such skills as leadership, teamwork, and communication, Return to Mars provides practical tools such as work breakdown structures, lessons learned, and a 60-day scheduling software.
An interactive web-based
skills development course
that delivers immediate results.
In designing the Return to Mars course, Palatine married a foundation project management skills curriculum to an advanced project (case study) -- i.e., the Mars Pathfinder. What this achieved was a highly flexible learning solution that develops competencies for project management professionals at multiple levels of experience.
Return to Mars consists of 14 episodes with each comprised of access quizzes, exercises based around a business case study, job aids and tools, lessons learned movies from the simulated team, and problem-solving scenarios and activities. There is a final test for PDU credit. Do you or your team have the knowledge, experience and ability to successfully complete this course? If so, advance your career! Gain recognition! And enjoy an educational and entertaining learning experience that you will never forget!
Earn 14 PDUs towards PMP certification or recertification
with this web-based project management skills building course
originally designed for NASA project managers.
Advance your career! Gain recognition! And enjoy an educational and entertaining learning experience that you will never forget!
Qualifies for 14 PDUs / 1.2 CEUs
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