Lake Michigan College is launching a new program to help Southwest Michigan businesses improve their employees’ project management skills.
LMC Dean of Career and Workforce Education David Krueger tells us the Project Management Accelerator has come out of discussions with employers, particularly manufacturers, about what they see lacking in their workforce.
“A lot of the manufacturing companies here in Southwest Michigan, as we met with them for the last couple of years, have just continued to say there’s a lack of training and preparation for people who might want to move through their company to be project managers,” Krueger said.
Dr. Krueger says the 48-week program is applicable across industries, including manufacturing, construction, and engineering. Students will be given hands-on experience seeing projects through.
“Every week participants will work on real life projects that they’ll have within their own company. They can bring to the class with them and they can design, build, work on budgets, revenues, expenses, deliverables, things that need to happen within their company.”
Students will experience the project lifecycle in real time, from initiating and planning through execution, performance tracking, and closeout. Krueger says people who have these sorts of skills are proving to be extremely valuable in the workplace. He says the program was developed with the help of several partners.
“We pulled a group of individuals together from industry who had vested interests in project management and what the needs were. We contracted and worked with an individual who worked as an adjunct instructor for us and was formally worked for Whirlpool before retiring. And we just sat down together as a team, worked with all these individuals over approximately nine months of time, putting everything together. What should be included? What are the most important key concepts that need to be taught? What are the outcomes we would want to have the employees walk away with when they’re done?”
Students who complete the Project Management Accelerator will receive a certificate, and more is possible.
“We built this also as a registered apprenticeship program. So anyone who completes the Project Management Accelerator, if their company sets it up with the Department of Labor, they can actually receive a federally recognized certificate of completion for an apprenticeship, apprenticeable item. So we set it up a couple of ways.”
As the program launches in September, it’s intended for businesses seeking to enroll employees, but Kreuger says it could be expanded into a series of course offerings for regular students in the future.
The registration page for the Project Management Accelerator program can be found right here.
