First 30 Days as a Project Manager: An Existing Project

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

This course includes English (US) captions and subtitles in 8 additional languages: Arabic, French (France), German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Spain), and Turkish.

Taking over an existing project is very different from starting a new one.

The project is already moving. Decisions have been made, commitments are in place, deadlines are approaching, and existing reports may not reflect the complete picture.

As the incoming Project Manager, your challenge is not simply to understand the project. It is to establish a reliable management position, protect ongoing delivery, and make informed decisions without disrupting existing commitments.

This practical course guides you through your first 30 days managing an ongoing project.

Through a structured, evidence-based approach and the realistic NOVA Service Hub Launch case study, you will learn how to:

• Recover project history, previous decisions, approvals, and incomplete handover records.

• Verify reported progress against approved baselines and supporting evidence.

• Reconcile scope, deliverable acceptance, and pending change requests.

• Assess remaining schedules, dependencies, resource availability, and completion forecasts.

• Review actual costs, outstanding commitments, and estimates to complete.

• Confirm team responsibilities, delegation limits, and decision-making authority.

• Prioritize inherited risks, active issues, and urgent conditions requiring escalation.

• Establish reliable reporting, management controls, and escalation procedures.

• Evaluate takeover completion using verifiable evidence rather than assumptions.

• Lead a structured Day 30 management review and establish accountable next steps.

A practical, case-based learning experience

Throughout the course, you will work with interconnected project records, realistic management challenges, and downloadable Excel tools and templates.

You will see how incomplete information, conflicting reports, unresolved commitments, and limited decision authority affect real project management decisions.

The course follows an eight-stage journey: Take Over, Verify, Assess, Align, Stabilize, Control, Review, and Next Steps.

By the end of this course, you will understand how to take responsibility for an existing project, establish a credible starting position, communicate unresolved exposures, and lead the transition into the next management period.

The objective is not to claim that every project problem can be solved in 30 days. It is to establish informed, evidence-based management control from the beginning.