Plan Projects Better: Tools, Time, and Agile Estimation
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Plan Projects Better: Tools, Time, and Agile Estimation
This course is part of Advanced Project Management: Asana, Jira, Confluence, and AI Professional Certificate
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What you'll learn
Match common task fields to their visual representations in a PM tool.
Explain the purpose of story points and how they guide estimation.
Use scheduling tools to create and share a compact task timeline.
Audit a small project, apply productivity fixes, and submit before/after exports.
Skills you'll gain
Tools you'll learn
Details to know
March 2026
See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills
Build your Leadership and Management expertise
- Learn new concepts from industry experts
- Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
- Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
- Earn a shareable career certificate from Coursera
There are 5 modules in this course
This long course focuses on task-level design, estimation, and the fundamental tooling conventions that make planning achievable in day-to-day delivery. You will master task anatomy (title, description, assignee, due date, labels, and dependencies) and practical field templates that ensure clarity across teams. The course introduces story points and collaborative estimation techniques and demonstrates how to map story-point forecasting to team velocity. Hands-on work uses Asana timeline/Gantt views to sequence and export compact schedules and to create reproducible timeline artifacts. The emphasis is on repeatable, shareable artifacts: field templates, trimmed timelines, and a brief velocity snapshot for stakeholder conversations. You will practice short exercises that connect estimation choices to planning outcomes.
"Task Fields: Recall Project Essentials" is a beginner-level module for project management professionals focused on mastering digital tools like Trello and Asana. Through hands-on learning, you will practice identifying essential task fields such as Title, Assignee, and Due Date by matching terms with their visual icons. This module emphasizes that accurately populating task fields is crucial for improving team clarity, accountability, and collaboration. You will finish the module by creating a Trello reference card, a practical tool to streamline onboarding for new team members and enhance overall project productivity.
What's included
2 videos4 readings4 assignments
2 videosβ’Total 12 minutes
- The Core Four: Title, Description, Assignee, and Due Dateβ’8 minutes
- The Visual Language: Icons for Labels, Attachments, and Dependenciesβ’4 minutes
4 readingsβ’Total 23 minutes
- Why Task Detail Matters: Reducing Ambiguityβ’7 minutes
- How to Write a Perfect Task Descriptionβ’5 minutes
- How Labels Saved the Product Launchβ’6 minutes
- A Guide to Visual Associationβ’5 minutes
4 assignmentsβ’Total 55 minutes
- New Teammate Onboarding Portfolioβ’15 minutes
- Hands-On Learning: Create a Clear and Actionable Taskβ’20 minutes
- Response: The Risk of an Empty Fieldβ’10 minutes
- Hands-On Learning: Build Your Visual Task Boardβ’10 minutes
Tired of inaccurate, time-based project estimates? "Estimate Agile Work with Story Points" is a beginner-level module for agile teams seeking more confident and predictable planning. You'll learn to replace stressful hour-based guesses with story points, a collaborative method for measuring a task's complexity and uncertainty. Through hands-on practice and real-world case studies, you will master relative estimation and use your teamβs historical data (velocity) to create sprint plans you can actually deliver. You'll gain the skills to drive more accurate and collaborative planning using tools like Jira and Asana.
What's included
5 videos4 readings5 assignments
5 videosβ’Total 26 minutes
- Why We Use Story Points, Not Hours?β’6 minutes
- Articulating Story Points Effectivelyβ’5 minutes
- Why Your Tool is Your Team's Memory?β’4 minutes
- How to decide on Story Points in Sprint Planning?β’6 minutes
- Why Forecasting Matters: From Guessing to Knowing?β’5 minutes
4 readingsβ’Total 15 minutes
- Story Points vs. Hours: A Foundational Shiftβ’4 minutes
- The Role of Story Points in Sprint Planningβ’4 minutes
- Agile Estimation Techniques and Velocity in Practiceβ’4 minutes
- How to Forecast with Velocityβ’3 minutes
5 assignmentsβ’Total 70 minutes
- Agile Estimation in Practiceβ’30 minutes
- Hands-On Learning: Draft Your Pitchβ’10 minutes
- Knowledge Check: Core Conceptsβ’10 minutes
- Knowledge Check: Tools and Processesβ’10 minutes
- Knowledge Check: Estimation and Forecastingβ’10 minutes
Ready to turn project chaos into predictable success? "Project Timelines with Asana" is a beginner-level module for professionals who want to master scheduling. Moving beyond simple to-do lists, you will learn to build, manage, and communicate complex project timelines with confidence. Through hands-on labs in Asana, youβll practice mapping dependencies, identifying the critical path, and setting realistic milestones. You will gain the skills to resolve schedule conflicts and create clear stakeholder communication plans, empowering you to deliver projects on time and schedule like a professional.
What's included
4 videos2 readings5 assignments
4 videosβ’Total 25 minutes
- Beyond the To-Do List: Your Project's Blueprint for Successβ’7 minutes
- How to Map Your Project's Backbone?β’5 minutes
- From Static Plans to Dynamic Plays!β’6 minutes
- How to Build Timelines in Asana? β’6 minutes
2 readingsβ’Total 18 minutes
- The Core Principles of Project Sequencingβ’10 minutes
- The Asana Playbook & The Future of Scheduling β’8 minutes
5 assignmentsβ’Total 85 minutes
- Project Scheduling Strategy Portfolioβ’30 minutes
- Hands-On Learning: The Task Sequencing Puzzleβ’25 minutes
- Knowledge Check: Critical Path Scenarioβ’5 minutes
- Hands-On Learning: How to Adjust a Project Timelineβ’20 minutes
- Knowledge Check: Dynamic Scheduling Principles β’5 minutes
Tired of wasting time switching between your keyboard and mouse? "Project Productivity with Essential Shortcuts" is designed for any professional who wants to reclaim lost productivity. This module teaches a powerful method to identify your most frequent tasks and master their keyboard shortcuts. Through hands-on labs, you'll conduct time trials to measure your efficiency gains and build a personalized workflow that dramatically accelerates your work in any software. You will leave with a Personalized Productivity Toolkit, giving you a data-driven case for your new skills and a foundation for continuous improvement.
What's included
5 videos4 readings4 assignments
5 videosβ’Total 24 minutes
- The 1% Time-Saver Challengeβ’6 minutes
- Shortcuts in Action: A Trello Power User Demoβ’5 minutes
- Identifying Your 'Big Three': High-Impact Shortcuts with Trelloβ’5 minutes
- From Habit to High Performanceβ’5 minutes
- Calculating Your Efficiency Gain: A Step-by-Step Analysisβ’3 minutes
4 readingsβ’Total 22 minutes
- The Power User Gap: How Seconds Turn into Hoursβ’5 minutes
- How to Build a Quick-Reference Guide That Sticksβ’5 minutes
- Quantifying Your Speed: The Metrics of Productivityβ’5 minutes
- Preparing Your Personalized Productivity Toolkit: A Final Checklistβ’7 minutes
4 assignmentsβ’Total 75 minutes
- Personalized Productivity Toolkitβ’30 minutes
- Hands-On Learning: Your First Three: Document Your Shortcutsβ’25 minutes
- Knowledge Check: High-Impact Shortcut Principlesβ’5 minutes
- Hands-On Learning: Time-Trial Analysis: Calculate the Savingsβ’15 minutes
In this hands-on project, you will step into a project manager's role to transform a chaotic plan into a model of efficiency. You will audit a sample project, identifying inconsistent tasks and unclear details. By applying standardized templates, fixing metadata, optimizing the timeline, and using a productivity shortcut, you will create a streamlined, stakeholder-ready report. The final deliverable will be a powerful mini-case study for your portfolio, featuring "before-and-after" exports that provide concrete proof of your ability to create order, improve clarity, and drive project success.
What's included
2 readings1 assignment
2 readingsβ’Total 10 minutes
- Why This Project Matters: From Operational Drag to Peak Productivityβ’3 minutes
- Your Project Blueprint: Requirements and Evaluationβ’7 minutes
1 assignmentβ’Total 110 minutes
- Project: Task and Productivity Projectβ’110 minutes
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Frequently asked questions
No. It focuses on basic estimation and how to connect estimates to simple planning artifacts.
The project add-on asks you to audit a small sample project (6β10 tasks), apply productivity changes (templates, metadata fixes, and one shortcut workflow), and submit before/after exports with a short reflection.
Exercises mirror common features in Asana and similar tools. You do not need paid tool access for all activities; many exercises use screenshots, downloadable templates, or spreadsheet-based simulations.
More questions
Financial aid available,
ΒΉ Some assignments in this course are AI-graded. For these assignments, your data will be used in accordance with Coursera's Privacy Notice.
