project prioritization | resource management | capacity planning | OKR goals | KPI | workforce planning | delegation
What You Will Learn:
- Decide which project gets funded using a business case and cost-benefit analysis rather than who asked loudest
- Build a resource matrix and a network diagram, and see the moment two projects need the same person in the same week
- Use OKR as an actual prioritisation mechanism, with the quarterly cycle and an honest score at the end
- Design indicators that get acted on, using critical success factors and impact mapping instead of what was easy to pull
- Calculate capacity in FTE, segment your workforce and run a gap analysis between demand and availability
- Forecast demand with turnover analysis, extrapolation, Delphi and a team competency matrix
- Optimise headcount through combining roles, automation, internal part-time and outsourcing
- Free your own capacity with GTD, time-blocking and six levels of delegation, including RACI
- Learn alongside Mike’s 1.6 million students from 185 countries
- Get the author’s experience from Preply, Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank
The Reality Check Your Project Pipeline Desperately Needs
If you’ve spent more than five minutes in a high-growth tech environment, you know the drill: every stakeholder thinks their feature is a “P0,” the roadmap looks like a game of Tetris played by someone who hates winning, and the person who shouts the loudest usually gets the dev resources. I’ve seen this play out at startups and legacy firms alike, and honestly, it’s exhausting. I picked up Mike’s Project Prioritization and Resource Management course looking for a way to move beyond the “vibes-based” management style that plagues our industry, and I wasn’t disappointed. This isn’t just another theoretical certification prep course; it’s a tactical manual for anyone tired of seeing their team burn out on projects that don’t actually move the needle.
What struck me most was the shift from simple “to-do lists” to rigorous capacity planning. Mike doesn’t just tell you to prioritize; he gives you the mathematical framework to tell a VP “no” without getting fired. We’ve all been there—trying to juggle three high-stakes launches with a team that’s already at 110% capacity. This course dives deep into the “why” behind the “what,” forcing you to look at workforce planning as a game of finite physics rather than wishful thinking. It’s about moving from a reactive state to a proactive one where you’re actually managing the flow of work instead of just surviving the week.
Who Should Sign Up?
While the marketing says it scales from beginner to advanced, I’d argue you need at least a little bit of “battle damage” from a failed project to truly appreciate the value here. This is perfect for:
- Aspiring and Senior Project Managers who need job-ready skills to handle complex stakeholder environments.
- Engineering Leads who are tired of being the bottleneck and need to justify headcount optimization to finance.
- Operations Professionals looking to master resource management across multiple departments.
- Product Owners who want to transition from feature-counting to OKR goals and outcome-based roadmapping.
The Toolbox: Skills & Industry-Standard Tools
This course feels less like a lecture and more like a series of hands-on labs where you’re building out actual systems. You’re not just learning definitions; you’re learning how to deploy:
- Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA): Using hard data to kill “zombie projects” that have been draining resources for months.
- Resource Matrices & Network Diagrams: Visualizing the exact moment two projects collide over a single specialist’s time.
- OKR & KPI Frameworks: Designing impact mapping indicators that actually get acted on, rather than just rotting in a dashboard.
- Delphi & Extrapolation: Advanced demand forecasting techniques to predict where your hiring gaps will be in six months.
- RACI & Delegation: Using the six levels of delegation to stop micromanaging and start leading.
- GTD (Getting Things Done): Personal productivity hacks to ensure your own career growth doesn’t stall while you’re busy managing others.
Unlocking Career Growth & Job Roles
Let’s talk about the career benefits. In today’s market, “knowing how to manage a project” isn’t enough. Companies are looking for people who can prove ROI and manage lean teams efficiently. Completing this course equips you for high-level roles like Program Manager, Operations Director, or Head of PMO. These are the real-world projects that recruiters look for—situations where you saved a company hundreds of thousands by identifying a resource gap early or by automating a role that previously required three FTEs. It’s about becoming a strategic asset rather than just a taskmaster.
The Pros
- Battle-Tested Experience: Mike’s background at Preply and Wargaming shines through. He isn’t quoting textbooks; he’s sharing what actually worked when the stakes were high and the budgets were tight.
- No More “Loudest Voice” Syndrome: The frameworks for using business cases and OKR goals to prioritize are absolute gold. It gives you a neutral, data-driven shield to defend your team’s time.
- Holistic Productivity: I appreciated that the course didn’t stop at the organizational level. The sections on GTD and time-blocking acknowledge that you can’t manage a hundred people if you can’t manage your own calendar.
- Global Community: Joining a cohort of 1.6 million students means the discussion boards are actually active with diverse perspectives on how these tools work in different cultural and corporate environments.
The Cons
- The Excel Grind: To get the most out of the resource management and gap analysis sections, be prepared for some heavy lifting in spreadsheets. If you’re looking for a “magic button” software solution, you won’t find it here; Mike teaches you the logic behind the tools, which is harder but ultimately more rewarding.