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Reference

Five reference pages support the lessons rather than replace them. They are written to be looked up while you are working: when a term is unfamiliar, when a calculation needs checking, when a claim sounds like something you have heard before and should be examined, when you want to read further, or when you need to know how accessible this course actually is.

None of them needs to be read from start to finish.

The reference pages

Page Use it when Format
Glossary A term in a lesson is unfamiliar, or two sources use the same word differently Alphabetical definitions, each with a link to the lesson that teaches it
Common Misconceptions Something sounds like a rule of thumb you have heard elsewhere and you want to test it Misconception, why it is wrong, what is accurate instead, and the supporting evidence
Calculators and Worksheets You need to compute a PERT estimate, an exposure, an earned-value index, a cost slope, or a resource load — with worked examples you can check against Formulas, worked examples with real numbers, and a scriptable calculator
Standards and Further Reading You want the primary source behind a topic, or a book that covers it more deeply Real, verifiable sources, grouped by topic, with what each is useful for
Accessibility Something in the course is hard to use, or you want to know what has been checked and what has not Measured contrast, structural checks, and an explicit list of what remains untested

How to use them

During a lesson. Keep the Glossary open in a second tab. When a lesson introduces terminology, the glossary entry gives you the short definition and the lesson link gives you the depth.

Before a lab. Read the relevant Common Misconceptions entries first. Most lab marking losses come from a handful of repeated errors — an unstated assumption, a percentage applied to the wrong base, a float figure mistaken for slack in the schedule, a single-point estimate presented as a commitment — and knowing them in advance is cheaper than discovering them in feedback.

While doing the numbers. Use Calculators and Worksheets to check your arithmetic, not to replace it. Every formula there is given with a worked example, so if your answer differs you can find the step where it diverged. The labs ask you to show your working for exactly this reason.

After finishing a module. Use Standards and Further Reading to go deeper on whichever topic you found hardest. It distinguishes three kinds of source, because they answer different questions:

  • Standards and frameworks — what an organisation has agreed to call a practice, and what a certification exam will ask. Useful for vocabulary and for the shape of a process.
  • Research and empirical studies — what has been measured across many projects. Useful when a claim is contested, and the only place to check whether a widely repeated statement survives evidence.
  • Books and practitioner sources — how experienced practitioners frame a problem, with the caveat that practitioner advice is typically one person's experience, generalised.

What this course does not claim

Reference material is easy to over-trust, so the limits are stated here rather than buried:

  • No certification. This course is not a certification programme and is not affiliated with, accredited by, or endorsed by any certification body, standards organisation, or vendor.
  • No invented sources. Every citation names a real, verifiable publication. Where a figure in a worked example is invented for teaching, it is labelled as invented. Nothing in this course should be quoted as an industry statistic unless the underlying source is checked directly.
  • No single correct method. Where approaches genuinely differ — predictive and agile planning, analogy and parametric estimation, risk scores and expected monetary value — the course gives the trade-offs rather than declaring a winner. Choosing between them is a decision that depends on your context, and this course tries to make the basis of the decision explicit.
  • Trademarks belong to their owners. The PMBOK® Guide is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.; PRINCE2® is a registered mark of AXELOS Limited; ISO and IEC standards are published by those bodies. They are cited here as sources to consult, not as material this course reproduces or speaks for.