Programme in Project Management

The next Weekender intake of the Programme in Project Management (PPM) runs from 16 October 2026 to 4 June 2027.

How the Weekender works

The programme includes 16 face-to-face contact days in Pretoria, presented on selected Fridays and Saturdays over approximately eight months.

Presented by the Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) in collaboration with Enterprises University of Pretoria, the PPM combines academic rigour with practical, workplace-focused learning.

What you'll be able to do

Across eight modules, you'll build the practical knowledge and skills to:

• Plan projects more effectively
• Define and control project scope
• Manage project risk
• Engage stakeholders with confidence
• Deliver projects that meet quality requirements
• Make informed decisions throughout the project lifecycle

Assignments are based on your own workplace projects rather than fictional case studies, allowing you to apply what you learn directly in your organisation.

Agile Project Management is also available as an elective module.

What you walk away with

On successful completion, you'll receive a University of Pretoria certificate and earn:

• 160 PMI® PDUs
• 5 ECSA CPD credits
• 5 SACNASP CPD credits
• 96 SACPCMP CPD points (Category A – Core)

Presented more than 200 times since 1997, the PPM has helped thousands of professionals strengthen their project management capability.

Whether you're already managing projects or preparing for greater responsibility, the PPM equips you with the knowledge and practical skills to manage projects with greater confidence.

If the Weekender format doesn't suit your schedule, the PPM is also available in Midweek and Online formats.

Learn more and apply:
https://projectmanagementsa.co.za/courses/programme-in-project-management-ppm-weekender

Project Management Course | University Of Pretoria | PPM Leaders in project management for more than 30 years with lectures that are accredited by PMI in the USA. Top chosen course by South African students.

In 1872, the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge could no longer visit the construction site.

Washington Roebling had taken over the project after his father, the bridge’s designer, died. Then, while overseeing work on the underwater foundations, he developed severe caisson disease. The illness left him largely bedridden — he followed construction through a telescope from his window in Brooklyn Heights.

For the next eleven years, his wife Emily Warren Roebling was the link between him and the bridge.

She studied the project on her own, carried his instructions to the site, and worked daily with engineers, contractors, trustees and politicians to keep the project moving.

When the trustees tried to replace him because of his illness, she successfully defended his role. He remained chief engineer.

The bridge opened in 1883. Emily was the first person to cross it by carriage, carrying a rooster as a symbol of victory.

We usually talk about leadership as the moment someone steps forward. Her story is about what comes after that moment: eleven years of holding a project together.

Meet the PPM Course Leader: Dr Corro van Waveren

The quality of a professional programme is shaped not only by what is taught, but also by the knowledge and experience of the people who lead it.

Dr Corro van Waveren is the Course Leader of the Programme in Project Management (PPM) and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s Graduate School of Technology Management.

A registered Professional Engineer with a PhD in Engineering Management, he brings extensive experience in engineering, project management, project portfolio management, teaching and research to the programme.

His professional experience spans industries including automotive, mining and defence, giving him valuable insight into the challenges of managing projects in complex working environments.

Dr Van Waveren also presents the PPM module in Project Quality Management and supervises master’s and doctoral research in engineering and project management.

Under his academic leadership, the PPM combines sound project management principles with practical, workplace-focused learning—helping professionals strengthen the way they plan, manage and deliver projects.

Learn more about the Programme in Project Management and its different study options:

https://projectmanagementsa.co.za/

Strengthen your project management skills without stepping away from work.

The next intake of the Programme in Project Management (PPM) Online runs from 17 August 2026 to 30 April 2027.

Designed for working professionals, the programme is delivered entirely online by experienced lecturers, with no fixed lecture times. Study when it suits you, wherever you are based, while continuing to meet your work commitments.

What it takes: approximately 5 hours per week over eight months.

Over eight modules, you'll develop practical knowledge in:

- Project management principles, practices and scheduling
- Project quality management
- The people side of project management
- Legal aspects for project managers
- Financial principles and project cost management
- Project procurement and contract management
- Project risk management
- Project management in the business context

Agile project management is available as an elective in place of Legal aspects for project managers.

Rather than working through fictional case studies, you'll complete assignments using your own workplace projects. This allows you to apply what you learn immediately, creating value for your organisation while you study.

On successful completion you receive a University of Pretoria certificate and earn:

- 160 PMI® PDUs
- 5 ECSA CPD credits
- 5 SACNASP CPD credits
- 96 SACPCMP CPD points (Category A - Core)

Presented by the Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) in collaboration with Enterprises University of Pretoria, the PPM has been presented more than 200 times since 1997 and has helped thousands of professionals strengthen their project management capability.

Prefer to study face-to-face? The PPM is also presented in Pretoria in Midweek and Weekender formats.

Learn more and apply here:
https://projectmanagementsa.co.za/courses/programme-in-project-management-ppm-online

The most famous engineering failure of the nineteenth century was the first attempt to cut a canal through Panama. Eight years, more money than any private venture had ever spent, and thousands of men dead — most of them from yellow fever and malaria.

They abandoned it.

When a second attempt began, everyone assumed the answer was bigger machines and more men.

The engineer who took it on, John Stevens, did something that made very little sense to the people paying for him. He stopped the digging.

For close to a year, almost nobody dug. They rebuilt the railway running the length of the route. They put up housing, hospitals, canteens. They laid water and sewerage, and they let the doctors go to war on the mosquitoes. Stevens' argument was that Panama had never been a digging problem — it was a problem of moving spoil, and of keeping men alive and willing to stay.

Then they dug. And the canal opened a year ahead of schedule and far under budget.

Nobody wrote songs about the year they spent not digging. But that was the year the project stopped failing.

Ask a team why a project went off the rails and you'll usually hear about a symptom — scope crept, the schedule slipped, a risk nobody saw coming.

Dig a little further and the same root cause often appears: there was never a consistent, structured way of running the project to begin with.

A methodology is not a folder of templates. It is the sequence of activities, the governance, the decision points and the defined roles that carry a project from initiation through to closure. It also gives everyone involved — project manager, team, sponsor, stakeholders — a common language.

That last part is where much of the real value sits, and it is the part most often underestimated. Most project communication failures are not failures of frequency. People are usually talking constantly. They are failures of shared definition.

Organisations that apply a methodology consistently tend to see:

→ Objectives and scope defined more clearly at the outset
→ More realistic planning and scheduling
→ Risks identified earlier, while intervention is still cheap
→ Better control of cost, time and quality
→ More predictable outcomes across projects

The mechanism is the same in every case. When project information is gathered and reviewed the same way every time, deviations become visible early enough to act on.

No single methodology fits every project. Size, complexity, uncertainty and organisational context all shape what is appropriate. But the pattern holds regardless of which one you select: structured beats improvised.

Full post here: https://projectmanagementsa.co.za/blog/project-management/why-projects-fail-part-2-the-importance-of-a-systematic-project-management-methodology

These principles are covered in depth in Project Management Principles, Practices and Scheduling — the University of Pretoria's short course and the first of eight modules of the Programme in Project Management. Presented online by Prof Herman Steyn. 20 PMI PDUs, 5 ECSA CPD credits, 5 SACNASP CPD points.

The final Midweek intake of the Programme in Project Management (PPM) for 2026 begins on 3 August 2026.

What you'll learn

Across eight modules, you'll develop the practical knowledge and skills to:

• Plan projects more effectively.
• Define and control project scope.
• Manage project risk.
• Deliver projects that meet quality requirements.
• Engage stakeholders with confidence.
• Make informed decisions throughout the project lifecycle.

Presented face-to-face in Pretoria by the Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) in collaboration with Enterprises University of Pretoria, the programme combines academic rigour with practical, workplace-focused learning.

Assignments are based on your own workplace projects rather than fictional case studies, allowing you to apply what you learn immediately and deliver value to your organisation. Agile Project Management is also available as an elective module.

On successful completion, you'll receive a University of Pretoria certificate and earn:

• 96 SACPCMP CPD points (Category A – Core)
• 160 PMI® PDUs
• 5 ECSA CPD credits
• 5 SACNASP CPD credits

Presented more than 200 times since 1997, the PPM has helped thousands of professionals strengthen their project management capability.

If the timing doesn't suit

The PPM is also available in Weekender and Online formats, so you can choose the option that fits your work commitments.

Whether you're already managing projects or preparing for greater responsibility, the PPM equips you with the knowledge and practical skills to lead projects with greater confidence.

🔗 Learn more, compare the different formats and apply here:
https://projectmanagementsa.co.za/courses/programme-in-project-management-ppm-midweek

A Project Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg.

When a new bridge opens, we see the bridge.

We don't see the years of work that made it possible.

The environmental studies.
The stakeholder meetings.
The design reviews.
The permits.
The procurement.
The risk management.
The unexpected challenges.
The hundreds of decisions that kept the project moving forward.

The bridge is simply the visible result.

The same is true of almost every successful project.

What we celebrate is only the tip of the iceberg.

Beneath the surface is where project managers, engineers, sponsors and teams quietly transform an idea into reality.

Perhaps that's why the best-managed projects rarely make the news.

Success often looks ordinary—because so much extraordinary work happened long before the ribbon was cut.

Advance your project management skills this August.

Whether you're leading projects, coordinating teams, or preparing for greater responsibilities, the right knowledge can make all the difference.

Upcoming University of Pretoria courses:

🗓️ 3 August – Programme in Project Management (PPM) Midweek (Face-to-Face, Pretoria)

🗓️ 17 August – Programme in Project Management (PPM) Online

Gain practical, industry-relevant knowledge from experienced lecturers while earning recognition from PMI®, ECSA, SACNASP and SACPCMP.

Learn more: https://projectmanagementsa.co.za

Project Management Course | University Of Pretoria | PPM Leaders in project management for more than 30 years with lectures that are accredited by PMI in the USA. Top chosen course by South African students.

Programme in Project Management Comes to Windhoek

For the first time, the University of Pretoria's Programme in Project Management (PPM) will be presented face-to-face in Windhoek, Namibia, giving professionals across the region the opportunity to attend this well-established programme closer to home.

Whether you're looking to advance your career, prepare for greater responsibilities, or strengthen your project management expertise, the PPM equips you with practical, industry-relevant knowledge that you can apply with confidence in the workplace.

Why choose the PPM?
✔ Earn a University of Pretoria certificate upon successful completion
✔ Learn from experienced lecturers with real-world project management expertise
✔ Develop practical project management skills that can be applied across industries
✔ Gain professional recognition from leading industry bodies:
• 160 PMI® PDUs
• 96 SACPCMP CPD points
• 5 ECSA CPD credits
• 5 SACNASP CPD credits

Since 1997, thousands of professionals have built their project management expertise through one of Southern Africa's most established project management programmes.

🗓️ Course starts: 3 September 2026

Be among the first professionals to join the PPM in Windhoek.

Learn more and register: https://projectmanagementsa.co.za/courses/programme-in-project-management-ppm-namibia

Project Management Course | University Of Pretoria | PPM Leaders in project management for more than 30 years with lectures that are accredited by PMI in the USA. Top chosen course by South African students.