The Aspiring Project Manager
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Aspiring Project Manager! We're so glad you're here, and so glad to be supporting you as you take your next steps into learning more about project management as a purpose-driven leader.
The Aspiring Project Manager, or the APM, is a forever-free overview of what it can look like to build your skills and your project management competency while working in helping professions (like higher ed, nonprofit, healthcare, and many others). Hear us when we say: your skills are powerful and important. We want to encourage you to strengthen your competency to keep leading meaningful work, and we know project management skills can help you do that.
Why We Built the APM
I (Caroline) built this course back in 2021 based on my own experience becoming a project manager... and when I can identify a gap that would serve a huge group of people if it were filled, I like to fill that gap.
When I began my own journey into project management back in 2018, I felt like there was a gap between what I needed (a thorough understanding of the project management landscape, and how to map my experience as a purpose-driven pro to it) and what I was finding (very intense, certification-driven PMP prep materials that just made things MORE confusing).
The program's focus is on building your ability to do three things:
- Map your experience as a purpose-driven pro to project management;
- Showcase examples of outstanding work rooted in a strong understanding of PM work;
- Strategize places you could strengthen your PM experience in your existing role.
You do not need to be planning to leave your current role or industry to use The Aspiring Project Manager to level up your work. Building your PM skills will serve you wherever you go.
What the APM Is... and Is NOT
The APM is meant to complement education about PMP and about cultivating your career. The best way to feel confident and capable about adding a skill to your professional identity is to develop an excellent understanding about what that skill means, and how it creates value and impact in the spaces you'll use it.
The APM is not meant to serve as a credentialing course – if you're here for PMP or CAPM contact hours, STOP, TURN AROUND, THIS PROGRAM WILL NOT GET YOU THERE.
This is partly because my intention with this program isn't to go through formal PMI standards with a fine-toothed comb, which is what a credentialing course would do. You'll leave with a very clear understanding of what projects look like, how they work, and how a project manager maximizes that, but we aren't going to be drilling formulas or memorizing equations.
This program is also built to be industry agnostic. We build it with the intention that purpose-driven professionals could use it to apply project management principles to WHATEVER'S next for them... whether that's continuing to climb the ladder where you're at or whether there's a large change in your future. We'll use examples from roles that purpose-driven pros commonly occupy, like nonprofit, higher ed, healthcare, and others, but we'll do that in the service of illuminating concepts using familiarity... NOT training you for any specific next step.
Finally, we don't have any assumptions that you'll ultimately pursue a PMP or a new degree as part of whatever's next for you. In transparency, I did pursue both a PMP and an MBA, and I did that for a number of reasons, mostly around where I was at in my own professional development journey at that time. I do not believe that you need to do the same.
Later in the course, I'll share in great detail the reasons I pursued the path I did and the options I weighed as I was deciding what to do next – as well as the things I'd choose differently if I were doing it again today. But I want to be very clear: many people successfully transition into project management without gaining a PMP. Some project managers never gain a PMP. Some people get a PMP after a year or so of working with an employer who later turns around and pays their exam prep and certification fees. There are many, many different "right" paths, and a path is only "wrong" if it doesn't serve you in taking the steps you want to take.
Course Structure
We structure this course by introducing you to foundational project management principles that will underlie your work in anything you do – this is Lesson 1.
From there, Lessons 2-6 cover off on the project management life cycle – aka the building blocks of all projects.
Finally, Lessons 7 and 8 wrap up with some thoughts to guide your next steps, and we also provide a comprehensive list of resources.
You can see all the lessons in one place at the program's homepage, and you can also use the navigation links at the bottom of each lesson to move between lessons.
How to Approach the APM
My strong recommendation is to work through Modules 1-6 in order, completely, before accessing any of the other content. Do not skip lessons or modules. Spend all the time you need to before moving on from a lesson. Do not access the "Review Anytime" modules until you've finished the "Learn In Order" modules.
My rationale here is that 1) the content builds on itself, and 2) if you ask me questions about later content, my response 99% of the time is going to ask you whether you've reviewed the content completely and in order. I know the temptation to rush ahead or skip around is real... and I've built this so that once you've gone through it once, you can review over and over and skip around as much as you like! But do try, until you get to Module 6, to go slow and go in order.
This is really good. Why is it free?
Because we believe that project management is for everyone, and that if you're here – as a purpose-driven leader working in a helping profession – we need your voice around the table.
Caroline Horste built this course and released it for the first time back in 2021. Since then, hundreds of professionals have gone through it (and we're hoping to hit 1000 in 2026 and then just keep going). This is its third iteration, brought current to the PMBOK 8 Standards in the summer of 2026.
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