Project / Program Manager Bootcamp — Program

A paced, ~10-week program that turns the project/program-manager path from a self-serve course into a bootcamp: it sequences the lessons (Topics 1–10), the capstone deliverables (the real artifacts a working PM owns, AI-reviewed against rubrics), the interview drills, and career services into one journey with weekly milestones.

The whole track is built around a single capstone: Deliver the "Unified Checkout" Program at NovaPay — you take one initiative from a fuzzy executive mandate all the way to a reviewed, closed-out delivery, producing the exact charter, plan, agile-execution kit, risk/stakeholder artifacts, status reports, retrospective, and the program roadmap that sequences three projects to one date that prove you can turn chaos into an on-time, on-scope delivery without writing a line of code.

It's self-paced — the weeks are a recommended rhythm (roughly 5–8 focused hours each), not hard deadlines. You carry the same NovaPay initiative through every deliverable, so each artifact builds on the last.

Core program (Weeks 1–10)

Week	Learn (topics)	Capstone deliverable	Interview practice	~Hours
1	Topic 1 (What is a Project Manager in tech?), Topic 2 (Project vs. Program vs. Product vs. Scrum Master) — (+ general How tech companies work / The language of tech alongside)	—	Behavioral: start drafting your STAR stories (reframe prior coordination experience)	5
2	Topic 3 (The project lifecycle)	D1 — Project Charter & Stakeholder Map (after Topic 3)	Behavioral drills (D1–D3): leading without authority, team conflict	6
3	Topic 4 (Scope, time, and cost — planning a project)	D2 — Work Breakdown, Schedule & Critical Path and D7 — Program Roadmap & Cross-Project Dependency Map (both after Topic 4)	Frameworks-methodology drills (D1–D3): lifecycle phases, critical path, triple constraint	8
4	Topic 5 (Agile and Scrum in depth)	D3 — Sprint Plan & Agile Execution Kit (after Topic 5)	Frameworks-methodology drills (D4–D6): Scrum roles/artifacts/ceremonies, agile vs. waterfall	7
5	Topic 6 (Kanban and other approaches)	(revise D1–D3 from feedback; backlog/board hygiene)	Scenario-execution drills (D1–D3): blocking dependency between two teams, scope creep	6
6	Topic 7 (Risk and stakeholder management)	D4 — RAID Log & Communication Plan (after Topic 7)	Mock-interview checkpoint #1 (behavioral + frameworks-methodology)	7
7	Topic 8 (Running the team day to day)	D5 — Weekly Status Report (RAG Dashboard) (after Topic 8)	Scenario-execution drills (D4–D6): stakeholder demands more scope on a fixed deadline, milestone about to slip	7
8	Topic 9 (Tools of the trade)	D6 — Project Closure & Retrospective Report (after Topic 9)	Project-deep-dive drills (D1–D3): structure the "walk me through a project you ran" narrative	7
9	Topic 10 (Certifications and landing the job) + general Resumes & applications / Interviewing & landing the offer	Assemble the portfolio (all 7 deliverables into one coherent NovaPay case study)	Project-deep-dive drills (D4–D6): biggest risk, trade-offs, outcome, lesson	8
10	Review + polish across Topics 1–10	Final portfolio review & "tell me about a project" story	Mock-interview checkpoint #2 (full mock across all four banks) + career services (below)	8

Week 3 sequencing — build the WBS, then lift to the roadmap. Topic 4 unlocks two deliverables at once because they're the same skill at two altitudes: scope the work, then sequence it. Do D2 first — zoom into Checkout-Core and turn its slice into a dependency-aware schedule with a critical path — because the durations you derive there are the inputs you need for D7, where you zoom out and sequence all three projects (Checkout-Core → Partner-Integration → Migration & Cutover) on one program timeline, name the cross-project dependencies that set the Sep 30 end date, and arbitrate the shared engineer (Diego). D7 is the program-altitude spine the rest of the portfolio hangs off — the artifact that earns the program half of the title — so it ships in Week 3, not as an afterthought. The 8-hour week is budgeted for both.

By the end of Week 10 you have: the full curriculum learned, a 7-artifact portfolio built around one real program (charter → WBS/schedule → sprint plan → RAID/comms → status report → closure/retro, plus the program roadmap & cross-project dependency map that ties the three projects to one date), repeated interview practice across all four drill banks, and your resume/LinkedIn ready.

Interview drill banks

The track has four banks in interview/, practiced across the program:

Behavioral (interview/behavioral.md) — STAR stories on leading/influencing without authority, team conflict, a slipping deadline, saying no to a stakeholder, owning a failure, staying calm under pressure.
Scenario-execution (interview/scenario-execution.md) — situational "what do you do" judgment: more scope on a fixed deadline (triple-constraint trade-off), a blocking dependency, a key person leaving mid-project, creeping scope, a milestone about to slip. Pattern: clarify → trade-off → communicate.
Frameworks-methodology (interview/frameworks-methodology.md) — fluency drills: agile vs. waterfall and when to choose each, Scrum roles/artifacts/ceremonies, Kanban and WIP limits, lifecycle phases, critical path, risk vs. issue, RAG status.
Project-deep-dive (interview/project-deep-dive.md) — the TPM technical/program retrospective round: walk through a project end to end (goal, your role, plan, biggest risk, tracking/communication, trade-offs, outcome, lesson) — anchored in the NovaPay capstone.

Career services

Delivered mainly in Weeks 9–10, drawing on the general Employability track (content/general/topics/ — LinkedIn profile, networking, resumes & applications, interviewing & landing the offer). Each career artifact below is built to the same depth as a capstone deliverable — What you'll produce / Instructions / Worked example / Rubric — and is self/AI-reviewed against rubrics (no human mentor required). Every worked example reuses the same NovaPay numbers your capstone produced (+2.1pp blended conversion lift, on the committed date, zero PCI scope expansion), so your resume, LinkedIn, interview story, and negotiation all tell one consistent story.

Resume artifact

What you'll produce: the 3–5 bullets that turn your NovaPay capstone into the centerpiece of your resume — each one a duty rewritten as a quantified PM outcome, in PM vocabulary, that a hiring manager skims in seconds and a recruiter screens you in on.

Instructions: for every bullet, run the same loop. (1) Start from the duty — the thing you did. (2) Ask "so what?" until you reach an outcome with a number (a date hit, a percentage moved, scope held, a risk avoided). (3) Lead with a strong verb, then the action, then the result and its metric — verb → what → outcome (number). (4) Strip the team/tool noise; keep the PM signal (scope, schedule, critical path, RAID, stakeholders, RAG, triple-constraint). (5) Pull every number straight from your closure report (Deliverable 6) — never invent one you can't defend in the interview.

Worked example (before → after):

A learner's first draft — pure duty, no outcome, no PM vocabulary:

"Responsible for organizing meetings and tracking tasks for the checkout project. Kept the team updated on progress and helped resolve issues between teams."

That bullet says you attended a project. Reframed against the NovaPay numbers, it says you delivered one:

"Led the Unified Checkout program at NovaPay — merged 3 legacy checkout flows into one and migrated 100% of merchant traffic — delivering a +2.1pp blended conversion lift (target ≥2.0pp) on the committed Q3 date, with zero PCI scope expansion."

And one more, turning the "resolved issues between teams" filler into a real triple-constraint story with named PM tools:

"Owned plan, RAID log, and weekly RAG status for a two-team, 12-week program; protected the launch date by front-loading the critical-path integration into Sprint 1 and securing a VP-signed scope trade-off (saved-card path moved to a fast-follow) — shipped on-promise with ~95% of committed scope."

Notice what changed: a verb that signals ownership ("Led," "Owned"); the outcome and its number up front (+2.1pp, 100% migration, on-date); the trade-off framed as a deliberate, signed-off decision, not a miss; and PM vocabulary (critical path, RAID, RAG, Sprint 1, scope trade-off) doing the keyword work that gets you past the screen.

Resume review rubric

Levels: Needs work (1) / Solid (2) / Excellent (3). Passing = every criterion at Solid or above.

Outcome-focused bullets — 1: duties only · 2: some results · 3: quantified outcomes ("delivered X on time / cut cycle time by Y%").
PM vocabulary & relevance — 1: generic · 2: some PM terms · 3: clearly reframed for project/program management (scope, schedule, critical path, RAID, stakeholders, RAG status).
Portfolio linked — 1: none · 2: mentioned · 3: linked NovaPay case study (charter, plan, status reports, retro) tailored to the role.
Clarity & format — 1: cluttered/typos · 2: clean · 3: crisp, one page, scannable in seconds.

LinkedIn artifact

What you'll produce: a headline and an About section that make a recruiter searching for "Program Manager" stop on your profile and read the pivot as a strength, not a gap — both carrying proof from the NovaPay capstone.

Instructions: for the headline, name the target role first (so search finds you), then your edge, then one proof-point value statement — target role | your edge | value you deliver. For the About: open with where you're heading (not a job-history recap), say what you bring and why you're credible, then close with one concrete capstone result and an invitation to connect. Mirror the resume's numbers exactly so a recruiter who reads both sees one consistent story.

Worked example:

Headline (old title only → targeted + proof):

Before: Operations Coordinator at [Company]

After: Project / Program Manager | ex-Operations | I turn fuzzy mandates into on-time, cross-functional delivery (Agile · RAID · stakeholder comms)

About (confident pivot story, capstone as proof):

"I'm a project/program manager who turns chaos into on-time delivery. After [X] years coordinating operations — where I lived in the gap between teams, deadlines, and stakeholders — I retrained deliberately on the craft of running tech programs: lifecycle, the triple constraint, Agile/Scrum and Kanban, and risk/stakeholder management.

To prove it, I ran a full program end to end — "Unified Checkout": merging three legacy checkout flows into one against a hard Q3 deadline tied to a partner launch, with two teams, a half-allocated senior engineer, and a vague spec. I owned the charter, the plan and critical path, the RAID log, and the weekly RAG status to leadership. We shipped on the committed date with a +2.1pp conversion lift and zero PCI scope expansion — and when the date was threatened, I protected it with a VP-signed scope trade-off rather than a silent slip.

What I bring: calm under pressure, honest status, and the judgment to make the triple-constraint call and communicate it. I'm looking for an entry-level Project/Program Manager or TPM role on a team that ships. Open to connecting — especially with PMs and hiring managers in fintech and platform teams."

This is the headline + About a recruiter screens in: the headline puts the searchable title first and a real value-prop after it; the About reads as a forward-looking pivot anchored in the same NovaPay numbers as the resume and the interview story, so every surface of the application agrees.

LinkedIn review rubric

Levels: Needs work (1) / Solid (2) / Excellent (3). Passing = every criterion at Solid or above.

Headline signals target role — 1: old title only · 2: mentions PM · 3: clear target + value ("Project/Program Manager | ex-[field] | delivers cross-functional programs on time").
About tells the pivot story — 1: empty/generic · 2: present · 3: confident pivot story (where heading, what you bring, why, proof from the capstone).
Skills & proof — 1: none · 2: some · 3: PM skills listed (Agile/Scrum, risk management, stakeholder management) + portfolio/projects shown.
Activity — 1: inactive · 2: occasional · 3: connecting/engaging in the field (see general Networking in tech).

Mock-interview checkpoints

Use the AI mock interview (interview/mock-interview.md): Checkpoint #1 (Week 6) — behavioral + frameworks-methodology; Checkpoint #2 (Week 10) — a full mock across all four banks (behavioral, scenario-execution, frameworks-methodology, project-deep-dive). Track which rubric criteria you repeatedly miss and focus there.

Salary-negotiation drill

A short drill (Week 10, drawing on general Interviewing & landing the offer). The AI role-plays the recruiter; you practice receiving an offer, anchoring on the market, and making one calm, value-tied counter.

Framework — the four moves:

Buy time, don't react. Thank them, show enthusiasm, ask for the full picture in writing (base, bonus, equity, sign-on, start date), and request 2–3 days to consider. Never accept or counter on the call.
Anchor on the market, not on your last salary. Research the range for the specific role, level, and location before you reply. Rough US entry-level bands (2026, verify against Levels.fyi / Glassdoor / Built In for your city and company size): Project Coordinator / APM ≈ $70–95k base; entry Project/Program Manager ≈ $90–120k base; entry Technical Program Manager (TPM) ≈ $110–145k base, often plus 10–15% bonus and equity at product companies. Adjust down for smaller/non-tech employers and lower-cost metros, up for big tech and high-cost hubs. Know your number (the floor you'd accept) and your target (top of the realistic band).
Make one polite, specific counter — tied to value. Anchor to the top of the realistic range, justify with the outcomes you ship, and ask once. One clear counter beats three nibbles.
Evaluate the whole offer, not just base. Weigh growth, scope, manager, learning, remote flexibility, bonus/equity. If base won't move, negotiate sign-on, an early review, title, or start date.

Model answer — scripted exchange:

Sample offer (what the recruiter opens with):

Recruiter: "We'd love to have you as a Program Manager I. The offer is $98,000 base, a 10% target bonus, a $4,000 sign-on, and standard equity. Start in three weeks. What do you think?"

Step 1 — buy time:

You: "Thank you — I'm genuinely excited about this team and the Unified-Checkout-style work you're scaling. Could you send the full details in writing — base, bonus, equity, and sign-on — and give me until Thursday to review it properly? I want to say yes well."

Step 3 — the counter, anchored to the +2.1pp / on-time NovaPay outcome (delivered after researching that PM I in this market runs ~$90–120k):

You: "I've reviewed the offer and I'm ready to move forward — I'd just like to align the base. Based on what I'm seeing for Program Manager roles at this level and location, the range runs into the low $120s, and I'd be coming in able to own a program end to end on day one: in my capstone I ran a two-team, 12-week program to a hard deadline and shipped on the committed date with a +2.1 percentage-point conversion lift and zero PCI scope expansion, protecting the date with a signed-off scope trade-off rather than a slip. Given that, could we get the base to $112,000? If we land there, I'm ready to sign."

A realistic recruiter response — and your close:

Recruiter: "I don't have room to $112k for level I, but I could likely do $105,000 and bump the sign-on to $6,000."

You: "That works for me — $105,000 base with the $6,000 sign-on, and I'd love to lock in a performance review at six months. If you can confirm those in writing, I'm in. Thank you for working it with me."

Note the craft: enthusiasm throughout, a market anchor stated as a range not a demand, the counter justified by a concrete, defensible outcome (the same +2.1pp / on-time number from your closure report and resume), a single clear ask, and a graceful close that takes the improved package and adds one low-cost term (the 6-month review) instead of haggling further.

Rubric

Levels: Needs work (1) / Solid (2) / Excellent (3). Passing = every criterion at Solid or above.

Buys time before committing — 1: accepts or counters on the spot · 2: asks for the offer in writing · 3: thanks them, signals real enthusiasm, asks for the full package in writing and a specific short deadline.
Anchors on a researched market range — 1: no range, or anchors on past salary · 2: cites a rough number · 3: states a defensible PM/TPM range for the right level + location and knows their own floor vs. target.
One value-tied counter — 1: no counter, or vague "can you do more?" · 2: a specific number asked once · 3: a single clear counter anchored to the top of the realistic range and justified by a concrete shipped outcome (the +2.1pp / on-time NovaPay result).
Evaluates the whole offer — 1: fixates on base only · 2: mentions bonus/equity/growth · 3: weighs total comp + growth/scope/manager, and trades for sign-on, an early review, title, or start date when base won't move.
Tone — 1: demanding or apologetic · 2: polite · 3: warm, confident, collaborative — negotiates with the recruiter and closes cleanly.

How it fits together

Lessons teach the concept → the matching capstone deliverable makes you do it on the live NovaPay initiative (and the AI reviews it) → interview drills rehearse explaining the judgment behind it → career services package the whole NovaPay case study for the job hunt. That loop — learn, do, get feedback, present — is what makes this a bootcamp rather than a reading list. By the end you can answer "tell me about a project you ran" with a real, end-to-end story you actually built.