This course, offered by the University of California Irvine through Coursera, discusses the importance of budgeting and scheduling in projects to prevent delays and cost overruns.

Many projects fail to meet their time or budget constraints thanks to a lousy initial plan that doesn't take past experience or real-world obstacles into account.

There are ways to plan projects and define their scope that minimize the risk of disastrous cost overruns and interminable delays.

Margaret Meloni is the founder of Meloni Coaching Solutions. She also wrote 101 Great Ways to Enhance Your Career.

As a project management expert, Meloni has offered her training services to companies like Occidental Petroleum, Northrop Grumman, and Toyota Motor Credit.

In this University of California Irvine course, Meloni explains how to budget and schedule a project. She explains planning tools such as the Work Breakdown Structure and Responsibility Assignment Matrix.

The course explains how teamwork can accurately estimate project costs and timeframes by minutely defining the scope of deliverables.