what is capstone project in coursera

• Oct 18, 2021
• 10 min read

Google Data Analytics Capstone Project

Updated: Jul 5, 2023

I worked on the Google Data Analytics Capstone Project, Track 1, Case Study 1. I will be diving into the background, my full process of cleaning, analyzing and visualizing the data, along with my final suggestions and summary of the data.

Quick Links :

Tableau Dashboard | Github R Code for Analysis | Github R Code for Tableau Visualization | LinkedIn Post

Below is a table of contents in case you want to go to a specific section.

Table of Contents:

Microsoft excel.

Finished Project

Summary of Data

Business Suggestions

What I Learned

Cyclistic is a bike sharing program which features more than 5,800 bikes and 600 docking stations. It offers reclining bikes, hand tricycles, and cargo bikes, making it more inclusive to people with disabilities and riders who can't use a standard two-wheeled bike. It was founded in 2016 and has grown tremendously into a fleet of bicycles that are geotracked and locked into a network of 692 stations across Chicago. The bikes can be unlocked from one station and returned to any other station in the system anytime.

Previously, Cyclistic's marketing strategy tried to build the general awareness and appeal to broad consumers. It has flexible pricing plans: single-ride passes, full-day passes, and annual memberships. Those who purchase single-ride or full-day passes are referred to as casual riders while those who purchase annual memberships are Cyclistic members .

My Role : In this scenario I am a junior data analyst at Cyclistic and my team has been tasked with the overall goal (see below) of designing marketing strategies

Overall Goal : Design marketing strategies aimed at converting casual riders into annual members.

Business Question : "How do annual members and casual riders use Cyclistic bikes differently?"

Below I will describe step-by-step the process I used to for this project. If you want to skip ahead to the business suggestions move onto the section "Insights".

Overview : I first analyzed the data separately (each month) in Excel, then used R to analyze the data as a whole (one year). Finally I created a dashboard in Tableau and used Figma to support the design elements.

I initially wanted to gather and analyze my data in Excel because it was the tool I was most familiar with and I could get a general understanding of the data quicker. I did not combine all of the spreadsheets into one because that would've taken more processing power than my computer had.

I began downloading the data from divvy-tripdata , and turning the .csv files into excel spreadsheets. I downloaded the most recent year of data which was at the time of starting my project:

August 2020

September 2020

October 2020

November 2020

December 2020

January 2021

February 2021

Added two columns to all of the months:

ride_length calculated the total ride length for each trip using the start_at column which was: ending time minus starting time.

day_of_week calculated the day of the week for each trip using the start_at column date.

Went over the business task and the information I had at hand and how that could be used to figure out how members and casual riders use the bike service differently

Came up with metrics to look at such as :

total number of rides per hour, per day of the month, per season, per day of the week, and for different bike types

Average ride length between members and casual

For every month in Excel created pivot tables and charts to go with the analysis on (this took the longest):

Total Rides per Weekday - calculated the total rides for members and casual and separated it by day of the week; used a cluster column chart

Average Ride Length - calculated the average ride length for members and casual and separated it by day of the week; used a cluster column chart

Total Rides per Hour - calculated the total rides for members and casual separated by the time of the day (24hr); used a line comparison chart

Total Rides per Day - calculated the total rides for members and casual separated by the day of the month; used a line comparison chart

Total Rides per Bike Type - calculated the total rides for members and casual separated by Bike type; used stacked column chart

I also created a Google docs Notes list where I wrote down the exact steps for each month (had a checklist) and included my insights for each month

Time Spent:

535 minutes or just under 9 hours to complete.

I originally wanted to use SQL but the files were too big to upload and I couldn't figure out how to utilize Google Cloud Platform. Instead I used R to analyze the data because it could handle all of the information quicker than Excel, and I wanted to work on my R skills. Below is my general process in R, I didn't include my mistakes/missteps or errors for the sake of brevity.

View my full code on my Github for this capstone project here .

Load all of the libraries I used: tidyverse, lubridate, hms, data.table

Uploaded all of the original data from the data source divytrip into R using read_csv function to upload all individual csv files and save them in separate data frames. For august 2020 data I saved it into aug08_df, september 2020 to sep09_df and so on.

Merged the 12 months of data together using rbind to create a one year view

Created a new data frame called cyclistic_date that would contain all of my new columns

Created new columns for:

Ride Length - did this by subtracting end_at time from start_at time

Day of the Week

Time - convert the time to HH:MM:SS format

Season - Spring, Summer, Winter or Fall

Time of Day - Night, Morning, Afternoon or Evening

Cleaned the data by:

Removing duplicate rows

Remove rows with NA values (blank rows)

Remove where ride_length is 0 or negative (ride_length should be a positive number)

Remove unnecessary columns: ride_id, start_station_id, end_station_id, start_lat, start_long, end_lat, end_lng

Calculated Total Rides for:

Total number of rides which was just the row count = 4,152,139

Member type - casual riders vs. annual members

Type of Bike - classic vs docked vs electric; separated by member type and total rides for each bike type

Hour - separated by member type and total rides for each hour in a day

Time of Day - separated by member type and total rides for each time of day (morning, afternoon, evening, night)

Day of the Week - separated by member type and total rides for each day of the week

Day of the Month - separated by member type and total rides for each day of the month

Month - separated by member type and total rides for each month

Season - separated by member type and total rides for each season (spring, summer, fall, winter)

Calculated Average Ride Length for:

Total average ride length

Type of Bike - separated by member type and average ride length for each bike type

Hour - separated by member type and average ride length for each hour in a day

Time of Day - separated by member type and average ride length for each time of day (morning, afternoon, evening, night)

Day of the Week - separated by member type and average ride length for each day of the week

Day of the Month - separated by member type and average ride length for each day of the month

Month - separated by member type and average ride length for each month

Season - separated by member type and average ride lengths for each season (spring, summer, fall, winter)

Then using all of this data I created my own summary in my case notes and took note of the: total rides for each variable, average ride lengths for each variable, and the difference between members versus casual riders. I originally wanted to create a report using R Markdown as well but for the sake of time (I had already spent over 20 hours on the project so far), I decided to skip this step, and write this article instead.

1045 minutes or about 17 and a half hours to complete.

While I learned the basics of Tableau in the Google Course I wanted more practice with visualizing data and creating dashboards.

To view my completed dashboard click here .

I created a separate R code (you can view it here on Github) that made some changes for specifically the Tableau portion.

For ride length I rounded the digits by 1, meaning my numbers were 29.8 or 12.5.

Revised how I created my "month" column. I used mutate() to create a column that had the month in ___ format and not number format. So instead of 01 it would say "January"

Cleaned the data: removed rows with NA values, removed duplicate rows, removed where ride_length was 0 or negative and removed unnecessary columns like: ride_id, start_station_id, end_station_id, start_lat, start_long, end_lat, end_lng

Created a new dataframe with this information so I could test the difference between the original data frame (cyclistic_date) that I used for my analysis and the data frame I would use for Tableau (cyclistic_tableau).

In this new data frame I removed more columns to make calculations quicker in Tableau. I removed: start_station_name, end_station_name, time, started_at, ended_at

Downloaded this data frame into a .csv file which I uploaded to Tableau

Created graphs similar to those I created in Excel but added a few:

Total Rides by Bike Type

Ride Length by Weekday

Total Rides by Weekday

Total rides by hour, total rides by month.

Then I created a basic dashboard with all of that information, a prototype for me to view while I was creating the final dashboard ( Figure 1 below).

Created a prototype mockup in Figma

Created a final version of the mockup in Figma

Edited Dashboard in Tableau to reflect design in Figma

Edited graphs in Tableau

Made bar graphs round

Added annotations

Highlights to specific important notes

Got rid of labels for visual purposes

Combined Figma and Tableau (used dashboard created in Figma as the background for my Tableau Dashboard) to create a final prototype ( Figure 2 below)

Made minor edits to design elements and created final dashboard ( Figure 3 - Cyclistic Dashboard V1 )

On April 24, 2023 I decided to update my dashboard (See Finished Project , image Final Dashboard - Cyclistic Dashboard V2 ). All of the analysis is the same. The only changes have been to the dashboard. Which include:

Adding horizontal grid lines to a few of the charts

Updating the tool tips.

Making all of the top metric values (e.g. Total Rides, Average Ride Length, etc.) interactive in Tableau instead of in Figma.

765 minutes or almost 13 hours to complete.

Tableau Prototype

Below was my first draft of the dashboard only using Tableau.

Prototype using Figma Background

Combined Figma and Tableau (used dashboard created in Figma as the background for my Tableau Dashboard) to create a final prototype.

Final Dashboard V1

Made minor edits to design elements and created final dashboard. This was the original final dashboard.

I am including the other tools I used.

Figma to create my background and help develop the dashboard aesthetics.

Google Docs helped me keep track of all of my documents for this project like:

Date Log - I wrote down what I did that day related to my project

Resources - A list of resources I frequently used

Case Notes - Notes for the case study including the final insights, what I was looking for, and anything else having to do with the case

Evernote to draft this article before I uploaded it here.

FINISHED PROJECT

Here is my finished project: Google Capstone Project (V2) . You can view the links to my R code on Github used for analysis here and the code for Tableau here .

Note: This is V2 with a few minor changes to the dashboard. Including:

SUMMARY OF DATA

Those who purchase single-ride or full-day passes are referred to as casual riders while those who purchase annual memberships are Cyclistic members .

Total Rides by User Type

Average Ride Length per User Type

Average Ride per Weekday

Members had more rides with 2,328,763 total rides or 56% and casual riders had 1,823,376 total rides or 43%.

Total Rides per Bike Type

Both casual riders and members used the classic bike the most with 1,777,593 rides or 43% of total rides, followed by docked bikes with 1,545,936 rides or 37% of total rides, and lastly with electric bikes at 828,610 rides or 20% of total rides.

Average Ride Length by User Type

The total average ride length was 24 minutes. For casual riders it was longer at 27 minutes while members was 14 minutes.

Average Ride Length per Weekday

For the average ride length per weekday both casual riders and members had an increase in the average ride length on the weekends. For both Sunday was the longest at 31 minutes.

Saturday was the most popular weekday combining casual riders and member rides with 784,239 rides or 19% of total rides. But for member rides only Wednesday was the most popular day with 356,060 rides, 5,407 rides more than Saturday.

5PM or 17:00 was the busiest hour for both members and casual riders with 426,685 rides or 10% of the total rides. Typically rides began increasing in the morning at 6AM and rose until 5PM then dropped afterwards. The afternoon was the busiest for both rider types with 1,905,797 rides or 45% of total rides. 4AM was the least popular hour.

July was the busiest month combining casual riders and member rides at 691,476 rides or 16% of total rides. While summer was the most popular season for both at 1,903,446 rides or 46% of total rides. Looking at just members August is actually the busiest month with 323,140 rides, 816 rides more than July. Winter is the least popular season and February is the least popular month.

Final Summary

The most popular bike among with riders was the classic.

Busiest time was afternoon and the peak time was at 5PM for both casual riders and members.

Busiest weekday was Saturday, casual riders used the service the most on the weekends.

Busiest season was Summer for both types of riders.

Most rides by User Type was members but casual riders weren't far behind.

The average ride length was 24 minutes but casual riders on average rode 23 minutes longer than members.

BUSINESS SUGGESTIONS

This was the hardest part for me for the whole project. I have never provided suggestions for a business nor worked in marketing. Any feedback here would be appreciated.

These are my suggestions for the marketing team to convert casual riders to annual members:

Personalize discounts and show perks in the membership program based on their preferences and riding habits.

Emphasize the benefits of memberships, including discounts during busy times of the year like during Summer, or on the weekends.

Have existing members to share their stories about how using Cyclistic's system has changed their life, to create a sense of community, offer a discount if they do so this will help encourage new riders to join the program.

WHAT I LEARNED

Below is what I learned/practiced from over 40 hours spent on this project:

Pivot Tables in Microsoft Excel

Practice using R for data analysis and cleaning specifically using the tidyverse package for data analysis

Graphs in Tableau, edited visual elements along with creating different charts and filters.

Design elements of an effective dashboard

Combining the design feature of Figma with the functionality of Tableau

R portion of my project I found Itamar's case study on Kaggle using R as well, a helpful resource.

Tableau portion I used Navneet Singh's Tableau Dashboard as inspiration.

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Experts at top companies like Google and Instagram have joined Coursera to help develop the final projects – called “Capstones” – for Coursera Specializations.

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The SwiftKey Capstone Project for Johns Hopkins’ Data Science Specialization has been particularly popular with learners, and the end results are inspiring. One learner, Alejandro Morales Gallardo, is most proud of the Predictive Text App he developed as a result of taking the Specialization:

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Learners need prior Back-end developer experience to complete this course.

What you'll learn

Create a Django web server with multiple API endpoints

Connect Django to a MySQL database

Skills you'll gain

• Django (Web Framework)
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24 quizzes, 4 assignments

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There are 4 modules in this course

The Capstone project enables you to demonstrate multiple skills by solving an authentic real-world problem. You’ll test your abilities in full-stack back-end development in a real-life scenario by composing a Django web app. Each module includes a brief recap of, and links to, content that you have covered in previous courses in this program.

You will use clean and bug-free coding to create a Django web server with multiple API endpoints and connect it to a MySQL database. You’ll also create a template system driven by Django views. B​y the end of the course you will be able to: • Compose a backend application using multiple skills • Use Django to serve static HTML content • Commit the project to a Git repository • Connect the backend to the database • Implement the menu and table booking APIs • Set up user registration and authentication • Test the application with unit tests and Insomnia • Synthesize the skills from this course and evaluate other learners • Reflect on this project's content and on the learning path that lies ahead. On completion of the Capstone project, you’ll have a project-based portfolio that you can show to potential employers when interviewing for an engineering role. To complete this course, you will need back-end developer experience. Additionally, it always helps to have a can-do attitude!

Starting the Project

In this module, you will get practical hands-on experience using the Django web framework.

What's included

4 videos 13 readings 7 quizzes 1 assignment 1 discussion prompt

4 videos • Total 10 minutes

• Introduction to the course • 2 minutes • Preview module
• Setting up the Project • 2 minutes
• What you know about URLs and Routes • 3 minutes
• Module Summary • 1 minute

13 readings • Total 210 minutes

• Course syllabus • 15 minutes
• How to be successful in this course • 15 minutes
• Checking your development environment • 15 minutes
• Additional resources • 5 minutes
• Recap: Version Control • 10 minutes
• Exercise: Setting up the repository • 30 minutes
• Recap: Django Set Up • 10 minutes
• Exercise: Setting up the Django project • 30 minutes
• Exercise: Committing the Project • 30 minutes
• Additional Resources • 5 minutes
• Recap: Django Routes • 10 minutes
• Exercise: Setting up the static routes • 30 minutes

7 quizzes • Total 55 minutes

• Readiness Check: Did you set up the Git repository? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you set up the Django project? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you push your commits? • 5 minutes
• Knowledge Check • 15 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you set up the static content routes? • 5 minutes

1 assignment • Total 50 minutes

• Starting the Project • 50 minutes

1 discussion prompt • Total 10 minutes

• Meet and greet • 10 minutes

Project Functionality

In this module, you will revise Models. You will revisit the concepts of working with databases and models in Django. You will set up the MySQL connection, and create the required models for the web application. Then, you will build the menu and table booking APIs using the Django Rest Framework.

3 videos 8 readings 8 quizzes 1 assignment

3 videos • Total 7 minutes

• Working with databases and models • 3 minutes • Preview module
• Building an API • 2 minutes

8 readings • Total 160 minutes

• Recap: Django Database Configuration and Models • 15 minutes
• Exercise: Setting up the MySQL connection • 30 minutes
• Exercise: Setting up the models • 30 minutes
• Recap: Django Rest Framework • 15 minutes
• Exercise: Set up the menu API • 30 minutes
• Exercise: Set up the table booking API • 30 minutes

8 quizzes • Total 60 minutes

• Readiness Check: Did you set up the MySQL connection? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you set up the models? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you set up the API for the food menu? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you set up the table booking API? • 5 minutes
• Project Functionality • 50 minutes

Security and Testing

In this module, you'll focus on user authentication and testing the API. You will revisit the concepts to help you secure your app and APIs. You will add user authentication by setting up user registration, login and logout functionality. Then you will implement the code to secure the table booking API. Next, you will test your application code using unit testing and test the API endpoints using the Insomnia REST client. Finally, you will push your commits to GitHub.

3 videos 9 readings 8 quizzes 1 assignment

3 videos • Total 8 minutes

• Securing your app • 3 minutes • Preview module
• Testing your application • 2 minutes

9 readings • Total 190 minutes

• Recap: User Authentication • 30 minutes
• Exercise: Add the registration page • 30 minutes
• Exercise: Securing the table booking API • 30 minutes
• Recap: Unit Testing • 15 minutes
• Exercise: Adding unit tests • 30 minutes
• Recap: Testing your API • 15 minutes
• Exercise: Testing the API using Insomnia • 30 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you set up user registration? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you secure the table booking API? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you add unit tests? • 5 minutes
• Readiness Check: Did you test the API using Insomnia? • 5 minutes
• Security and Testing • 50 minutes

Project Assessment

In this module, you will be assessed on the fundamental skills covered as you build the capstone project's functionality. You'll have a chance to compare your code and your designs with your peers via a peer review and you'll have the opportunity to work through a solution to some of the most challenging parts of the capstone project. At the end of this module, you'll complete a graded assessment, reflect on your learning and be guided to the next steps in your coding journey.

2 videos 3 readings 1 quiz 1 assignment 1 peer review 1 discussion prompt

2 videos • Total 5 minutes

• Course Recap for Capstone Project • 1 minute • Preview module
• Congratulations, you have completed the Capstone Project! • 3 minutes

3 readings • Total 50 minutes

• About the final project assessment • 15 minutes
• Solution: Little Lemon Web Application • 30 minutes
• Next steps • 5 minutes

1 quiz • Total 5 minutes

• Readiness check. Prepare to submit the project • 5 minutes

1 assignment • Total 150 minutes

• Final Graded Assessment • 150 minutes

1 peer review • Total 60 minutes

• Little Lemon Web Application • 60 minutes
• Reflect on learning • 10 minutes

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How I passed the Google Project Management Certificate in a Week

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Read our review guidelines .

Are you looking for tips on how to pass the Google Project Management Certificate ? I completed the 6 courses in a week (what a week that was!).

I don’t remember the last time I was so stressed as I was working full-time at the same time, but I did it, and you can too.

In this article, I’ll share my top tips for working out the answers to the graded quizzes, how to plan your time and how to get the certificate for the lowest possible cost (not free, but very cheap).

My experience with the Google Project Management Professional Certificate

I completed the course requirements in a week. I signed up for the Foundations course and completed that on Day 1, and then on Day 7 I had all the peer reviews back for the Capstone and got confirmation that I had passed the certificate.

The week was incredibly busy and I didn’t do much else aside from work through the course materials and complete assignments (outside of the hours I was actually doing my day job).

A solid, professional, well-recognized project management course from a great training provider. Perfect for beginners and people interested in learning more about project management as a career.

How I did it so quickly

I have 20+ years experience in project management, so I am definitely not a beginner. The Foundations module, for example, was really easy for me, and I whizzed through that. The more experience you have working in a project environment, the easier it will be for you.

The less experience you have, the more time you’ll have to spend as all the concepts will be new to you. I spent most time on the Agile module (because I’m not an Agile PM) and the Capstone (because you HAVE to do all the work on that one). The courses on Project Execution and Project Initiation were straightforward for me as that’s my day job.

I worked on all the courses at the same time, pretty much, after I completed the Foundations.

If you have some experience…

If you have project management experience, don’t watch the videos. Scan the transcript instead. Skip any topics you know well and go straight for the quiz. If you pass the quiz, assume you have enough knowledge to miss that topic and save yourself time.

How I did it so cheaply

Coursera works on a subscription model for the Google Project Management certificate, so you have to sign up to take the courses. However, you can audit these courses for free.

First, I signed up to audit the courses. Then I had a good look around the course materials for free. You can watch the videos, review the readings and download the templates without paying anything.

That gave me a good indication that I wouldn’t have to spend the recommended 6 months on the course, and that I could indeed do it quickly (and therefore cheaply).

You only have to sign up as a student and start paying when you commit to earning the certificate for real, as you have to be subscribed to be able to submit graded assignments and quizzes, and peer-reviewed assignments.

Pro tips to save money

Sign up to audit the course first, and then convert to a paid student when you are sure you have the time to commit to doing the assessed work. If you are offered a free trial, you can also take that and do as much of the course as possible in the free trial period.

Tips for passing the Google Project Management Certificate

So what did I learn from the experience? And what tips do I have for you if you want to earn the certificate as cheaply and quickly as possible? Read on…

1. Make a tracker

There are 6 courses to do in the Google certificate. The easiest is the Foundation, which has no peer-reviewed assignments. The hardest is (unsurprisingly) the Capstone. Each course has multiple modules.

Because of the speed I was going through the materials, I needed a tracker. I just wrote out a list of the courses and modules and made a note of what still needed to be done on them. It kept me focused on what was missing, what assignments I needed to submit (or resubmit) and made it easy to go straight to what needed doing when I had a spare moment.

2. Submit on or before the deadline

Each assignment and graded quiz comes with a deadline.

The deadlines are auto-calculated by the looks of it, from the Coursera platform. I first thought they were there simply to help you pace yourself and make sure you didn’t give up on the material.

However, there is some small print I read that said if you submit a peer-reviewed assignment after the deadline you might need more than one peer to review it. If you submit on the deadline, you only need one reviewer.

Don’t wait for extra reviews: submit on time so you aren’t reliant on other people.

3. Note your correct answers on quizzes

You might fail a quiz (I certainly did) but that doesn’t mean you got all the questions wrong. Some quizzes keep the same set of questions when you do them again, so note down the answers you did get right.

Also note down which answers were wrong. The tests are all multiple choice so you don’t want to select the wrong answer again.

When you take the quiz again, use your notes to make sure you don’t accidentally get an answer wrong again, and put in the correct answers.

4. Use the search

Timed quizzes can be stressful, but you get 50ish minutes per quiz which is a lot of time to answer 10 questions.

If you can’t work out an answer, use the search feature. Copy/paste one of the answer responses or a key word from the question into the search bar. Use a new window or tab, not the one your test is open in.

Then review the search results. You’ll often find that the answer to the question is in the course material (I mean, why wouldn’t it be??). Then you can confidently choose the right answer.

5. Watch the videos on 1.5x speed

Watch the videos on fast speed. As long as you can still understand the tutors, you’ll be fine. This will help you get through the material more quickly.

6. Do the courses in any order

Do you have to take the Google Project Management certificate courses in order? No, absolutely not. I would suggest you leave the Capstone until the end, but any of the others you can do in any order.

I did them all pretty much in parallel, leaving the Capstone until last.

7. Don’t review the job seeking content unless you are job seeking

I know this is going to sound obvious, but if you aren’t currently looking for a job, skip all the sections on job hunting, interview prep and resumes/CVs.

You can also skip the Googlers telling stories about their career paths. They are interesting, but they aren’t crucial to being able to apply the knowledge. If you have loads of time, by all means watch them, but if you are speeding through the content, you can skip them comfortably.

Tips for the Google Project Management peer-reviewed assignments

Most of the courses have peer-graded assignments. For example, you have to complete a project charter, a risk document, a presentation to executives, write sample emails etc.

The example project is Plant Pals (the Capstone project is Sauce & Spoon), and actually it’s quite fun to work through creating project documents. The case study is realistic and well-put together, you will definitely find it useful if you have not worked on a project end-to-end before.

Here are some tips for acing your peer-reviewed assignments.

1. Make sure your file is publicly accessible

You have to review other people’s work as well as submit your own, and overall, the quality of the files submitted was poor. There were quite a few that I couldn’t even access because the Google Docs permission was not set to ‘Sharing’.

Make sure people can access your file!

2. Load the right file

You are given student documents to review, and there were several I was given where I had to flag that they had loaded the wrong file. One was even a promo leaflet for some guy’s training courses. Some people loaded the blank template.

Don’t waste your time (or other people’s) by loading the wrong documents. Come up with a naming convention for all the files you will create and then upload the correct version.

I made this mistake once myself. There are two exercises where you have to write emails and I uploaded the wrong email file for an assignment. Believe me, when people score your assignment as 0/10 and you fail, it really stings!

3. Read the submission criteria

Each peer-reviewed assignment where you have submit a file has two tabs. One tab is your instructions, the next is the upload screen where you share your file so it can be reviewed.

On the upload screen you will see submission criteria. This is basically a list of what the reviewer will be looking for.

Read this before you spend time creating your file so you know exactly how you will be graded and what you need to include in the project documentation.

4. Remember to review other people’s assignments

You won’t be marked as ‘complete’ unless you have reviewed other people’s assignments as well as submitted your own and had that reviewed.

It doesn’t take long to look over someone else’s document, especially as you have just written one on exactly the same template. You will be given a marking scheme so you know exactly how to assign marks.

Put some time aside as soon as you have submitted your assignment and just get through them. You’ll know when you have done enough as it will invite you to review more, but you are not obligated to.

5. Keep them short

It’s tempting to write loads and loads in the project charter or other documents, but you really don’t have to. Stick with a few bullet points that cover the key content.

In real life you might want to add more context and more words, but generally short is good. There are only certain things that will be graded anyway, so any text you put in additional boxes is not going to score you extra.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do a good job, especially if you are hoping to get the practice of putting together project documentation – useful if you want to become a project manager . But if you want to get through the course fast, do the minimum required and don’t gold plate your assignments.

Tips for the Google Project Management Capstone Project

The Capstone course (Applying Project Management in the Real World) is the Sauce & Spoon case study, which is a fun project about rolling out a new system for a group of restaurants. It feels timely and relevant, with a cast of characters you’ll come to feel like you know.

You are the project manager, and the goal is to shepherd the project through from idea to delivery – which of course you manage to do just fine.

Here are some examples of the Google Project Management Capstone assignments:

• Create a project charter
• Draft emails
• Identify project tasks and put them in order with milestones
• Identify and create time estimates for a project plan
• Identify quality criteria and establish how these will be measured
• Create a presentation to share project results
• Draft an executive summary

The Capstone also includes a section on preparing for an interview , which you don’t have to do.

Here are some tips to stay on top of the Capstone.

1. Pace yourself

It was a lot more work than I was expecting. There are 8 peer reviewed assignments which equals 8 documents to create, submit, and then review someone else’s submission.

Given that I am an experienced project manager who had breezed through the other content, I figured I would also find it easy.

It wasn’t hard (for me), but you can’t skip sections . It is time-consuming so make sure you have time put aside.

2. Do the ungraded assignments

I thought I would save myself time and skip the assignments that are ungraded, focusing instead on the peer-graded projects instead.

I quickly found that you can’t do that. You open a peer-reviewed assignment brief and it says, “Take the project charter you created earlier…” and if you haven’t created one earlier you have to go back and do it from scratch.

You need to work through all the activities, even the ungraded ones. There is important case study information and ground work that you cannot skip.

3. Don’t stress about people being available to review

I was really worried that no one would be online or available to review my assignments. What if no one else was studying at that time? What if I was the only one in the whole world completing the Capstone and I’d have to wait for someone new to enroll so they could mark my work?

All those worries were completely unfounded. There are plenty of people going through the same experience. I was reviewing papers uploaded just that day, and people were reviewing mine within hours.

The longest I had to wait was about 18 hours. I went to bed worried no one would see my paper and in the morning it had been graded.

4. Look for the Capstone answers

All the answers are in the case study. You don’t have to make anything up (although you can embellish if you want). Just read the materials carefully and write down what you learn.

You don’t even have to infer or deduce. I think every answer and expectation is there in black and white on the screen. For example, success criteria and KPIs, they are written in the case study materials.

I’ve never had a project meeting in real life where a sponsor has said, “We’re looking to improve turnaround time by 5% and reduce customer waiting time by 30 minutes.” But the Sauce & Spoon stakeholders are very switched on and articulate! In real life, expect to have to gently coax senior managers to come up with numbers they can be held accountable to!

5. Do the work

I wonder how many people start the 6 certificate courses and then get to the Capstone and think, “Whoa, that’s a lot of work.” And then drop out.

Don’t let that be you. You can do it. There is no time limit on taking the course, and if you show up and do the work, you will pass.

The Capstone is a lot more work than any of the other courses. I think there are only 5 peer-reviewed assignments in the whole of the rest of the course, and while that gets you used to the process and the expectation, the Capstone takes it to a whole new level.

That’s the point, after all. They want you to feel confident and to ‘see’ a project from start to finish.

Before you go…

You can definitely pass the Google Project Management Certificate, I have no doubt. There are no tutor-assessed assignments. You can take the graded quizzes as many times as you like (within the system constraints) and if you plod through the work, you can do it!

You earn a Credly badge at the end of it, which makes it all worthwhile.

I did have a stressful week, so I wouldn’t recommend doing what I did and cramming the course, but I do think the course was good and worthwhile. Read my full review of the Google Project Management Certificate .

If you have read this because you are considering signing up, I’d recommend it. If you’ve got to the end of the article because you’re halfway through the course and need the motivation to keep going… keep going!! You’ve got this!

Pin for later reading

Project manager, author, mentor

Elizabeth Harrin is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management in the UK. She holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University, and several project management certifications including APM PMQ. She first took her PRINCE2 Practitioner exam in 2004 and has worked extensively in project delivery for over 20 years. Elizabeth is also the founder of the Project Management Rebels community, a mentoring group for professionals. She's written several books for project managers including Managing Multiple Projects .

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