20 Jan Demographic trends

PMC6601 Foundations of Project Management

Week 1 Discussion

Project Management Basics

Question 1

Analyze a project you have worked on. The project may have been at home, at work, or in other settings (for example, church or school). Answer the following questions when you describe the project:

Explain how the project originated.

Was the process used to initiate and manage the project formal or informal? Analyze how this affected the outcome.

Describe the difficulties you encountered while completing your project. How did you overcome that?

Evaluate the final outcome of the project.

Evaluate how the project was managed. Provide recommendations on improving the system.

Question 2

Describe the roles of the following project stakeholders: Project manager, Project sponsor, Team members.

Question 3

Describe the relationship between a project manager and a project sponsor. Who is ultimately responsible for the success of a project, the project manager or the project sponsor? Explain.

Question 4 Define the following terms and explain how these terms are specific and unique to the practice of project management: Project, Program, Project management

Question 5 Discuss the various project management process groups (initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing) and explain how they relate to the phases of a PLC.

The final paragraph (three or four sentences) of your initial post should summarize the one or two key points that you are making in your initial response. Justify your answers with examples and reasoning. Comment on the postings and views of at least two peers.

Your posting should be the equivalent of 1 to 2 pages (500–1000 words) in length.

PMC6601 Foundations of Project Management

Week 2 Discussion

Project with No Direction: Scenario:

A major national insurer decided to evolve new business development practices. The project to implement this idea started in 2000 and was led by a succession of key senior vice presidents (VPs) as part of their executive growth. Twelve years later, the organization had still not finished with its stated purpose due to changing requirements, new ideas, a succession of leaders, and executive ambivalence. This effort had all the appearance of a major strategic initiative—three hundred people, a “war room” with a great storyboard, and lots of spokespersons. Key staff members were quick to extol the great progress made. However, when the new CEO asked, “Why are we doing this?” there was no coherent answer.

Result: Within days, the entire program was scrapped. In less than a week, the project offices were vacant and phone calls went unanswered. When the project died, no one noticed except the executives who had been the project advocates. They were out of a job.

For the first part of your post, address the following question:

Analyze the root cause of this situation. There was a huge disconnect between project management and the organizational strategy and strategic direction in this scenario. How could this gap have been bridged?

Then, address one of the following bullets.

Analyze the triple-constraints relationship among a project scope, cost, schedule, and quality. If quality is held constant and the scope is widened, what will happen to the cost and schedule?

Explain a WBS created for a project you have worked on. Did the team refer to the WBS while sequencing work and creating a risk plan? What was the outcome? If not, describe how the team determined tasks and sequencing. Evaluate the outcome. Cite additional challenges to a project that might result from poor work breakdown practices.

The final paragraph (three or four sentences) of your initial post should summarize the one or two key points that you are making in your initial response.

Justify your answers with examples and reasoning. Comment on the postings and views of at least two peers.

PMC6601 Foundations of Project Management

Week 3 Discussion

Team Building and Ignoring Risk

Address one of the following questions:

Question 1:

Project Teams: Team building is an important aspect of managing a project team. Propose the right time to begin the team-building process. Justify what you believe to be the best approach for building a project team. Analyze some of the challenges that project teams face along with strategies to overcome those challenges.

Question 2:

Ignoring Project Risk: Scenario: A new executive education course was proposed and approved by the once dynamic, but now visibly ailing, Vice President (VP) for human resources. Consultants were employed to gathered requirements across all company units. The course idea was widely applauded as a necessary step for executive development in the fast-paced enterprise. A course outline had been completed and approved when the sick VP for human resources had suddenly retired. After a few weeks, a new VP for human resources was hired. The new VP was unconvinced that the course was necessary. Her charge was to cut costs and streamline the human resources department to fit the new image of the company.

Result: The course was watered down from a week of dynamic, intensive training to a few insignificant handouts and, after a budget cut, was discontinued before implementation.

Discuss:

Evaluate the scenario. Was this result foreseeable? Why or Why not? Explain what you think could have been done to enhance the risk readiness for this project.

Choose some techniques that the team could have used in this situation to identify both internal and external risks to project success. Justify your choices. Describe the techniques for evaluating the likelihood of each risk and its impact on the project if it occurs.

Evaluate which elements should be part of a written plan to deal with high potential risks and elements that might have major consequences for a project.

Question 3:

Communicate for Project Success: Scenario: A major enterprise-level business process development project was initiated. Early in the project, it was clear that each constituent business unit had different needs. An active executive sponsor pushed for a steering committee representation from all business units. The team began by gathering requirements across business units. All levels of the organization were represented—executives, middle managers, and frontline workers. Requirements were translated into specifications and communicated to the business units. Prior to steering committee meetings, decision makers received detailed information on the project’s status and progress in meeting requirements.

Result: The team developed a broad approach toward developing a new process with an enterprise-level core that allowed customization among the business units. The project achieved the desired results and received customer acceptance at the business unit level. The executive sponsor (also the primary customer at the enterprise level) was applauded for his business acumen, while the direct project sponsor continued on her path for promotion from the assistant VP to being the VP of the organization.

Discuss:

Analyze the critical factors in the success of this project.

For a project like the one described above, propose the key components of a project communication plan.

Question 4:

Project Procurement Risk: Analyze the different types of procurement contracts. Include an evaluation of the risk level associated with each type of contract. Propose the procurement management process.

Justify your answers with examples and reasoning. Comment on the postings of at least two peers.

The final paragraph (three or four sentences) of your initial post should summarize the one or two key points that you are making in your initial response.

PMC6601 Foundations of Project Management

Week 4 Discussion

Question 1:

The Monthly Project Report: Each month, all project managers were called for an executive session to present the status of their projects. All project managers and the key project team members spent five to seven days a month preparing standardized briefing charts for this critically important meeting. The meeting lasted well over half a day while each project manager waited for his or her turn to receive executive guidance.

Result: The project managers, team members, and administrative assistants wasted hundreds of hours each month preparing detailed slides, graphics, analyses, and report papers to provide to the senior executive. The senior executive was gratified at the level of work and detail his people put in to keep him apprised of every project nuance. The senior executive had a much larger comfort zone of information to rely upon when queried by his boss.

Analysis: When most organizations work Monday to Friday, there are about twenty workdays in any month. Spending over 25 percent of the available monthly work time in preparing reports drove project management costs up and undermined organizational commitment to disciplined project management. Worse, tremendous amounts of overtime were required to offset the lost project productivity. This forced the project managers, team members, administrative assistants, and contractors to work late nights and weekends. Productivity losses were staggering. The senior executive was promoted, but the organization was ultimately branded a failure and subsumed under another executive. Several project managers no longer work for the company.

Discuss:

Evaluate the executive sessions. Should they be held on the basis of project performance norms and the key project milestone dates and not per a fixed schedule? Why? Would this require changes in organizational culture? Explain.

How might a culture of openness be established that encourages briefings to senior executives regarding deviations from expected performance (both good and bad)? Offer a few ideas.

Explain some of the less time-consuming and systematic ways through which an executive manager can update himself or herself on the status of a project.

Question 2:

Review the PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct on the PMI website and answer the following questions:

What are the underlying international and global values of PMI’s Code of Ethics?

What is the difference between aspirational and mandatory standards identified in the PMI Code of Ethics? Justify your answer.

Question 3:

Leading the Main Street Project: Scenario: A small town in Texas wanted to enhance its main street to reduce traffic safety problems, enhance business, increase the number of businesses, and make the street more appealing. The main street was also a four-lane state highway that was restricted to 45 mph speed in the less populated area and 35 mph speed in the business distinct. The project was approved by the town council, and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) provided funding to create enhancements that included relocating overhead wires and installing curbs and gutters while filling in drainage ditches. The project was to last for two years.

Result: Poor project communications management resulted in business owners not being aware of all the aspects of the plan. Fears arose that businesses would fail during construction. Project leaders attempted to assuage these fears, but a town council meeting was called to vote down the project. The council members voted unanimously to cancel the project on the basis of emotional arguments by business owners and a few vocal townspeople. The TxDOT representative thanked the council for its interest but announced that the project would continue. Naturally, there was an outrage about this announcement and vocal opposition followed. The TxDOT project manager informed the assembled group that the city did not have jurisdiction over the road and that the TxDOT had allocated funding on the city’s request. The project would continue regardless of unfounded fears.

Discuss:

Create a plan that could have avoided this situation. How does your plan compare to others?

Evaluate the legitimacy of the TxDOT project manager’s use of position power.

Assess what communication skills you would use in this situation.

The final paragraph (three or four sentences) of your initial post should summarize the one or two key points that you are making in your initial response.

PMC6601 Foundations of Project Management

Week 5 Discussion

Working in Project Management

Respond to one of the following questions:

Question 1:

Monitoring and controlling a project is a core activity for a project manager. Provide an example of a project that was challenged by control issues and describe what caused the situation. Explain what could have been done to ensure that key elements such as the scope, schedule, and cost were controlled.

Question 2:

Project management is a popular occupation in contemporary business. Visit a few job websites (for example, monster.com) and other sources of information on the project management occupation (for example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics). What is the current status of project managers with regard to:

Opportunities

Salaries

Demographic trends around project management

Industries using project managers

Value of the PMP® certification from the PMI

Question 3:

The PMP® certification has been popular in the past ten years. Apart from this certification, there are other project management credentials or certifications available to project managers. Which of these certifications appeal to you and why? What other certifications are complementary to the PMP® certification?

The final paragraph (three or four sentences) of your initial post should summarize the one or two key points that you are making in your initial response.

Justify your answers with examples and reasoning. Comment on the postings and views of at least two peers.