This activity will provide you with an opportunity to share your thoughts on one of the prevalent project management topics. The class interaction will foster a learning environment in which you will learn from each other's experiences and opinions. In addition to that, you will practice speaking the project management lingo and expressing your opinions in a professional manner.
Before you begin this discussion, be sure to:
Read the following:
• Gido, J., & Clements, J. P. (2012). Successful project management. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
o Chapter 5: Developing the Schedule
o Chapter 6: Resource Utilization
View the following:
• PowerPoint presentations:
o Chapter 5: Developing the Schedule
o Chapter 6: Resource Utilization
The challenge here is to collect the right information, at the right time, with minimum time and effort investment by team members so that they can concentrate on their assigned project tasks.
Below is an example of two project managers who handle their project differently:
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Project Manager A
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Project Manager B
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"I will monitor the status of my project by holding regular, frequent status meetings with my team members."
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"Frequent status meetings are nothing but a waste of time!"
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"I will gather project status information by asking my team members to send me a regular email with updates."
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"Your team members might not include vital project information in an email. Besides, regular interaction amongst a project team is important and cannot be replaced by an email."
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"I will obtain project progress updates by walking around, and gathering information from each team member by tapping them on the shoulder."
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"The tapping on the shoulder method is ineffective when it comes to obtaining project status information. You will interrupt your team members from their work and without a heads-up regarding the request for project status information, they will not have a chance to properly prepare to report to you on the status of the project."
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"I will rely on project management software to tell me exactly what is going on with my project."
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"Your team members might not be entering appropriate project updates into project management software, and so you might miss vital project information. Besides, we don't always have the luxury of project management software."
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Respond to the following on the basis of the example given above:
• If you were a project manager, how would you monitor the progress of your projects? Would you rely on status reports, the status meetings, walking around and talking to team members, a combination of any of these or, anything else? Explain.
• Would your approach be based on the type of a project that you are managing, and/or how large your project team is and/or anything else? What is wrong with the approaches that you would not use? Explain.
Post your primary response