This assignment is in 2 parts.

Topic 1

Draw from your personal and professional experiences to address the topic below for the Discussion. Remember that this is a Discussion, so keep your responses succinct and to the point. Respond to at least three of your classmates.

Be sure to write your initial post according to APA format using citations/examples to substantiate your position and give credit to your references at the bottom of your post. Be sure to synthesize your analysis of the reading as a conclusion and then evaluate your synthesis.

Discussion: Theory/Trends

After a historic presidential election in the United States, officials and citizens are focused on the transition program and the initial priorities of the new administration. In the context of a worldwide economic crisis, the pressing questions on people's minds are:

What new programs and projects will be initiated?

What will be cut?

How will the administration prioritize the campaign promises made to different stakeholders?

It will be imperative to cultivate and promote a portfolio mindset and apply the principles of portfolio management at every level to address these crucial questions.

Whether in government, your organization or department, or at a personal level, a portfolio mindset can provide strategic focus. It can ensure that you are working on the right projects with the right priorities, and are not being bogged-down, or stuck, on low-value initiatives.

According to the Standard for Portfolio Management, a portfolio is a collection of projects or programs and other work that are grouped together to facilitate the effective management of that work to meet strategic business objectives.

Portfolio management focuses on the processes to identify, select, prioritize, govern, measure, and report on the projects and programs to achieve a specific business objective.

In your estimation, a portfolio mindset requires that, at any point in time, managers:

o Inventory and become familiar with all of the projects and programs in the portfolio;

o Focus on the big picture with clarity of purpose and based on strategic objectives;

o Continuously assess and balance priorities based on the four Rs - reward (benefit), risk, resources, and relationship (the impact of doing a project on other projects that are existing or planned) (Duggal, 2008, p. 41).

Choose the position that you feel is most relevant to the preceding comments regarding having a portfolio mindset and substantiate your premise with referenced citation.

Reference located on the internet:

Duggal, J. (2008). Cultivating a portfolio mindset. Projectize Group LLC. Community Post.

Part 2:

Topic 2: Locking Scope

In this Assignment, you will be taking the fully decomposed WBS found in your predecessor's "Gauchito Project Workbook.xls," (attached) and familiarizing yourself with the full scope of the project, titling the project to distinguish your project from other projects in the portfolio, and indenting and renumbering the WBS numbers to reflect the priority of the project. You may use Excel and/or Project to accomplish this Assignment.

Review the Assignment instructions (included)and grading Rubric (attached). Because you are the new PM for the Gauchito project, and the company is using the Gauchito EVM Tool your predecessor set up for this project, you will need to familiarize yourself with the tool immediately.

You were a team member during the planning stage of the Gauchito rocket project. The PM is now gone and the sponsor has made you the PM. The sponsor wants you to take the old PM's decomposed WBS, validate it, and align it with the other projects in the rocket assembly portfolio.

The Gauchito project is priority 5 out of 10 rocket assembly projects in the organization's portfolio of rocket projects for the scaled composites customer.
Here is what you will need to do:

Set up and familiarize yourself with the engineering specifications for the rocket assembly of the Gauchito 7/8 scale demonstration-validation rocket from your engineering specs (Gauchito Rocket.ppt and Gauchito Rocket Project Workbook in Course Resources) following the Gauchito rocket assembly project.

If you need some refreshing with some of the Excel functions, go the Atomic Learning modules and become very familiar with this tool. Failure to do so may adversely affect your ability to properly conduct the qualitative and quantitative analysis required for successful completion of an industry standard EVM application.

Following the engineering specifications for the rocket assembly of the Gauchito 7/8 scale demonstration-validation rocket from your engineering specs (Gauchito Rocket.ppt and Gauchito Rocket Product Description in Course Resources), build a fully decomposed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in Excel to ensure there are no multiple activities and that the WBS numbering and indentation reflect the Gauchito Rocket Project Title as "5.0". If you have Project or another COTS application such as Planview®, Genius Project®, PrimaveraWorks®, etc. and you know how to use it to build out the WBS, you may do so, but all submissions must be in Excel or Project files.

WARNING: Do not copy the WBS directly from the project plan without auditing it carefully with the engineering specifications (Estes Instructions). It has omissions and mistakes that will degrade your performance if blindly copied. Be sure that information is correctly transferred to your Excel Gauchito EVM tool. Your WBS tasks in your WBS tab should match your tasks in your Gantt tab and Calculations tab.

You will need an evening for data collection, an evening for compiling the data, and an evening to write up your findings. For your project tools, use the examples and tools available in Course Resources or the Internet that meets all the criteria of the grading rubric and complete the requirement, using your assigned project scenario found in the Course Resources section of the classroom and in your Tyler text.