Homework 1

1. Question 1 - Name and briefly describe the societal forces that have contributed to the need for project management. a. The exponential expansion of human knowledge. This allows for an increasing number of academic disciplines to be used in the solving of problems that are associated with the development, production, and distribution of good and services. b. The growing demand for a broad range of complex, sophisticated, customized goods and services. This depends on our ability to made product design an integrated and inherent part of our production and distribution systems which cannot be done with any one team. c. The evolution of worldwide competitive markets for the production and consumption of goods and services. This knowledge does not lie with any one group or individual which requires the need for more formal product management. ok 2. Question 3 - Describe the limitations of project management d. Creation of the project may be an admission that the parent organization and its manager cannot accomplish the desired outcome through the functional organization. e. PM lacks the authority that is needed to assign level of responsibility when conflict arises. Dependent on good will of participating managers for necessary resources. f. Not getting cooperation may reflect poorly on skills of PM and can backfire in long run if needing to engage with executive management often. ok 3. Question 4 - List the seven main characteristic of a project and briefly describe the important features of each. g. Importance – has to be important enough to the eyes of Senior Management. If the organization perceives it as not really important it is doom to fail so it needs high visibility by management in assigning the right people and continuing to monitor. h. Scope – Needs to have a well-defined set of results that can be divided up and consumed by the team. i. Life Cycle with a Finite Due Date – like an organic entity it resists temptation so it must have a due date in order to have a normal life cycle. j. Interdependencies – Projects interact with other projects inside a parent organization, often competing for the same resources or engaging in other groups. PM has to keep interactions clear and maintain the interrelationships. k. Uniqueness – the desired and end results are unique to the organization doing it. PM’s importance is that there are a great many exceptions to manage by. l. Resources – as mentioned above resources are limited and in demand. Important to understand what you need and when you need it. m. Conflict – conflict happens for resource and personal. Budgets and resource needs can conflict as well. As the text mentions, PM is not for the timid and needs to be expert at recognizing conflict and be an expert at conflict resolutions. ok 4. Question 5 - Name and briefly describe the three primary goals of a project. n. To meet specified scope – deliver what has been asked for by the client and that their expectations meet the design. o. Ensure the project is within cost – If the costs provides little return on investment as is over budget, this can reflect poorly on the group, p. Ensure the project is on schedule – Time to market and other considerations such as competing resources are reasons why projects need to come in on schedule.ok 5. Question 6 - Discuss the advantages and disadvantage of project management. q. The advantages of a project is that it allows for a PM to be responsive to the client and environment, identify conflict and problems and an early date, make timely decisions about tradeoffs between conflicting project goals, and ensure that manager of the separate tasks that compromise the project do not optimize the performance of their individual tasks and the expense of the total project. r. Disadvantages can be that project management