Monday, April 25, 2011

Middle of Course Blog

1.  Given your knowledge/skills/experience/confidence at the start of these courses, what have you learned so far?

I have learned about successfully identifying stakeholders and ways to gather  requirements.  I learned whose roles and responsibilities certain requirements belong to.  I studied different tools used to help in gathering requirements.  I learned about different start up issues of a project and some remedies for them.  I learned communication is the #1 skill that a PM should possess.  Not only from the PM but from all team members.  Without open communication between everyone, shareholders too, there could be all kind of misunderstandings and misconceptions.

2.  Looking at the course objectives, which ones do you feel you have achieved, and which ones still look difficult or completely unfamiliar to you?

I feel like I have achieved the concept of how to gather requirements using different tools.  I also feel comfortable in identifying stakeholders and getting their needs from them.  I am not so sure about declaring the scope of a project and writing it's scope statement.  I am still a little fuzzy on what I actually should say. 

3.  How has the information you learned so far changed the way you approach projects or think about projects in your everyday life?

I take a little more time to listen to the person I am working with/for.  Instead of thinking of questions in my mind while I am communicating with someone, I open my mind to listen to them completely.  Then I think of questions after they have completed their communication and I have thought about what they said.  I gather details and requirements before I act upon things more than I did before.  I read the assignment requirements and objectives before I do my assignment now which I didn't do before.

4.  Are there any topics that have been discussed that still seem unclear? What are your thoughts as you get ready to start the second half of the course?

Risk Management is still unclear.  I am not sure how to minimize risks but my research paper is on the subject so I will be forced to understand it. 

I love this course.  This is my favorite course so far.  It is too late for me to certify as a PM.  Too much to do, too little time, however, if I were younger I would go for it.  I can only hope to learn more and more on such an interesting subject.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Grad Paper Milestone 1A

Topic - Importance of Risk Management on a Project

Pre-Writing Activity - Brainstorming:

what is risk management?
why is it needed in project?
what is it's history?
is it always good for a project?
when do you start risk management?
do you use it all the way through the project?
what person has risk management expertiste?
how is it implemented?
when is it implemented?
how long is it implemented?
cna anyone implement it?
are there different kinds of risk management?
what areas is risk management used for?
is the PM the responsible person for risk management?
is it really necessary?
if used, can it save a failing project?
is it ever to late to start risk management?
does it take care of all risks?
is risk management used in conjunction with other processes?
how much does risk management cost?
can it be divided and delegated to more than one person?
is it time consuming?
does it always help the project?

I chose Risk Management because I will need to research it more to fully understand it.  Brainstorming has brought up some interesting areas of concern for my paper.  My desire is that I learn more about how risk management works in a project.  How to implement it and when to use it.  It is a topic that I am not really sure of .  Something that I should already understand better than I do right now.  This is giving me a better insight to project management and project managers.  These topics surprisingly interest me.  So for now I am going to try to learn as many aspects of project management as I can.