Module 7: Final Paper

Stewart Zambrano

12/2/22
Stewart Zambrano

PMG 321

Module 7: Final Paper 

Since first taking the quiz “How Good Are Your Project Management Skills?” until now,

can you identify areas of growth or knowledge regarding project management specifically, or

leadership in general? Do you find yourself giving more consideration to particular areas,

principles, or practices (e.g. scheduling, scope management, communication styles, etc.)?

Since I first took the initial quiz “How Good Are Your Project Management Skills?” I

feel more confident in my ability as a project manager in many areas, to begin scheduling the

right people for a job. Over the course of the last seven weeks, I have noticed that scheduling the

most experienced employees to start a project is the way to go when getting started on a project,

you want the most experienced people putting down the foundation of any project. To be honest

before entering this class my experience in the project management leadership spectrum was

limited due to lack of experience. Not only does a project manager have to manage the team, but

they also must overcome contingencies that arise throughout the project and figure out how to

use the budget accordingly. In one simulation my team had gotten into a car crash and I had a
brand-new team I needed to get this new team up to speed, meeting on meetings matter and there

are three types of meetings standup, one on one and status reviews. Different situations call for

different approaches just like when I lost workers to the competition, I had to wait at least three

weeks before I could get more help, at that point I had to work with what I got, meetings were

necessary but they were also very limited since our staff was much smaller. Communication is

crucial as a project manager; contingencies are bound to happen but I can’t stress how important

it is to make sure everyone on the team and every leader is aware so a solution can be found.

When issues arise the project manager must step up and take action so he/she can effectively

manage the team with the right coaching/support approach, a project manager cannot just run

away from any contingences instead they must face it head on and find the right way to get a

solution. As the weeks progressed, I realized how vital one on one meetings are for team

members and projects to build trust among the team members and leaders and have an open

dialogue throughout the project. What I learned is “Scope management ensures a project's scope

is accurately defined and mapped and enables project managers to allocate the proper labor and

costs necessary to complete the project.” (https://blog.planview.com/project-scope-important/)

When I first started this class I had no idea what scope management really was, neither did I

know how or why it was so important for any project manager, what I did learn is scope

management is always part of every project from the beginning. The thing about scope

management is it will vary and change as the days/weeks go by in any project especially with

budgeting and scheduling accordingly, Project managers need to map out the way they will

accomplish the project goal before the project even begins. I would say most of my

understanding about scope and how to go about it came from each simulation trying to pick the

right team, manage it, set meetings and understand how to be successful with the different
budgets that were given to me per simulation. Susanne Madsen who also founded “The Project

Leadership Institute” in 2017 focuses on developing project leaders so they can later become

successful project managers, stakeholders and projects are both becoming more complex and it is

critical for any project manager or leader to have the right skillset to make good decisions, this is

important to keep in mind with scope.

Given your previous experience, as well as your more recent interactions with the Harvard

Simulation scenarios, how would you define your personal approach to project management?

What areas do you tend to emphasize or privilege while managing projects where trade-offs are

inevitable? In what areas do you find your biggest challenges?  

During the most recent interactions as a project manager throughout the Harvard

Simulation I’ve learned a lot about my approach as a leader for projects of different levels and

difficulties. What I learned is my personal approach as a project manager starts with keeping an

open mind so I can be flexible in any given situation. The Harvard simulation gave me the

opportunity for unlimited attempts and approaches for each simulation, this gave me the

opportunity to learn through trial and error to realize there is not a direct way to work a project

and manage a team. I was able to try so many different approaches from small, experienced

teams to big not as experienced teams and tried different ways to complete the project from

holding no meetings to holding a bunch. What I feel is more important is what approach has been

more successful for you and what you are most comfortable doing. Keeping an open mind will

lead to being flexible because things will not only change per project but circumstances will

change weekly. When it comes down to areas that I tend to emphasize in while managing any
project I would say making sure prototypes were mostly always created for each simulation

attempt but more importantly scheduling the right number of meetings. As I mentioned earlier

communication is essential for any project and that also goes hand in hand with being flexible.

Scheduling the right meeting is important for team morale, in my approach one on one meetings

went a long way is many of the simulations to keep communication fluent throughout many of

my approaches. Throughout the course my biggest challenge always was the budget versus the

dealing, trying to pick the tradeoff between the two was something I struggled trying to figure

out. In all my best scores the deadline was more important and the budget was the tradeoff

throughout the duration of the Harvard simulations. Many of my approaches I went over budget

because what I realized from making so many attempts is it is better to have a completed project

than no project, the amount of times I tried to stay on budget I barely managed to complete

projects. In a real life setting I believe budgets could go up depending on the client in order to

have the project ready by the deadline, this would take away that tradeoff and meetings would

probably be my next tradeoff depending how much time the team and I are given to complete a

project.

Lastly, although the scenarios that you worked through in this class offered a very narrow arena

in which project management techniques can be applied, I would like for you to now make the

connection between the skills that you employed and learned to your own professional

environment—whether you are already working within it or aspiring to soon work within a

particular industry. For example, how can project management skills be useful in government
jobs, education, the non-profit sector, etc.? In other words, what are your “takeaways” that hold

direct relevance to you professionally? Be specific.

Many people are project managers throughout many different types of jobs, the only

difference is the title they carry in their job but many aspects of the operations fall under project

management. My wife is a wedding planner and she is always planning and organizing

everything for the wedding she is working on, the couple gives her a budget and she has to have

everything in place and ready to go by a certain date which can be viewed as a “deadline”.

Another perfect example can be a teacher who must plan his/her curriculum for each year and

can change if they are teaching a different grade the following year, they then schedule what will

be taught and when it will be taught to the students. As a ex grocery store receiver/buyer I also

had to plan what I was going to order weekly for the store on a tight budget, it was crucial of me

to have a plan on what fruits and vegetables were going to be available for each season and I had

to make sure the dates were all fitting in right so items were not expired or we had items for

certain holidays. In my last project management class, I started to realize that the fundamentals

of project management are used in many aspects of our daily lives, this class stamped and

confirmed it. One of the biggest takeaways from this course starts with not overwhelming your

team, in a few of the simulations when I would try to push the project completion date weeks

before the management suggestion date and depending on how big and experiences my team was

there response varied. For the most part my team morale would be affected and they would say

“the completion date is impossible”, It was all about planning right but without overwhelming

my team because it also led to not as many tasks or no task getting completed. Tension and stress

will happen in many projects when managing a group of individuals, the goal is to keep everyone

levelheaded you can’t make everyone happy but you can keep them content. In many simulations
the best I could do is set certain meetings to get everyone on the same page, I would also change

the level of task depending on their attitudes, if they felt overworked. I would lower it for a week

and once the morale went up, I would put the level product back to where it needs to be for the

project. Tension and stress not only create conflict it can affect the project as a whole, I want the

most work that can possibly be done weekly and when tension or stress come into play workers

may not want to work as hard or lose motivation or even worse commit mistakes that will affect

the project in the long run. The morale of a team is like walking on eggshells or thin ice so it is

important to always address it and fix it as best possible to have positive morale from your team

to ensure your project will be completed to their best abilities, in other words “created with

love”.

 Suggestions on how to manage the three most visible levers of project management

(scope, resources, and schedule).

The Harvard project management simulations were a bit difficult when first starting I

suggest the next person preparing to take these simulations to breath, do not get overwhelmed

trying to get the perfect score because the scope of the project will change. I suggest to always be

flexible and be ready to act on new change and don’t just attempt each simulation the bare

minimum number of times, I ended up attempting one simulation twenty-five times and that gave

me the chance to view the simulation from different angles as I attacked it from different

approaches. The simulation is a great foundation to get a grasp of how a project manager works

and certain issues that will come up during many projects but it is important to keep in mind it is

a simulation and the real world will come differently. Take your time to focus on team morale
and how you can improve it given different circumstances that will present themselves,

contingencies are natural in the sense that they will happen but like other obstacles in life you

need to hurdle over them.

Scope Management:

Scope management is the process by which the outcomes and output are identified,

controlled and defined. It is important to identify the objectives before starting any of the seven

simulations, make sure to read all the instructions in the project brief before you start the

simulation and read the alerts that come in as the simulation goes under way. If you can

understand the scope of the project, you will be knowledgeable in all the decisions that need to

be made. Some simulations are unrealistic but others will come with enough flexibility so you

can exceed the management goals and get a higher overall score. What I learned it is always

better to exceed objectives but do not underdeliver on any goal, this can possibly be your

downfall and from the start you should know exactly what kind of project you are stepping into.

Scott Friesen speaks on having a planned decisions which can also be used to get the scope

right, he gives tips about it in “Tips for Conquering Trello in 2019.

 Resource Management:

Resource management is the effective and efficient expenditure and development of the

resources for an organization. The human capital and financial budget are part of the resources

and can be biggest part of tradeoffs as a project goes on. Executive’s expectations can lead to

top-down tensions onto workers with the amount of stuff executives expect accomplished. In the

Harvard project management simulations, there will be some moments where given scenarios

will be a bit unrealistic but as the leader and PM of the project there is a thin line of keeping
between delivering the goals and balancing the expectations. In my experience in the

simulations, I often went way over budget that is another reason why I attempted the simulations

so many times so I can see where I went wrong and how I can fix and arrange it. Although I did

often go over budget even when I tried not to the tradeoff always was that the project was

completed and delivered right on time or often, I would exceed the expectations the executives

suggested for the project completion.

 Schedule Management:

When it comes down to schedule management it requires the PM to get the project

completed in a “timely manner”. Bottom- up tension is the opposite of top- down and can

sometimes be found when schedule management gets used and can also be viewed as a tradeoff,

sometimes to get the project completed you can tradeoff morale to make sure the objectives are

completed. This also is a way for team members to understand their objectives based on their

knowledge to get the project completed. Bottom-up tension is found when objectives presented

by management or higher ups are not completed in a timely manner, this has a cause and effect

to it leading to additional financial resources or more skill resources with workers.

Critical Trends or Patterns.

Patterns/ trends that I noticed throughout the simulation started with morale being

affected when meetings were not being scheduled. Another pattern that happened in many

simulations included overworking team members and then they suddenly stop doing as many

tasks as possible per week, the best way to address this is lowering the product type design to

give team members a little breather. Many simulations I successfully accomplished by creating
prototypes because without the protypes the team and the PM are creating a project with no type

of example of what is right and what still needs to be worked on to ensure no mistakes. When

issues like the car accident or the completion took my team members away happened, I

outsourced A LOT!! Outsourcing also helps you save money from my experience in the

simulation. I noticed using the overtime can also help get more task accomplished, keep I mind

the more meetings you have the less task can get completed weekly.

 Own personal “model”

From my personal experience the first casual relationship that exist between any project

is laying the foundation, this includes getting the right staff for the project. My personal motto

starts with having experienced team members starting any projects so the project does not have

any issues from the start. Once the foundation has been cemented you can acquire less

experienced workers for the second half of the project to finish the leftovers. I also think it is

important to have the right number of meetings, the number of meetings also vary per week. I

personally recommended having prototypes for each project, two protypes are the minimum you

should have created per project to ensure the project is created with no mistakes. It is also okay

to outsource, on every simulation I outsourced and it really helped with my budget, outsourcing

really helps in different ways specially to lay some stress of team members that already have a

lot they are dealing with. Many of these tips are a great way to keep team morale in a positive

light because good team morale means motivation to get task done and ultimately get the project

completed. Lastly personally my tradeoff is getting the project done and going over the budget
versus not getting the project done but being under the budget, the most important job for the PM

in my model is getting the project done no matter what contingences may arise.

References

(https://blog.planview.com/project-scope-important/)

https://forio.com/app/harvard/project-management/?x-epicenter-sso-

state=eyJyZXNvdXJjZUxpbmtJZCI6ICI1NDM0Mjc3NCIsICJjb250ZW50QWNjZXNzTW9kZ

SI6ICJmdWxsLWNvbnRlbnQifQ#/archived-runs?return=/prepare/project-brief

https://www.theprojectleadershipinstitute.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ndVHniY3RI