Project Management-Chapter 9 Ideas

This Chapter taught me about balancing the trade-off among cost, schedule and quality. Good project management does deliver more for less, but there are still limits. Three most common porject constraints are time, money and resource. Three levels of balancing a porject: project, business and enterprose.
There are many ways to balance projects as there are projects:
1. reestimate the project , you will either positive, negative and best application possible impacts.
2. changing task assignments to take advantage of schedule float. it involves moving people to critical path tasks from tasks that are ont on the critical path in order to reduce the duration of the critical path.
3. add people to the project. it can either increase the numer of tasks that can be done at the same time or increase the number of people working on each task.
4. increase productivity by using experts from within the firm
5. increase productivity by using experts from outside the firm
6. outsourcing the entire project or a significant portion of it. this method carves out a portion of the project and handing it to an external firm to manage and complete. It is especially attractive if this portiion of project requires specialized skills not posessed by internal workers.
7. crashing the schedule. It can emply any of the alternatives listed in this chapter to reduce the duration of critical path tasks, but it takes the extra step of producing acost/schedule trade off table.
8. working overtime. The easiest way to add more labor to a project is not to add more people, but to increase their working hours.
Balancing at the business case level
1. reduce the product scope. it will be to reduce the functionality of the end product.
2. fixed phase scheduling. the project phases are apportioned from the top down and scheduled according to the required completion date.. At the end of each phase, the scope of the project is reevraluated to fit the remaining schedule.
3. fast tracking. it involves overlapping rasks that are traditionally done in sequence.
4. phased product delivery. Information systems composed of several subsystems.
5. do it twice- quickly and correcly
6. change the profit requirement. If your project needs to cost less in order to be competitively priced, this method recommends reducing the profit margin.
Balancing at the enterprise level
1. oursourcing allows you to purse more porjects with the same number of people
2. phased product delivery means tat more projects can be run at the same time
3. shifting work to the customer on several projects will free up enough people to purse one or two additional projects.
4. reducing product scope on several projects requires cost /benefit trade-off analysis among projects
5. using prodctivity tools can be a strategic decision to improve productivity across projects.

Project Management- Chapter 8 Ideas

I have learned three golden rules for all projects in this Chapter. These rules emphasize the appropriate attitude toward estimation. First, have the right people make the estimates. Three factors define who the right people are: 1. The estimators must be experienced with the work they are estimating. No matter which techniques are used, estimating is always based on an understanding of the work to be done.2. The people who will actually perform the work should also be involved in estimating it. They will have the best grasp of their own limitations. They will know, for example, just how much time their schedule will allow them to work on this project.
3. The estimators must understand the goals and techniques of estimating. Even when people understand the task at hand, they should not be allowed to estimate their own work until they learn both how to estimate and the goal of estimating.
Second, base the estimate on experience. Even though no two projects are alike, there are often enough similarities that perfomance data frompast projects are useful in estimating future ones. Professional estimators constantly use new performance data to refine their estimating models.
Third, don't negotiate the estimate-negotiate the equilibrium. There are effective ways of countering attempts to meddle with an estimate. Dickering over cost or schedule alone throws the entire estimate out of equilibrium. While no estimate will go unchallenged, the proper defense is to demonstrate how the estimat eis tied to the product specification and work breakdown structure. When estimates are developed correctly, they can be reduced only by changing the product or the productivity of the workers.

Project Management-Chapter 7 Ideas

In this Chapter, I learned tasks that can be performed at the same time are known as concurrent tasks. There are two basic rules when graphing task relationships with a network diagram. 1. define task relationships only between work package. Even though a project might have hundreds of work package and several levels of summary tasks, keep the sequence constrsints at the work package level. Summary tasks are simmply groups of work packages, so it wouldn't make sense to put a task relationship between a summary task and its work package. 2. Task relationships should reflect only sequence constraints between work packages, not resource constraints. Changing a network diagram becuase of resource constraints is the most common error in building network diagrams. The fact that there aren't enought people or other resources to work on multiple tasks at the same time is irrelevant. Regardless of resources, the tasks will still have to be performed in the same order.
I also learned five steps of planning: planning, identify task relationships, estimate work packages, calculate an initial schedule, and assign and level resources.

OB-Reflection Strengthen Others Scenarios 2

Think of a time when you felt powerless, weak, and insignificant as a resulte of somthing a leader said or did. What specifically did he or she do?

I was once very disappointed by my previous employer. He ran a financial company, and I was his assistant. I answered all the incoming phone calls for him and managed his daily schedule, very heavy work load. In addition, he was a kind of boss who never gave out nice compliments, and I always saw him being mad and unsatisfied with employees, and it seemed no one could make him happy. I worked for him about eight months, and I was like living in hell. One thing that happened later encouraged me leaving his company. I had one big car accident due to tight work study schedule and not enough rest. My left eye's pupil was injured seriously, and I needed to have surgery. Then I asked him for three days off, he was angry and not allowed. I was very upset and depressed about what he had done, then I decided to quit.

OB-Reflection Strengthen Others Scenarios 1

Scenarios 1:
Thinking of a time when, as a direct result of something a leader said or did, you felt personally powerful and capable. write down the actions the leader took that contributed to your feeling powerful, strong, capable. and effective - the master of your own experence. Be as specific as you can.

The leader's name is Orison Swett Marden, he was an American writer associated with the New Thought Moverment. He also held a degree in medicine and a successful hotel owner. He once had a quote, which I personally felt powerful and capable, and I really want to share this. He said:" The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or help of others, it is in yourself alone." The first time I read this was from my son's camp flyers, then I am so wondering who he is, and what he had experienced made him quoting this, then I went to internet and search his informaiton. Orison Marden was born in Thornton Gore, New Hampshire to Lewis and Martha Marden. When he was three years old, his mother died at the age of 22, leaving Orison and his two sisters to the care of their father, a farmer, hunter and trapper. When Orison was seven years old, his father died from injuries incurred while in the wood, and the children were shuttled from one gardian to another, with Orison working as a hired boy to earn his keep. All the tragedies didn't beat him down, he set out to improve himself and his life circumstances. He persevered in advancing himself and graduated from Boston University in 1871. He later graduated from Harvard with MD and LL B later. Then he created the New Thought Movement., he focused on the subjects of success, the cultivation of will-power, and positive thinking. Marden believed that our thoughts influence our lives and our life circumstances. I couldn't completely understand what he really meant when I read his quote for the first time, then time by time, little by little, now I knew what he exactly would like to express. The biggest war field is in people's mind. What you are becoming is more important than what you are accomplishing. We always struggle for higher level life, but we fairly think what we are really in need. A positive mental attitude makes my life happier.

Internship Week 8

This week, Sammie and I continued working on our impression management. We were not only focusing on how we were dressed up, but also we watched out our words and behaviors closely and carefully, and we always pointed out what we had done best and reminded each other the bad part. We tried to listen to customers' every single word, and being a good listener. We dressed up in a right way and showed our attention to what customer said, and we got amazing compliments from customers. Meanwhile, we started sharing our background, educational and life experience, create the good qualities imagine you want to be prsent, very possiitive messages, clearly express our thoughts and ideas, and little by little, we built up great relationship with our customers, and we felt stronger support from them. I and Sammie serously started to be aware of how we communicate with our body language, keep smile on our face always, open our mind and making warm welcomed eye contact can really drug your customers. We are happy to use what I learned from MBA to help our business.

internship week 7

I and Sammie used dressing very casually in the office since we don't think how important our apperance will affect the business. However, this week OB taught us about impression management, which means how to dress proprate becomes very important in our career success. People perceive others by impressions. When you are in an appointment, especially the first time interview, people always judge you by the first impression which may related to your appearance, the way you talk and how you are dressed. If you leave great impression to customers, you may close the deal sucessfully and easily. So how to creat good presonal strategy in impression management to help your business. I learned be yourselfe in good way, self promote, self presentation, etc. I and Sammie decided to practice this in my office, and we kindly dressed up formally everyday, and on the first day, we didn't feel well since the suits were not comfortable at all and the skirts were made us crazy. However, we felt the walk-in customer really treated us diffrently, more respectful than before. They were more polite and serious on the deal. We felt it works.

Internship-week6

WBS is the thing I learn recently from MBA course. WBS means work breakdown structure. Because a good WBS is easy to read, people often assume that it is also easy to write. This, however, is a false assumption, I used to deliver poor WBS before. But now I am trying to use what I learn to write accurate WBS, and it is really useful in planning, communicating and tracking the project. I and Sammy are really happy about the results. We followed those three criteria for a successful WBS. First, the WBS must be broken down starting at the top. we even put very little small things into WBS. Second, work packages must add up to the summary task. We used to omit necessary tasks, but now we are trying to avoid this problem by taking extra care when adding up the products of all the work packages below any summary task. Third, Each summary task and work package must be named as an activity that produces a product, giving each task a descriptive name that includes a stron very-the activity-and a strong noun. I and Sammy applied those rules to our work, and we find wer are in absolut control of our each project, break the project into small, meaningful, manageable units of work.

Internship-week5

In this week, I and Sammy kept working on those customers who had accident and were eager for our help. By helping them through the accident process, we learned a lot about claim. It will be a lot easier for our future related work. Each accident we got, we considered as a project, and we become project manager. First, we have an conversation with customer and get to know when and where the accident happened, and how it happened, and what do the customer think about the accident, which means who bears the fault from his/her point of view. Then we take the other party's information from cusotmers. After that, we start contacting with the other party's insurance company on the accident if the accident was not our insured's fault per our insured's opinion. Otherwise, we help our insured repairing their car. Customer's satisfaction is our project's goal. Based on this goal, we are very patient. Even when customer are very upset, we can calm them down little by little. We met some difficulties especially if there was dispute. We can't make everyone happy, but I know we tried our best. And we got pay-back. One of customer agree to buy life insurance with us. It works when we use what I learned from book.

Internship-Week4

On this week, I and Sammy really focused on the claim handling. We always got cusotmer's complain about their bad claims experience. Meanwhile, we were actually very frustrated when we heard the customer reporting their either car or home accident. In fact, it is part of our service. We need to correct our philosophy first in order to help our customer. So I had conversation with Sammy, and I think we should get rid of our frustration first, slip into client's shoes. Their car got hit, and their house has damage, and they had to face it even it was not their fault. If we can comfort customers and try to solve their problems, we will not only reinforce our relationship with customer but also might getting more business and referrals. So the first accident has been reported to office, we tried our best and gave out enough patient to cusotmers to go through step by step with them. After it is almost finished, we called cusotmer for his rating, he gave us very nice compliments. He indicated he would love to stick with us whenever he needs insurance, and we also cross sell life insurance to him, and he said he would consider it seriously. I think it should be one of the effective marketing methods. We will continue to work with our customer on their claims.

Project Management- Chapter 6 Ideas

To me, the hardest part of making a work breakdown structure is getting started. The WBS includes so much that it can appear over whelming. A good way to begin is to review the work you have already done during project definition and risk management.
Name all the tasks required to produce deliverables. For example, if a WBS in a landscaping project lists lawn or shrubs, we need ot add verbs to each task name. the next steop is to break down each task into the lower level, detaled tasks required to produce the procuct. This sounds easy. right? don't be deceived. Breaking down the WBS can be the most difficult step in the planning process, becuase it is where the detailed process for building the product is defined. for example, a high level task may seem easy to understand, but upon breaking it down, the project manager may find that he is unable to list all the detailed tasks required to complete it. At this point, it is time to inveite more team members, with diverse skills, into the planning process.
A WBS is especially difficult to create when I have a new project ground. I usually spent lots lots of time planning the project and most of that time is spent on the WBS. That is usually a lot longer than I oringinally intended. But by spending the time to get a detailed strategy worked out, I can see I could actually save a lot of time.

Project Management- Chapter 5 ideas

I read Chapter 5, and I had some ideas to share. There are basically five categories of classic risk response strategies: accepting, avoiding, contigency plans, transferring and mitigating the risk.

1. accepting risk, it means you understand the risk, its consequences and probability, and you choose to do nothing about it. If the risk occurs, the project team will react.

2. avoid the risk. we can always avoid the risk by choosing not to do part of the project or by choosing a lower-risk option for meeting project objectives. This deletion of part of the project culd affect more than the project-the busienss risk could also be affected.

3.contingency plans. Monitor a risk by choosing some predictive indicatior to watch as the project nears the risk point. Contingency plans are alternative courses of action prepared before the risk even occurs. It is second plan, and it can be looked on as a kind of insurance and , like insurance policeis, then can be very expensive.

4. transfer the risk. even though paying for insurance may be expensive, assuming all the risks yourself could cost a great deal more. More large projects purchase insurance for a variety of risks, ranging from theft to fire. Effectively transferred risk to the insurance company is used by a lot of cases.

5.mitigate the risk. it is jargon for work hard at reducing the risk. it covers nearly all the actions the project team can take to overcome risks from the project enviroment.

Project Management - Chapter 4 ideas

The communication is very important to a project manager. So how will communicaiton take place? There are now myriad ways to stay in constant communication. Internet and intranet technologies allow more people to shre information simultaneously. Status reports are now posted on project web sites, and videoconferencing enables project teams to be spread around the world and still meet face to face. But with all these otions, the question still remains the same, what is the best way to get the information delivered? one thing is certain: technology doesn't have all the answers. Putting a project's status on a web site. for instance, doesen't ensure that the right people will see it. we need to consider the audience and its specific communication needs. For example, becuase high level executives are ususally very busy, trying to meet with them weekly- or sending them a lengthy report - may not be realistice. A communication plan is formally accepted as part of the project rules or is just a guide for the project manager, the important thing is that communication has been thoughtfully planned, not left to chance.

Project Management- Chapter 3 ideas

Running projects requires a lot of attention to detail so this quality is no surprise. As I assign project tasks, I expect that they be performed well and with the proper attetion to detail so that we aren't presenting the customer with an error filled deliverable. I went trhough that process once with a business analyst and a frustrated customer and I never want to go there again. I did come out of that project with a lessons learned however - peer review every deliverable possible. Repeated submissions of documents with typos can make a customer uneasy and cause them to lose confidence in the team's ability to deliver quality on anything.
It is important for team members to be able to stand in front of the customer and provide updates when needed. Team members are expected to make periodic presentations to the customer or executive management. They are also expected to hold discussions with them at key points throughtout the project and it is important that they can conduct themselves in a way that will instill confidence in the team's ability to deliver on the engagement.

Project Management-Chapter 2 ideas

What qualities do we seek in our project team members? I have to admit, this is a tough one for me. Not because I don't have opinion - but becuase I rarely get to choose. As project managers we are often working in a matrixed organizations and we can identify what we need, but rarely do we get to indicate who we will get.
We often suggest who I want, but we all know how well that works out. Resources are usually overcommitted as it is and chances are the ones you want are the best and probably not all available at the same time to grace your project and help create a super team.
So, even if we don't always get to choose who is on our project teams, there are certianly still qualities we look for right? if those qulities aren't present and they become an issue on the project, we are likely to seek a personnel change - so it is nice to go into an engagement knowing what you need.

Project Management- Chapter 1 ideas

Project management is a discipline- a set of methods, therories and techniques that have evolved to manage the complexities of work that is unique and temporary. Even as the discipline continues to evolve, it can claim a proven track record. Millions of projets around the globe routinely rely on the concepts found in this and other project management books.
Project management techniques cover a range of topics:
1. communicating with team members and stakeholders from project conception trhough completion
2. estimating the effort, cost, and the time will take to deliver a project, and evaluating whether the beefits of the project will justify the forecasted costs
3.rapidly building cohesive project teams that are highly productive even though team members have not worked together before
4.coordinating the actions of a diverse workforce, assembled specifically for a project, to achieve the goal for the lease pollisble expense and in a resonable time frame.
5. accounting for progress and prodctivity to provide accurate forecasts of project completion dates and budget amounts.
6. managing the varying staffing needs that result from constantly running multiple projects concurrently, all of which share a common pool of personnel.

ProjectManagement-HomeworkAssignment

The project I would like to do is helping USA students, retirnees and the people interested in doing business with Chinese, in China to learn Chinese by going to China and immerse themselves in Chinese culture. As the whole world can see, China is the most dynamic country on not only economy, but all the other fields. Learning Chinese and understanding their culture will become trend. I named my company Ear3 Inc, and I certainly will be the project manager. Obviously, I will be the only one working for this company at present. But I do have so many sources to use, and I definitely need outside help to finish the processing. Cost, schedule and quality are the three primary variables of a project. My focus is delivering high quality on time and under budget. My goals are building up website within a short time, having contract with one picked Chinese University, and marketing my website.
Planning is very important step, and it usually puts together the details of how to meet my project's goals, given the constrains. Common estimating and scheduling techniques will help me lay out who will help me do the work, when it will be accomplished, and how much it will cost.

Internship-Week3

My internship starts from this week. I talked to my district manager Marte and his assitant Robert, and I also had conversation with my assistant Sammy about my internship. They all indicated they would support me 100%. I worked about 10 hours a day, from 8:00 am to 6:00pm, so it is total about 50 hours this week. The major task I started this week was having Sammy pulled out all the coming renewal customers from our data base, and I picked 25 of them, who I think is good and potential clients. All of them have auto policies with me, but they might need to increase their coverage. It was very nice for most of them to hear my calls since they know I was caring about their business, only a few had complains towards company's high rate. So my chanllenges are that I can't make sale to them, but I have to listen to their complaints. Company's rate is the thing that is really out of my control. I can't do anything to change the rate for clients, even I would love to . Customers don't understand this, and they think mostly like I am the one that can offer them whatever price they feel comfortable. However, most of my calls to my cusomters was sucessful, some of them increased their liability coverage, and some of them promised they would consider their life insurance with me. What I learned this week is communicating with your clients is the most important way to keep their business. I need to be more patient and more understandable.