Unit 12 Readings

As mentioned in previous blog posts and discussion board posts, I am currently a very small cog in a very large project at The University of Arizona. The University is currently in the process of preparing for a huge software conversion (hmmmm IT Project...go figure!) and I am fortunate enough to have been chosen as the point person for The Office of Admissions portion of the conversion. What this means at this point is very little, I'm only sort of getting started, as a matter of fact I just completed the admissions portion of the RFP for the admissions specific piece of the software.

That being said...I loved this week's topic. It's interesting to see what available project management methods, methodologies, and tools are available and what's even more interesting is the myriad of ways of thinking about the "inevitability's" of a project. Admittedly the videos....a little cheesy and not my favorites of all that we have watched in this course but I do absolutely see their merit. In terms of the readings I enjoyed all the Cervone articles. I appreciated his "no nonsense" approaches to the topics and really, REALLY favored his "How not to run" article. It was cute but it also really drove some important points home. It's embarrassing AND frustrating to see how often these mistakes are made on even the smallest of scales. I will be utilizing the "WAG" terminology in the very near future, I suspect. A few of Cervone's points I found most interesting was the concept that more people do not necessarily fix large issues. This is a common mistake I have seen over and over again in the companies I have worked for. "Oh you're struggling under the weight of this project? Well let's throw a few MORE untrained cooks into the kitchen and see what happens!"

Cervone's assessment of risk factors was dead on, in my personal experience I have found the most common source of bad side effects to be a direct result of bad communication and a misunderstanding of the perceived goals of the group (and that's just in my family!) I also appreciated the Decision Making article. I took Professor Don Fallis's Decision Making for Information Professionals last semester and really learned that I had entirely underestimated the breadth and depth involved in the process of making sound decisions.

Keil's article on "Pulling the Plug" was fantastic. I think the innate fear of failure in all of us can cause many projects to go over budget and badly analyzed. Very rarely, do those who have nurtured a project consider on the outset of the planning, that know when to say when may need to be a component of the plan. The need for constant and organic analysis is ever present. McDonough's article on Cross Functional teams was a fairly good read, maybe out of personal preference I found it less engaging than our other articles but it is interesting to note that this trend is apparent and alive and well in our University system as I am an active member of cross functional team, not only for the university project plan but that this is a mechanism used by our offices for small planning exercise as well. I know that when I am chairing committees my first instinct is to draw talent from all the areas of admissions so that I know the decision made by the team will hopefully be mutually beneficial to all involved.

As much as I have loved the tinkering with technology in this class, I have appreciated the downtime this week to relax with some interesting articles (get some work done on the final in my other class) and to have been afforded the opportunity to reflect on the theoretical nature of project management and its applications in my day to day life.