Ari Ecker

Module 7 – Written assignment

OGL 321: Project Leadership, Strategy, and Scope
Spring 2021 – B
Introduction

Throughout this course, there have been a number of resources and experiences that

have been valuable takeaways in growing my project management skills. In this paper I will

highlight the resources I found most engaging and relate these examples to my current project

management opportunities.

In Part I, I will look at the “How Good Are Your Project Management Skills?” quiz and

reflect on the importance of communication and scope management. Next, I will look at how

the Harvard Project Management Simulation scenarios helped define my agile project

management approach. Furthermore, I will explore my strengths and weaknesses of managing

each scenario. Next, I will make the connection between the project management skills that I

learned and employed during the Harvard Project Management Simulation scenarios to my

own professional environment.

In Part II, I will take a deeper dive into the Harvard Project Management Simulation. I

will look at the importance of managing scope, resources and the project schedule, and give my

advice as to how a student could best navigate each scenario.

Overall, I intend to show how the resources and simulations in this course enhanced my

knowledge of project management and highlight my biggest takeaways from the Harvard

Project Management Simulation.

Part I

After completing the “How Good Are Your Project Management Skills?” quiz for a

second time, I found a marked improvement in my communication skills and scope

management. As the quiz analysis mentions, “effective project communication means

communicating with the right people at the right time and in the right way. To do this,

Stakeholder Management is essential. When you analyze your stakeholders, you identify who

must be kept informed in full, and who needs less intensive communication” (Mindtools.com,

2021). As I have mentioned throughout this course, I find effective communication skills to be

the most import aspect of any successful project manager. Any other issues that arise

throughout a project can be dealt with as long as there is an open dialogue of communication.

Otherwise, if team members are withholding information or miscommunicating, there will likely

be a gap in progress.

Another important aspect of project management highlighted in the “How Good Are

Your Project Management Skills?” quiz is the importance of scope management. As mentioned

in the quiz analysis, “it is essential to define the scope at the very start of your project based on

the Business Requirements Analysis, and then manage it closely against this signed-off

definition of ‘scope creep’” (Mindtools.com, 2017). The reason I find this aspect of project

management so important is because stakeholders need to know what they are working with

before they can begin to complete the tasks in front of them. Project scope provides holistic

view of everything expected of the team and the variables and constraints they need to

navigate along the way. Obviously, there are other important aspects of project management,

but in my view, once you tackle communication skills and scope management, you set yourself

up to succeed in areas such as schedule management, cost management, risk management and

project procurement.

Looking back on my experience completing the Harvard Project Management

Simulations, I would define my personal approach to project management as an agile approach.

Being agile is not only a trendy approach to project management in businesses today, but it’s

also proven to be an effective strategy for highly functioning teams. In Think top-down and

bottom-up for agile transformations, Kiron Bondale discusses the importance of being agile

from both the management side and the staff side. First from the top-down perspective, “there

needs to be a unifying vision for the transformation as well as a roadmap for how to get there.

The executive team must be fully engaged in the creation of these key deliverables” (Bondale,

2020). In my experience, a highly functional team needs solid leadership from the top that

everyone can buy into. If there is no vision for the transformation, no one knows what they are

working towards and will be less motivated to make a difference.

Similarly, in order for a company to be truly agile, they need to employ a bottom-up

approach, as well. Some of these functions include feeling comfortable designing and

conducting experiments while having occasional setbacks, taking on new roles and

responsibilities and collaborating openly with contributors from other functional areas

(Bondale, 2020). I’ve always viewed an agile team as the “ideal state” for any project. It doesn’t

always work out that way, but if you can get everyone from the top down to buy in you can

achieve great results.

As far as this relates to the Harvard Project Management Simulations, there was

constant tension between senior leaders and the team. In almost every scenario senior leaders

either demanded a scope that was too aggressive or a budget that was too restrictive to the

team in order to accomplish the tasks at hand. Utilizing my agile approach to project

management required me to make a number of tradeoffs including sacrificing team morale

over accomplishing the scheduled goals, or in some cases going way over budget to complete
the tasks signed by the senior leaders. I will say I did find success in managing the number of

one-on-one meetings, daily standups and prototypes throughout each scenario. I found

adjusting those levers really moved the needle in improving the overall rating.

Finally, there were a number of connections that could be made between the Harvard

Project Management Simulations and my personal work experience. Some of the takeaways I

got from these scenarios include how to best optimize team meeting management as well as

determining the best scope for each project.

Personally, I found the best way to achieve the highest score in these simulations was to

fluctuate the team meetings throughout each simulation. For instance, on weeks where no

prototype was expected I would increase the number of daily meetings, standups and one-on-

ones. Alternatively, if the team had a big prototype to develop that week I would ease up on

those meetings and instead increased the amount of overtime available. This strategy has also

proven to be effective for the video production studio I currently run. If the team has a big

project deadline coming up, we try to avoid unnecessary meetings to stay focused on the tasks

at hand.

As far as scoping a project is concerned, I found the simulations offered a few

possibilities for each scenario. I tended to gravitate towards the toughest scope possible in

order to achieve the most points for that simulation. I also have this philosophy in my day job

where if I am assigned a task, I generally want to achieve the best version of what that can

become. I recognize this is an aggressive project management strategy, but I also find it drives

me to be as successful as possible.
Part II

After completing the seven Harvard Project Management Simulations, there were a

number of valuable takeaways worth noting. The three areas of advice I would offer to future

students revolve around managing scope, resources and the project schedule.

 Managing Scope

Overall, each of the Harvard Project Management Simulations began with an aggressive

scope laid out by senior leaders. Each week presented a difficult goal in term of the product the

team was asked to produce and the timeline by which they were asked to complete the project.

Stepping back and taking a holistic approach at the project scope helped me determine what

were the best areas to focus on and determine which areas had less significance in the overall

success of the project.

Personally, I found that following senior leaders’ goals in the scope category provided more

positives than downgrading that particular part of the project. The reward for achieving the

scope goal outweighed the benefits of team stress associated with this scope. I found there

were other opportunities to pull back the levers a little bit in areas such as budget and timeline.

That's not to say that each project didn't have its own difficulties when managing scope.

Throughout each simulation there were setbacks and challenges that really tested the resiliency

of the team. However, I found that easing up on the scope parameters never yielded enough

productivity to warrant the change. Completing a project under senior leadership scope

initiative was too important to each scenario. I did find more leniency and other areas that

allowed me to ease up on team stress and budget.

  Managing Resources

Managing resources was the easiest variable to maneuver throughout each scenario.

Whether it was changing the number of team members associated to the project, the team’s

skill level or the outsourcing capabilities, each resource enabled me to greatly affect the

outcome of the project. Personally, I found selecting a team of four to six highly trained

individuals with extensive outsourcing was the best scenario for each simulation. As each

scenario played out and risks were presented you could then adjust the number of team

members or their skill level depending on the project need.

Another big variable associated with managing resources was assigning prototypes to each

project. In the early simulations I tried two to three prototypes for each scenario. I found that

this was putting too much stress on the team as a whole and got more success by lowering the

number of prototypes required for each simulation. In fact, some of the best scores I received

or in scenarios where I had zero prototypes. This didn't work every time but overall, I found less

prototypes put less stress on the team.

Additionally, managing the number of team meetings daily standups and one-on-ones

throughout the week really move the needle as far as team productivity. Early on I thought too

many meetings would take the team away from the tasks they needed to accomplish. However,

initiating at least one team meeting and 1:1 meeting per week really help the team discover

their pain points and accomplish their goals. It also took a lot of stress off of their day-to-day

responsibilities. Overall, I found these variables were most effective in managing project

resources.
  Project Schedule

Managing project schedule was another huge factor in my success in these scenarios. While

senior leaders laid out an aggressive timeline for each simulation, I found overall there was

some wiggle room in how quickly each project needed to be completed.

For most of the simulations there was not much of a penalty for going a few weeks over the

initially projected timeline. This was helpful when we ran into risks associated with team

capabilities or budget constraints. Conversely, in projects where the team was overachieving

their timeline, I could set the deadlines a few weeks early or than projected and receive I higher

rating because of it.

I'd also mention that project schedule was one of the bigger variables that affected team

morale. I found that when the timeline was too aggressive the team would become stressed

and unhappy. Interestingly, this had more of an effect on their morale than adjusting the

budget or the scope. I think this is true in real life scenarios as well if a team is unable to hit a

deadline it can cause unnecessary stress.

Conclusion

When looking at the resources and takeaways from this entire course I found that the

importance of communication and scope management were my highest priorities. I also believe

that the Harvard simulation scenarios help define my agile project management skills.

Reflecting on the Harvard Project Management Scenarios, three biggest areas for

success in those simulations revolve around project scope, project resources and project

schedule. Overall, I found this class to be incredibly helpful in identifying my areas for growth

within the field of project management.

References

Mind Tools. (2017, August 15). How Good Are Your Project Management Skills? from
MindTools.com. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_60.htm.

Bondale, K. (2020, October 17). Think top-down and bottom-up for agile transformations.
Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://kbondale.wordpress.com/2020/10/18/think-top-down-
and-bottom-up-for-agile-transformations/