1

Take Away

Take Away: Final Paper

Kaelyn Forma

Arizona State University

OGL 321: Project Leadership, Strategy, and Scope

Professor Ben Pandya

October 10, 2021

 2
Take Away

Anybody can be a project manager but not everybody is willing to learn the skills needed. Since

the beginning of this semester several great concepts have been presented and discussed with the

idea of improvement. Project managers never walk into a project and just wing it. Lots of

planning and skills are needed to have a great foundation as well as a great outcome. With lots of

information and skills needed to be a great project manager, the information from hands on

experience, given this semester has really brought value and understanding to the skills for

project leadership, strategy, and scope.

Walking into a new class you never know what will be covered or if it is valuable information.

Starting the semester off we were given a “How Good Are Your Project Management Skills?”

(Mind Tools, How good are your project management skills? 2021) quiz which was to help us

get an understanding of our own personal skills and where we stood as a project manager. Each

and every person has managed a project in their life whether it has been small, large,

unsuccessful, or successful. Overtime each person has been able to pick up skills that have been

effective for them or have an idea of what a good management style for themselves would be.

Originally after taking this quiz in the beginning of the semester, I saw that I put a lot of value on

communication and people management and was willing to overlook other things that did not

seem as important. From my original understanding about project management and the skills

needed I assumed that a project manager can get by lacking in some skill departments as log as

they are capable of making up for those skills in other departments such as communication and

people management.

Very quickly I soon understood that my original thinking was incorrect. While it is ok to be more

secure in certain skills it is extremely important for a project manger to be proficient in all of the

skills. One question that stood out to me from the quiz was “I give people a deadline to complete
 3
Take Away

their project work, and then I expect them to coordinate with others if and when they need to” for

my own thought process on this I agreed strongly.

Now when I redo the quiz my entire understanding has changed. Any little thing can possibly tip

off the balance of a project. As a project manager your teams need to be able to trust and rely on

you for the integrity of a project. Taking a step back before and during a project to look at the

greater scope of things, project manager is able to get a better insight on the project and how

each skill needed ties together.

The Harvard simulations where much more effective in giving me a visual understanding on the

skills needed for a project manager. Immediately after my first scenarios was finish my

viewpoint on project management had changed for the better. Receiving information and

analyzing it can not always give an effective representation of the progress or the outcome of a

project. Before the simulation it was as if I was taking a lot of information about a project

managers role and assumed that when implemented my skills and understanding of the concepts

will translate over in the project.

Fortunately, that was not the case and in my initial simulation trial I did terribly. I’m fortunate

for that terrible run of many because the simple fact was that it was helping me improve my

skills. As a project manager I entered the simulation very confident in my knowledge and

assumed that it would be an easy task. I am into may issues during that process. In the simulation

we needed to plan, run, and adjust the project due to certain needs and conditions.

After my initial failure I made myself run through the scenario endlessly in means to get a

perfect score. After about fifty tried I became aware of the condition that is ingrained in every
 4
Take Away

project. The condition is that a project cannot perfectly go no matter what. So many factors

contributed to an issue, and it seemed impossible meet all the standards asked for in the project.

Throughout each module addressed in the class it became apparent how beneficial this

knowledge was in a project. Slowly I started to incorporate this knowledge and skills in the

simulations. Some of the most important aspects of project management needs where on how to

balance project objectives, handling staffing crisis, ethics, and scope.

Before beginning any project, a person needs to be aware of their objectives and be able to

effectively make decisions based on the project plan. Awareness of these concepts are what can

help to bring a project managers skill to light not only from the team but from stakeholders as

well. Some important objectives coved this semester where of “meeting the budget, finishing on

schedule, and meeting client specifications” (Buede et al., Good Decision-Making: The Key to

Project Success 2018) in order to accomplish a valuable and effective project. The main take

away from the ability to balance project objectives would be before the project begins to have

these three concepts in order.

In the simulations that where so effective ad present throughout the semester we touched on each

of these concepts. To have a greater need to stay on budget compared to meeting client

specifications or finishing on schedule could have a negative impact on the project. That is why

it is important to plan out how you are going about each issue and balancing them so that if you

do need to make hand offs you can do so effectively while still maintaining the reliability of the

project.

Most often in the simulations the budget was the most traded off objective. Usually, the higher

ups would give the simulation a budget which would be in competition to a competitor. In my
 5
Take Away

project management style, I originally intended to trade off the budget more often than any other

objective due to it always being money that can be made back later on with successful sales.

The issue with that mindset in the beginning of this semester was the fact that I often overlooked

another objective by doing so. The stakeholder in any project is very important in keeping the

project alive. As a project manager before any project begins a plan needs to be put in place and

presented to the stakeholder. More often times a great project manager will include room for

issues that arise and plan that effectively in the budget.

In hand with the budget was more often than not the schedule. If a project did have a hill to cross

and it possible delayed the project it will cause a disturbance with the stakeholder for lack of

planning as well as a possibility of going over budget. All of these objectives in the process of

planning an initiating a project need to be well balanced. It is possible to trade off certain aspects

of these objectives, but a project manager still needs to stay mindful of these objectives because

too much trade off can upset the balance of the budget, stakeholder, or schedule. In some vary

bad cases it can upset all three objectives at once.

With all my confidence going into the first simulation I would have never accounted for the

possibility of a staffing crisis. Staffing crisis can come in various forms and it is the project

managers job to be able to effectively control the situation. In one of the later simulations, we

lost several team members and it put a huge strain on the project.

As a project manager I did not plan for an issue like that to occur and yet it is often a common

occurrence for many real-life projects. Not only does the issue of losing staff become present in

many projects but so does the issue of conflict within teams. Project managers are not

exclusively one role. In many cases a project manager needs to be able to take on many roles. In
 6
Take Away

the many cases a project manager is often “a conflict manager. In many organizations, the

project managers continually fight fires and handle crisis arising from interpersonal and

interdepartmental conflict” (Kerzner, Chapter 10 2018) to continue a project and its outcome.

Sadly, the only thing missing from the simulations given throughout the semester was personal

conflicts within the team. This would have given a better outcome in learning positive ways of

conflict resolution for future projects. This is very important to get a handle on because at the

end of the day with all the information given about project management you also need to be able

to foster connections with the team.

Effective communication is vital in these connections and positively resolving conflicts. The

ability to understand behavior is very necessary for a project manager in means of handling and

understanding why conflict occurs. Situational leadership come into play when dealing with

connecting and handling conflicts within the department or team. If a project manager is aware

of a conflict whether, it be personal or just due to lack of understanding on each other tasks it

must be handled. If not handled in many cases a project can lose sight of the outcome and team

member are more likely to start to gain more conflict within the team.

In many of these cases I needed to take a look at my own skills and see where I was lacking

within my skills. I was very aware that my skills were lacking in some department due to me

having constant issues within the project. It seemed that when I put all my focus on the budget

that the team would suffer. At one point I felt that my ability to manage the project within the

simulation was doing fantastic. I soon realized that it is all a scale and that my team was over

stressed and over worked.

 7
Take Away

The concept of ethics stood out to me most when hitting this point in my project management

journey. What I was doing in this project was morally wrong. I was overlooking the wellbeing of

my team and it was pushing them close to the edge. At this point in my journey, I had established

a general plan of action that I was sticking to. When I realized that this plan of action was

effective and then saw how my teams moral and stress levels where I decided to make a change.

Putting more focus and communication on the team was important. Not only for their well being

but for the project as well. I could see that when the team was doing poorly in moral and stress

that the amount of work that was accomplished was decreasing and ultimately was not

beneficial. In the simulations I would incorporate more one-on-one sessions as well as daily

meetings. In a simulation sense it was hard to distinguish if that is why the project would get

back on track.

In a real-life situation having such meeting would be helpful on getting everybody’s standpoint

on the situations and feedback for how they are feeling about the project. Ethics was not so much

touched in the simulations, but the information shared really put a insight on how things are

handled. Having ethical business practices in place have great impacts on business and show

other how professional and trustworthy a business can be.

With the many ethical issue there are two main differences with there being hard and soft ethical

issues (Kliem, Why Ethics Should Matter to Project Managers 2012) Some can be more on the

close to illegal level while other can be more so on communication handled and given to team

members. There are many different types of ethical issues and that is why it is important for a

project manager to be fully aware of what is ethically right and wrong for each project.
 8
Take Away

After some simulations and discussion board posts I gained more insight on skills and

approaches that I can take as a project manager in the online simulations and the real-world

experiences. For the simulations given I was able to understand where I was constantly having

issues and slowly eliminate them and further excel in the projects. One of the first things that I

tried to tackle was the schedule. More often in each simulation experience I would go way over

schedule in in turn the budget would be well over.

In my experience I soon implemented the method of using more of the budget in the beginning to

onboard more team members. With the surplus of team members, it seemed that we would be

able to get ahead of schedule in case any issue was to arise. I also took the liberty to decrease the

scheduled amount of time very minorly to implement the idea that the project needed to be

accomplished din this time frame. I did this because in the case that they where able to stick to

this schedule we would be ahead and under budget and in the case that they where not able to

stick with the schedule there would be wiggle room. The wiggle room would be right up until the

competitors time frame.

While the simulation was very limited in the number of obstacles that we could come across it

did lead to great information to take away and implement in real world situations. The obstacles

were very general but pertained to project management in a fair light. Some issue where not able

to be addresses effectively in the simulation that project managers often run into. Ethic and

confrontation are very hard to demonstrate in a computer simulation, which makes it hard to be

able to approach.

With the reading given containing valuable information and the simulations demonstrating a

similar real-life expectancy I was able to start to implement some of these skills into my daily

life. My current position is one of leadership, so I feel that I came into these simulations a little
 9
Take Away

prepared. Although so much valuable information and techniques were given that I was better

equipped in handling this real life in not only my future goal aspiration but also in my current

job.

While the entire scope was so helpful in increasing value to my work life. Some examples of

objectives I was able to implement was my communication skills. I was more aware of moral

with in my work environment and was able to analyze how that impacted sales, moral, and

customer experience. The ability now has these skills for a future employer are so helpful. My

ultimate goal is to reach a position in Human Resources due to my love for people and my

aspiration to help solve problems as well as increase moral.

There is not set sector one where a project manager or someone who contains project

management skills would fit in. In all aspects of professional work, it is important to be able to

contain the skills needed for a project manager. Not only does it benefit yourself in how you

work and the ethical approaches you have but it also shares you values for company. Any

company will find this skill useful and necessary when implemented effectively to help improve

the scope.

In a particular case of education, the communication skills a project manager has will be so

beneficial for those seeking a structured way of communication from all ages. In any case being

able to effectively plan a project no matter the size is helpful. Many teachers often need to create

lesson plans as well as being able to have smaller plans within the general scope of the plan. At

the end of the day many project managers are able to implement so much useful information in

their daily life and professional work. All sector whether government, education, or even non-

profit can benefit from having a project manager or just implementing the skills in any exercise

or project at hand.
 10
Take Away

Part Two

 In the simulation there where several things that constantly needed addressing. Starting

with the topic of scope if was often an objective that needed planning beforehand.

Without a proper plan in place for the simulation, it would ultimately end poorly. As the

project manager you need to have a plan set on what your goal where as well as the

possibilities of issues that could arise. With those issues you needed to be able to

effectively plan around them. Evaluating the cost and time frame where crucial in having

a fantastically planned project. Staying ahead of schedule was often the way to go in the

plan to stay within your limitations.

 In each scenario we were introduced to a new issue. This way of attack was beneficial to

not be overwhelming but to help us focus on the issue at hand. Some of the issue we

incurred where of either losing people or having to play a role of managing the project

with fewer than planned. We also incurred a week where the time frame was cut short

due to a competitor pushing their release of their printer. The best trend that I was able to

constantly stick to in these projects where of using the highest skilled people around 3-4

and outsourcing most of the work. When I did not outsource you could see the team

struggle and need more people which in turn was out of budget.

 Communication with the team was so important. It clearly showed how poorly the team

was able to handle a project if the project manager lacked the effective forms of

communication. In the begging I would start of with one-on-one session, 15-minute daily

meetings, and the weekly two-hour meeting to help the team understand the tasks and

needs. Slowly they would give me the understanding and I would decrease the meeting. I
 11
Take Away

would effectively listen to their needs if they communicated, they were confused or

stressed and would solve it effectively.

 12
Take Away

References
Buede , D., & Powell , R. (2018). Good Decision-Making: The Key to Project Success. In

Project Manager's Guide to making successful decisions (pp. 1–18). essay, Management

Concepts, Inc.

https://app.knovel.com/web/toc.v/cid:kpPMGMSD08/viewerType:toc/root_slug:project-

manager-s-guide/url_slug:project-manager-s-guide/?

CLEDEN, D. A. V. I. D. (2017). Chapter 3 and 4. In Managing project uncertainty (pp. 37–78).

essay, ROUTLEDGE.

Kerzner, H. (2018). Chapter 10. In Project Management Best Practices Achieving Global

Excellence. essay, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Mind Tools. (2021, June 22). How good are your project management skills? from

MindTools.com. Retrieved October 11, 2021, from

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_60.htm.