Project Leadership Reflection 1

Project Leadership Reflection

Cassandra Atalig

OGL 321: Project Leadership

Professor Cristen Mann

November 26, 2020

Project Leadership Reflection 2

Project Leadership Reflection

Project Leadership has emphasized my focus on growing my skills in schedule

and resource management as well as continuing my focus on people. The Harvard Simulations

were very challenging for me but helped me to think more about strategy and having patience for

trial and error. The simulations pushed me to try strategies on different ends of the spectrum and

think about the cause and effect of each decision I made. Although sometimes frustrating to not

get the score I wanted, I had some great take aways.

Part One

Reflecting back on this course, three important things come to mind for me: decision

making, managing scope and strategizing. Projects have three main objectives, which are

meeting the budget, finishing on schedule and meeting the client specifications (Powell &

Buede, 2008). Those three important objectives cannot be achieved without strategy and good

decision making. The Harvard simulations put both of those things to test for me. Every weekly

advancement was an opportunity for me to strategize and practice good decision making. With

scope, it’s important to outline the goals, deliverables and requirements of the project (Heldman,

2005). Ensuring that the scope is clearly defined, and requirements are properly managed will

help decrease the chances of scope creep. This concept is critical to the success of projects.

A few of my opportunities to improve would definitely be in schedule and resource

management. In my current role, I used to give my teams the end goal with a few requirements

and then give them the freedom to create their path. Some cases tend to work in my favor and

things get completed. However, tying this into project management, I know that this would not

be the best strategy. It’s important to clearly define goals and the strategy to get there. As a
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project manager you need to be able to plan for any risks and contingencies which I am very

mindful of now. Previous to my last few project management courses, I never really saw the

value in planning for risks and contingencies. I kind of just believed that even if something goes

wrong, I can figure out a way to fix it. As I progressed through this course, I found my thought

process shifting when applying these concepts to my work life. I was practicing more situational

leadership and giving my team the opportunity to participate in the decision making. I didn’t

know that I was so terrible at resource management until I started to work through the Harvard

simulations. I was having a difficult time meeting the budget and delivering the project on time.

In my work life, I am so good with payroll management and ensuring that my expenses are under

budget when it comes to my profit and loss statements. It was very surprising to me that I

couldn’t manage resources in the simulation.

Moving through the Harvard Simulations, I put a lot of focus into team morale, budget

and delivery dates. As someone that works in the retail industry, I’ve always been very big on

taking care of people, so it was no surprise to see that while working the simulations. With every

weekly advancement, I was constantly checking in to see how my team was doing. When they

were overly stressed, I would try to add meetings to keep them informed or support them with

one on one trainings. I noticed a direct correlation between high stress and overtime, so I tried

not to use it as often and only when necessary. Working through the budget was probably my

biggest challenge. I always felt the top down tension of stakeholders giving an unrealistic budget

to meet their project criteria. I was always experimenting with different team make ups to see

how I can be the most cost effective but still deliver on schedule. After several simulations, I

started to do things progressively. I would start with smaller teams and add members, or I would

start with no outsourcing and gradually work my way to extensive. This helped me to save on the
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budget and still get things done. My last focus was in the schedule. It was really important to me

that I deliver the project on time. The first couple of simulations, I was never able to deliver on

time. It wasn’t until the last simulation that I actually hit the delivery mark.

The project management skills that I am learning about are easily translatable in my field

of retail. Taking these courses showed me that I manage projects daily as a district manager.

Right now, we are deep into 4th quarter and navigating through a new normal for holiday

shopping. One of the projects that come to mind is planning for Black Friday. Our goal is to hit

our sales goal for the Thanksgiving weekend. For us to prepare for this, there are a lot of tasks

that are critical to the success of the weekend. Some examples of this would be hiring, training,

implementing safety protocol and product placement. As their leader, I must give them detailed

instructions so that our strategy is clear. This is not the time for me to leave things to chance or

to believe that my teams are good to go without completing any follow up or check ins. Another

project management takeaway for me is to continue to be mindful of my people and their morale.

If my team is down or stressed, they can’t think clearly or produce at the level I know they are

capable of. Especially in a crazy time like Thanksgiving weekend, I must continue to check in

with them and make sure that they are confident in fulfilling tasks that are critical to the project.

Part Two:

Harvard Simulations are a great way to learn to manage scope, schedule and resources.

My best advice that I can give to someone as the begin the simulations is to take notes and give

yourself a good amount of time to complete. These simulations require a lot of trial and error

which is why it can’t be something that you allot 20 or 30 minutes for. In some simulations, I

became so invested in developing a strategy that I probably completed over twenty times and

spent a couple hours on. Every time you run a simulation take good notes that are broken down
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by week. This will help you to understand what you did and why you did it. Having good notes

will help tremendously when recapping your experience through the discussion boards. Another

helpful tip is to read the discussion board assignment before starting the simulations. This will

also help you to dictate what additional notes you may want to write down. Below is an example

of what my notes looked like:

Simulation F

 4 medium talent, no outsourcing

 Week #1: Morale is good, and team is on track with tasks.

 Week #2: Added weekly meeting to keep team informed.

 Week #3: Team is stressed about not understanding tasks. Added a one on one

meeting.

 Week #4: Upgraded outsourcing to primary tasks. This reduced the budget. Tasks

are slightly behind.

 Week #5: Morale is better. Continuing to rotate meetings to keep team informed.

 Week #7: $5k over budget and 8 tasks behind. Received notice that team

members are injured

 Week #11: Received a technology disappointment. I didn’t do a prototype.

Increased outsourcing to extensive and encouraged overtime. Team morale is

pretty good. In order to push the team through final week of tasks and complete

on time, overtime is encouraged.

 Finished project on Week 17 over budget at $86,200

As previously stated, the biggest challenge I had in every scenario was with resources

and budget. Even after numerous attempts, I still don’t think that I was as strong in this area as I
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wanted to be. One of the tips I can give is that outsourcing your work will decrease your costs,

but sometimes it can also delay your productivity. What really helped me was to start off with no

outsourcing or some basic tasks. As the weeks progress, I can increase the outsourcing and my

costs will start to level out. I would only recommend this if you are on task or close to

completing your project.

Another piece of advice I can offer is to really pay attention to team morale. Although it

doesn’t seem as important in a simulation, I did notice that there is a direct correlation between

team morale and productivity. If your team is stressed or doesn’t feel like they are getting the

tools they need to be successful, you can be sure to see your productivity dip. When that

happens, you’ll start scrambling to add people which in turn will blow the budget. After every

week that you advance, make sure to check on the team morale and adjust your strategy from

there. Add meetings or take them away based on their feedback. Also remember that overtime

plays a big part in stress of your team. Only encourage it when absolutely necessary otherwise

your team will be sure to be stressed the entire project and you’ll fall more and more behind.

Summary

Project Leadership has put a stronger focus on decision making, scope and strategy.

Those three points are easily tied into my current role as a District Manager. If I can focus on

giving clear requirements, practice good decision making and ensuring that I am strategic, the

projects that I take on have a strong chance of being successful. Participating in the Harvard

simulations helped me to practice being more strategic and identifying the cause and effect of

each decision I made.

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References

Heldman, K. (2005). Chapter 4 Preventing Scope and Schedule Risks. In Project

manager's spotlight on risk management (pp. 95-121). San Francisco, CA: Harbor Light Press.

Powell, R. A., & Buede, D. M. (2008). Good Decision-Making: The Key to Project

Success. In The Project Manager’s Guide to Making Successful Decisions (Illustrated ed., pp. 1–

18). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.