SimProject Analysis

In order to manage a project successfully from beginning to end, there are four basic steps to follow in the business world. 1. 2. 3. 4. Proper planning Budget analysis Staffing decisions Other managerial actions

Sim Project simulates many of these real world conditions as I learned in our pseudo project manager positions. I started the simulation with poor staffing decisions and my resource allocation was misguided. I also had to have a lot of overtime, specifically to complete tasks 3 and 5. In addition to that, I had some quality problems which lead to the creation of task 9 (quality control task). As a result of poor strategic planning, the task was finally completed in 26 weeks. I failed to see the big picture at the beginning of the project and hence the reason why I didnt revaluate my current strategy and therefore was unable to recover from it. I identified that the most important aspect was to build a strategy around cost. My revised strategy to cut costs centered on minimizing resources that included hiring temporary employees just before they are needed and letting them go after their task was completed. One major cost saver was the assigning of only one employee to a short single task. In order to do this the productivity would suffer slightly in longer tasks but our unallocated resource costs would be much lower by only having assigned resources on staff. I felt that SimProject was a helpful tool in learning some of the challenges that project managers face but I encountered a lot of issues. At first I was able to install the program on both my personal computer and work computer (and was able to use the program on both of them), but it wasnt until two days ago that the program on my personal computer said that my license had expired. I called customer service to try and resolve the issue (which would involve them sending me a second access code) but they never sent the additional access code as they promised to do so. If the end goal is

to help understand the different variables that project managers must take into account on a daily basis then I feel this was a good learning experience. Unfortunately due to the numerous technical difficulties that I experienced with SimProject, I would not be able to recommend this program to someone unless it was web based.