Learning Project Management

Step 1.

My reasons to learn project management is because my entire future will be based off of projects and I will be doing lots of them so it is worth my time to invest and learn how to do them correctly and efficiently.  This topic will help motivate me to work on projects instead of stress out over them.  I won’t be stressing out because I will know what to do, and how to do it so my project is successful and done on time and on budget.

Step 2.

Basically Project management is a process that one goes through in order to reach their final goal in the easiest and most practical way while not letting your project fail.

The Main concepts are Complexity; which states that all projects are difficult and we have to avoid trying to make a project that is step by step, instead we have to learn to deal with how it goes.  Next is Decomposition; this is where you break down the problems at hand into ones that are easier to manage and accomplish.  Next is Task; this is where the project is broken up and everyone involves figures out which part they will call their own and solve subparts of this are the WBS which explains what each person is working on, and the Gantt Chart which shows how tasks work with each other to reach the goal.  Next is milestone, this is where major parts that get you to your final product are accomplished.  Lastly is the Execution, a process of doing useful things leading to the goal.

Step 3.

I am using PM currently in the final project for ME223 as well as working on studying for finals.  Both relate in that I am working on little parts at a time so I don’t get overwhelmed trying to do or learn everything at the end.  This way is easier for my because when working on the project I get parts done and slowly work to seeing the final product which the little successes help make me feel good and wanting to do more.  With the studying I learn and get down the concepts I need to know without as much confusion.

Step 4.

I repeated this process until I felt comfortable with my knowledge, or until the project was done.  As of the time of posting this, the project is still going on and we are making good progress.  Everyone has a task and we meet up and combine what we have every so often and then continue with more work.  With my studying I will continue doing this until each of my finals is over with.

Deliverables

Deliverable #1. See Step 3,4

Deliverable #2. I learned that not all projects are linear and that I should go with the flow more, I also learned that nothing can be solved or finished overnight let alone a 2 hour period, lastly I learned that many projects fail and if we don’t take the time to see if ours is good, it is likely that we are wasting out time.

Deliverable #3. I learned that it takes a lot of effort to learn something, That one is never done learning and you never know where your next piece of knowledge will come from, and lastly I learned that even though it seems longer to break up projects, it actually gets done faster because you are not stressing yourself out.