As I thought
about this assignment the only project that came to mind was a recent inventory
that we, the audit team, was assigned to complete for the department. One
important thing that came to mind was Greer stating, “develop a list of lessons
learned so they don’t repeat their mistakes in the next project”(Greer, 2010).
This was so true of the past inventory project, once the project was completed,
I had a million ways that the project could have been handled better.
Now that my
knowledge of project management is growing, I now realize the project could
have been handled much different from the beginning. Basically there were four
of us that were to inventory the entire work based education, which entailed
three buildings on the site run by the college. We were simply given a week to
complete the project and were to inventory everything the college owned, but
not the software company’s items. As we entered the first building our mouths
dropped, nothing was tagged and there was a plethora of goods and items to
inventory. The manager of the building did hand us an inventory sheet along
with the help of another employee that showed us where everything was and who
owned what.
Needless to
say we finished this in the time frame, kudos for us. Well I now had the job of
entering all this information into a Excel spreadsheet based on each location,
I had over a 100 pages of this and was given seven days to complete the task. It
was awful, basically data entry, but it was not an easy in put. I can say the
project was a success and the deadline met, but the project could have been handled
much differently if we had all the information, the objectives and the expectation.
As we move
forward in our readings, I now understand the importance of clear objectives
and why every team member should understand each step in meeting the objectives. I had a great team; we got along and worked
very well together to complete the project. If we had not been able to work
together, it would have ended much differently.
References:
Greer, M. (2010). The
project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate
custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.
Kari,
ReplyDeleteI reflected on an interesting observation after I read your post. I observed that the essence of time is not always on our side regarding projects. Although statements of work (SOW) are signed off and approved, scope creep still occurs. I understand that Project Managers should be the executioner of whether to allow scope creep and follow the plan. However, like most projects (at least the ones I participated in), flexibility should be incorporated into the plan.
In your instance, after viewing the enormous task set before your team, did you think a week was an adequate amount of time? Can you have requested more time to accomplish the task?
Robin Bock
Robin,
DeleteThis project was something else to say the least. I think the project was completed in the amount of time, but could things of been done better, most certainly. One thing which drove me nuts, apparently the sheets we used with the "inventory" was actually on a database, which was saved in correctly!! On the day it was due I went in to technology because I found 54 pages I still had to input, I was determined they should be able to copy this sheet for me. It was then that they figured out it was in access and could be converted to excel. If this would have been know from the beginning thing could have gone much smoother and I would not have spent hours and hours on the project. I think the powers did not look at the entire project correctly.
Wow! That sounds awful! Was there a Statement of Work done beforehand? It sounds like some analysis was skipped if nothing was tagged and that detail wasn't considered. Did you end up working overtime to finish the project? Did you do a Breakdown of Work with your colleagues? If you were to do the project again, what would be your first step?
ReplyDeleteGlad you survived such a terrible project! ;-)
Cheers,
Lesley
Hi Kari,
ReplyDeleteIf was working on a project I can say I would true love to be on your team. You showed great dedication and commitment with ensuring that this project was completed on time despite some of the challenges you encountered. I can imagine the project would have been significantly more challenging had the project team not been able to work together cohesively and communicate effectively to achieve the tasks. Of course, this is not always the case in every project which is why I like your suggestion of having clearly defined objectives that each person is aware of and clearly identifying the roles and tasks each person must commit to and deliver on in order to achieve successful outcomes.
Thanks!
Amber Krueger
Hey Kari,
ReplyDeleteAwesome job for completing what sounded like a challenging and frustrating project! Your quote from Greer on listing lessons to learn from them is a great one and I believe that as we are involved with and eventually lead different projects, we will gain invaluable experience to help refine our skills.
I would say, after reading your post and response to Robin, that another key lesson is identifying our resources. Portny et al (2008) list this a an essential core element to project success (p. 5). If you were informed that you could use excel, it sounds like you could have saved so much time!
Thanks!
Layla
Reference:
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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