The Numbers are In… in a BIG way.

Managerial Decision Making – Week 1 – Weekly Summary

The flowery course titles are out of control.  Take this class for example, Managerial Decision Making.  What is that about?  The reality- its stats.  Specifically, the study of the proper application of statistics to support and direct decision making.  Give me a title like ‘managerial decision making’ and I’ve got visions of the executive in his office with a dart board, “Which product should I launch and which one should I hold back on…”

The numbers are clearly in.  Both for my previous class (grades were released, 97% and change for my final figure).  I lost 2 points on the mid-term and 1 on the final.  Overall that adds up to a pretty inefficient use of my time- 97% is excessive.  I could’ve dropped that to 90 and still gotten the same grade.  At least I have a buffer.

This numbers are also in with regard to this class.  This is the first class I’ve taken that uses an online math homework system.  I actually have to do an on-line class to fulfill one of the requirements for my on-line class.  Yep.  Read that twice.  The homework for one on-line class is to do another online class.  There is also a very cool statistics plug-in for Excel that has already saved me on one of the homework questions.

Onward with the math…
 

Reducing Project Duration and Another Course is in the Can.

Strategic Implementation and Alignment – Week 6 – Weekly Summary

This week the discussion of strategic implementation and alignment turned to the topics of creating a plan to reduce project duration and designing a project closure approach.  The forums discussions centered on obstacles for change, project closure issues, project quality management, comparing crashing and fast tracking, the importance of communication, and integration management.

The previous paragraph was straight from the weekly summary I submitted to the class.  There was more to it of course, but that paragraph sums it up.  The week was all about different ways to shorten a project.  Note that “shorten” does not mean “cheaper”.  As a matter of fact, “shorter” often means “more expensive”, and that caused a lot of discussion in the class. 

The homework this week was centered on another problem solution paper.  The paper addressed the topics of the week as applied to a fictitious company with a very common problem- their project is running late and the bosses are getting impatient.  In this case, the lateness was directly tied to a natural disaster and poor planning on how to deal with such a situation.
 
So this week wrapped up another course.  Final grades won’t be in for another week since grades are posted one week after assignments are due.  This class was a good topic for me; it is stuff I work around every day.  Many of the examples in the class were for much larger projects than I typically work on, so some of the advice on how to track things is just too much overhead for small projects.  Applying the principles and simplifying the paperwork gets the same thing done without overloading the project.

A new class starts the day after this one finishes.  According the course schedule, I’ve also reached a milestone- about one year left to go.  That schedule includes one break, two weeks in December.  So that should work out to another 50 of these posts.

Project Manager Alternate Title – Manager of Expectations

Strategic Implementation and Alignment – Week 5 – Weekly Summary

This week the discussion of strategic implementation and alignment turned to the topics of leadership in project management, developing high-performance project teams, and differentiating face-to-face and virtual project teams.  The forums discussions centered on leadership and management (including a good supplemental presentation on leadership provided by the instructor), stages of team development, conflict resolution modes, team identity, managing expectations, and the powers of a project manager.  The discussion question this week examined a wide variety of topics around the theme of selecting performance metrics and aligning individual goals with organization performance goals.

The homework this week was a team assignment, benchmarking related to the topics of the week and relating them to the scenario situation of getting a project that has encountered difficulty back on track. 

In the concept review discussions, the instructor made a mistake in choosing one of the questions.  The question was too direct; what are the stages teams go through.  This is a textbook question and answer situation, with the correct answer being a list of five stages generally espoused in an academic setting (kind of like asking what the seven deadly sins are- there isn’t a lot of discussion, just a list).  The students who saw this gaff quickly jumped on it and answered the question reciting the list of stages before the professor could shut the question down.  Jumping quickly rewarded those fast students with ‘free’ participation points and, more subtlety, the pleasure of catching the mistake. 

Two other discussion questions were much more interesting this week.  The first was a side discussion that erupted over the relationship between stakeholders and project managers, and the other being a discussion of managing expectations.  The question regarding stakeholders highlighted something I thought was glossed over in a previous class, that being a discussion of who a stakeholder is for a given project.  In that previous class, I thought the instructor was way too loose in their definition, agreeing with every suggestion of who might be a stakeholder.  In this class, the colloquial use of the term ’stakeholder’ from the business world collided again with the academic definition when a student mentioned the project manager reporting to the stakeholders.  The professor responded in a terse manner countering this observation, but was drowned out by other students agreeing that their company works the same way.  Looking at the discussion impartially, the instructor was technically correct and referencing the textbook definition of stakeholder- but business reality trumps academic truth even in an MBA classroom.  This may not be over.  When it comes to the final, the academic answer will certainly get the points.

The managing expectations discussion was a fun reminder of a person at a company I used to work for.  His business cards carried the title “Manager of Expectations”.  It was perfectly clear what he felt the most important job of a project manager is.  Few people would be so blunt, and I’m doubtful many people would run around with that title on their business card. However, in doing the job I doubt most project managers could argue that a lot of the effort they put into their job is about managing expectations.

Too bad they can just put it on their business cards.

100 Points for Gryffindor

Strategic Implementation and Alignment – Week 4 – Weekly Summary

This week the discussion of strategic implementation and alignment turned to the topics of project control processes, the need for an integrated project information system, and project management control issues.  The forums discussions centered on project performance monitoring, earned value, establishing baselines, and defining scope through a systems approach.

The discussion question for the week was very detailed.  It focused on differentiating strategic controls from operating controls.  In addition, the question asked for detailed information on implementation controls, strategic surveillance, and special alert controls.  The discussion question concluded with a discussion of measures that can be used to evaluate the success or failure of a strategy and its implementation.

The homework this week was a Gap Analysis on a continuation of the scenario used in previous weeks.  In this week’s episode of As Our Company Turns, the previous CEO has been fired and the project lead must quickly get her ducks in a row before the new CEO cancels the project.  This sets up the Gap Analysis for how the project should be monitored and managed going forward.  The comparison to how things have been managed produces the Gap mentioned in the title of the paper.

This list of class work makes for a good intro to the topic of discussing how points are awarded in the class (visualize the scene from Harry Potter where the houses are being given points by Dumbledore in a rather off-the-cuff manner).  In the case of my class the numbers are small, there are only 100 points awarded for all work done throughout the class (1 point = 1% of the grade).  Initially, the syllabus for this class had values like “2 points per week for participation” (translation, participate in a meaningful way 4 out of 7 days a week and get 2 points), “1 point per week for the weekly summary” (a 650 word paper that summarizes weekly topics), “2 points per week for discussion question response” (another 650 word paper, but worth twice as much as the weekly summary), and “14 points for the Gap Analysis” (a much larger paper it seems, but in actuality it is specified at 1,400 to 1,750 words).  

Word count isn’t everything, but comparing word count to points awarded shows the imbalance of the assignment values.  This makes the point system not so far off from the method used in Harry Potter.

Four Lists, Mix and Match to make the Grade

Strategic Implementation and Alignment – Week 3 – Weekly Summary

There are four lists that drive the topics for any given week of the Strategic Implementation and Alignment class.  Ideally, these lists overlap.  Reasonably, they should connect.  In reality, there are things that appear from left field and just make you wonder if the Instructor is on the same page with the course outline.

The four lists are (1) the weekly outline, (2) the mind map for the week, (3) the rubric for the homework assignment, and (4) the list of concept review questions which are exposed one or two at a time throughout the week.  This week the outline included the topics of estimating, resource scheduling, and analyzing the implementation planning process.  The mind map follows this very closely since the university prepares both documents (the mind map is more of a picture representation of the outline). 

The rubric for the homework assignment is a valuable tool, but not necessarily for its intended purpose.  It is, theoretically, the rulebook by which the assignment will be graded.  Interestingly enough (for a blog post anyway), whether the rubric is used for grading or not isn’t really relevant to the student.  This is because there is little that can be done about it not being used for that purpose other than referencing it when protesting a grade.  I suspect that if a situation were to grind to that level of disrepair there are so many subjective factors involved in grading the assignments that basing a protest on the rubric would be little more than a fancy crap shoot.  So I avoid the situation by using the rubric for insight into what the assignment should include.  The other three lists also provide good fodder for inclusion in the assignment.  For example, if the rubric were to include the statement “Develop a resource scheduling process”, and the assignment were to make recommendations for improving a company’s approach to developing a project plan, it would be reasonable that the recommendation crafted for the homework assignment would include a vary obvious recommendation that the company should develop a resource scheduling process.  Even better would be to elaborate on what this means and how a person would go about making one.

This is pretty much how the process goes when preparing the homework assignments for the classes being described here.  The four lists are mulled over, scanned, researched, dissected, and generally mixed and mashed until a fine collection of reasonably sounding recommendations and observations are produced.  If the aforementioned four lists do not overlap or connect, the mulling, mixing, and mashing are accompanied by a good amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth that usually culminate with me taking the dog for a walk.

To date, the dog appears to be in favor of me continuing work on my MBA.