Weekly Portfolio Learning Table

What must the project manager provide in order to develop a solid project plan?

A project manager must be agile and creative.

The project plans that I have created were successful only when I was agile and had a creative thinking process.

Stratton, K. L. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 20,170,344,011. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

For projects that are done for external sources, the project manager is first viewed as starting out with a pot of gold and then as having to manage the project so that sufficient profits will be made for the stockholders. Why is this the case? Explain.

The client is always billed at a much a higher cost than the actual cost incurred.

My project team usually charged 1.5 times the actual estimated cost to cover for any risk and safety factor.

Kannisto, P. (2017). Sharing for profit: A new business model?. Annals of Tourism Research, 66, 206-208.

Should age have a bearing on how long it takes an executive to accept project management?

Age is not a factor but the inflexibility in management is.

As long as the project manager is flexible in decision-making and judgement, the executives would quickly accept the management.

Fleming, Q. W., & Koppelman, J. M. (2016, December). Earned value project management. Project Management Institute.

Should project managers be permitted to establish prerequisites for top management regarding standard company procedures?

Yes, the project managers should be allowed to establish pre-conditions for standard procedures of the company.

The top management is usually unaware of the actual project scenarios and thus instead of spending time to enlighten them, it is far more time efficient for the project managers to state some policies instead.

Bredillet, C., Tywoniak, S., & Dwivedula, R. (2015). What is a good project manager? An Aristotelian perspective. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 254-266.

Does a project sponsor have the right to have an in-house representative removed from his company?

Yes, the project sponsor has the right to remove any in-house representative.

The project sponsor can remove the in-house representative form his own company as long as it does not affect the operations of the project company.

Kloppenborg, T. J., Tesch, D., & Manolis, C. (2014). Project success and executive sponsor behaviors: Empirical life cycle stage investigatio

When does project management turn into over management?

The project management sometimes focuses more on managing the personnel rather than achieving the overall goal.

During certain critical projects, the project management starts to focus more on managing the personnel on the project team instead of focussing on delivering the project.

Turner, R. (2016). Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.

What does a program manager bear final responsibility for?

The successful delivery of the final projects.

The program manager oversees that all the projects within a certain program is successfully delivered.

Chowdhury, M., Bausman, D., Keehan, M., Mitchell, J., & Islam, S. (2017). Professional Services Contract (Program) Manager On-Demand Training and Best Practices (No. FHWA-SC-17-02).

Kerzner Chapter 1.8-1.10, & 10 & 11.25

Kerzner described the management procedures as something that is necessary to successfully deliver projects.

I have learnt that every project team needs a management head who would guide them.

Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

PMI Implementing Organizational PM Chapter 3

Project management is important to implement.

Many projects have failed due bad project management.

Organizational Project Management Guide | PMI. (2018). Pmi.org. Retrieved 10 January 2018, from https://www.pmi.org/pmbok-guide-standards/practice-guides/organizational

PMI Managing Change Preface, Chapters 1, 2 & 3

Project managers need to have a huge knowledge base.

The knowledge base of a project manager should be large to handle any project.

PMI and Change Management. (2018). Managing Change In Organizations, 11-16. Retrieved from https://archive.copevents.pmi.org/docs/pmosymp2013/thiry-managing-change-in-organizations

Journals & Standards

·         IJPM

The journal supports project life cycles and methodologies.

I was able to easily implement the knowledge in real projects.

Management, I. (2018). International Journal of Project Management. Journals.elsevier.com. Retrieved  10 January 2018, from https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-project-management

·         PMJ

Life cycles and methodologies are described in detail.

Projects were successful due to good guidance from existing projects.

Project Management Journal | PMI. (2018). Pmi.org. Retrieved 10 January 2018, from https://www.pmi.org/learning/publications/project-management-journal

·         SAI Global

Certain methodologies are described in detail.

These methodologies were greatly helpful.

Ethics & compliance – SAI Global. (2018). SAIGlobal. Retrieved 10 January 2018, from https://www.saiglobal.com/en-au/ethics_and_compliance/