Reflect on the assigned readings for Week 2 and then type a two page paper regarding what you thought was the most important concept(s), method(s), term(s), and/or any other thing that you felt was worthy of your understanding.  Define and describe what you thought was worthy of your understanding in half a page, and then explain why you felt it was important, how you will use it, and/or how important it is in project management.   After submitting your two page paper as an initial post in the “Reflection and Discussion Forum,” then type at least two peer replies in response to your classmates posts (200 word minimum each). 

Responses:

1) response to Amulya:

According to Kloppenborg, T., Anantatmula, V., & Wells, K. (2019). Project Scope Management refers to the set of processes that ensure a project’s scope is accurately defined and mapped. Scope Management techniques enable project managers and supervisors to allocate the proper amount of work necessary to successfully complete a project—concerned primarily with controlling what’s and what’s not a part of the project’s scope

The scope of a project is that the clear identification of the work that’s required to finish or deliver a project successfully. one among the project manager’s responsibilities is to make sure that only the needed work (the scope) are going to be performed which each of the deliverables are often completed within the allotted time and within budget.

The documentation of the scope of the project will explain the boundaries of the project, establish the responsibilities of every member of the team, and found out procedures for a way a work that’s completed are going to be verified and approved. This documentation could also be referred to as the scope statement, the statement of work, or the terms of reference

Effective Scope Management requires clear communication, to make sure that stakeholders and team members alike understand the scope of the project while agreeing on how the project goals are going to be met.

Scope Management helps avoid the challenges that a project might face with bloating scope and requirements list. Project scope clearly sets out what’s or isn’t included within the project, and controls what gets added or removed as the project is executed. Scope Management establishes control mechanisms to deal with factors which will end in changes during the project lifecycle.

Without defining the project scope, the price and time that the project will take can’t be estimated. At times, thanks to a lack of communication, the scope may have to vary. It directly affects the price and disturbs the schedule of the project, causing losses.

From chapter 8, I have learnt that having a project plan and schedule enables to deliver in time, a schedule tells what activity needs to be done and when.

Mathematical analysis, simulation are the techniques of project scheduling.

References:

Kloppenborg, T., Anantatmula, V., & Wells, K. (2019). Contemporary project management (4th ed).  Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

2)response for Sana khan

As discussed in Chapter 7 by Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells (2019), after a project charter is ratified by the project sponsor, the project is approved is formally approved by the project sponsor. Project planning is an iterative process, which consists of many steps, such as identification of stakeholders (stakeholder analysis), communication planning (communication management plan), and determining the project outcomes (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019). At this point, project teams initiate this process by asking project customers about what outcomes the customers want to achieve (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019).

Customers’ response helps the project team determine what are the immediate deliverable sand what will be the required work to get the final deliverables done (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019). Project scope management is another part of project planning and the project team will determine what will be and what will not be part of the project (scope creep) (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019). According to Sharma, Sohi, Hertogh, & Deketh (2017), project delays, quality issues and cost overrun are the problems that happen because of scope creep. It is not only difficult to identify scope creep, but also it is difficult to control it (Sharma, Sohi, Hertogh, & Deketh, 2017).

Once the project scope is determined, the next step is to create a work breakdown structure (WBS), which is organizing the projects scope decomposition into smaller chunks of tasks or deliverables. Each of these tasks are assigned to one project team member (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019).

The WBS is used to determine the projects schedule, budgets, resources, project team assignments, project quality requirements and the risks associated with the project (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019).

In chapter # 8 Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells (2019) discussed projects schedule in detail that how the schedules are created by listing all the tasks or activities that will be performed to complete the project by using the work packages. Work packages help the project teams achieve the required deliverables (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019).

At this point, it is important to carefully optimize the size of work packages because the smaller size results in increased project complexity and overall increased workload, while the bigger size results in cash flow problems (Li & Hall, 2019). After each activity has been defined, the next step is to sequence the activities, such as determining predecessor and successors activities. Two types of approaches are used to estimate the activities, such as optimistic and pessimistic.

According to Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells (2019), it is crucial to complete the three time-management processes, such as activity definition, sequencing and duration estimation before developing the schedule. Schedule development is done in iterations, which means that it needs to be matched with resource limits, scheduled dates, and project cash flow (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019). Schedule expedition is done when the projects sponsor wants the project sooner than its original schedule (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019). According to Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells (2019), since project scheduling is a complex process, so it is important to se a software like MS Project.

In conclusion, I have learned from the chapter # 7 and 8 that project schedule and activity breakdown is very important process that should be done carefully. Project teams should carefully determine the activities required to complete the projects. Software should be used to create projects schedule because it makes it easier to work on the complex activity of projects scheduling.

References

Kloppenborg, T., Anantatmula, V., & Wells, K. (2019). Contemporary project management (4th ed).  Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Li, C.-L., & Hall, N. G. (2019). Work Package Sizing and Project Performance. Operations Research67(1), 123–142. https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2018.1767

Sharma, R., Sohi, A. J., Hertogh, M. J. C. M., & Deketh, J. R. (2017). Controlling the uncontrolled by noticing the unnoticed. 2017 12th International Scientific and Technical Conference on Computer Sciences and Information Technologies (CSIT). doi: 10.1109/stc-csit.2017.8099435