Nathan Ponwith

Module 4 Paper

OGL321
200 500 800 1.1 1.5
Introduction:

This module provided me with many different insights and examples of how to

overcome contingencies and how to problem solve effectively. The resources that enhanced my

knowledge of these project management concepts and areas of practice are the book

“Managing Project Uncertainty” by David Cleden (Chapter 3 and Chapter 4), and the two blog

posts “Eight to Late” and “Guerrilla Project Management”. All of these resources had their own

unique insights, concepts, and examples that allowed me to learn various skills and ways of

thinking about project management.

Managing Project Uncertainty

Starting with the resource of “Managing Project Uncertainty”, there were many

interesting and applicable concepts that I learned. Chapter 3 “Problem Solving Strategies For

Managing Uncertainty” and chapter 4 “Knowledge-Centric Strategies both enlightening me with

concepts that I have never thought about before, and practical, real world applications to

project management situations and scenarios. Beginning in chapter 3, it is demonstrated how a

project’s approach to uncertainty comes about. The various ways include novelty, which is

when projects venture into new territory face greater unknown challenges. The next one is

complexity, is when large numbers of co-dependent tasks or events introduce greater potential

for uncertainty. Then there is affordability, when the cost of managing uncertainty has to be

balanced against the threat, and in certain times it may be uneconomic to tackle some areas of

uncertainty. Structure is next, and this is when the organization of the project into tasks and the

choice of delivery approach determine how uncertainty develops through different project
stages. And the last one is capacity, this is when the projects have a higher capacity for

uncertainty if the consequences of failure are judges to be acceptable. For this to be justified,

the rewards of success must also be high. High capacity projects gamble that the benefits of

success are worth the considerable uncertainties that must be overcome. I think all of these are

important to know and understand, because these situations can arise and bring much

uncertainty. I think developing a strong foundational understanding of all of these approaches

to uncertainty, can better prepare a project manager on how to handle them when they do

come. The next really important concept that I took away from chapter 3 is the four possible

modes for confronting uncertainty. They include, suppress, which is to take pre-emptive steps

to reduce overall levels of uncertainty before problems occur. Adapt, which is to try to contain

uncertainty to acceptable levels, deal with unexpected outcomes as they arise, and remain

focused on the objectives. Detour, which is to find an alternative way to reach the objectives

which avoids the uncertainty. By following a different path, any unexpected outcomes that do

arise are either irrelevant or have less impact on the project. And the last one is reorient, which

is if unavoidable uncertainty means the project goals are unlikely to be achieved, find

acceptable alternatives. I found these to be especially interesting because these are how a

project manager would go about acting upon uncertainty and changes. This chapter was

especially interesting to me because it demonstrated and described what possibly could bring

uncertainty to a project, and how to act upon uncertainty in a project. Which is something I find

extremely valuable and very beneficial knowledge.

Chapter 4: Knowledge-Centric Strategies

 Chapter 4 also had very beneficial knowledge and knowledge-centric strategies.

Knowledge-centric strategies provide the ability to visualize the future states of the project.

This is a look into the future to estimate the states of various different parts of a project. I find

this to be incredibly valuable for a project manager because I think this is a necessary skill. Not

all time can a project manager wait to see how things actually turn out, or wait for the progress

of a project to unfold to make decisions. In some cases, a project manager has to use these

strategies to visualize future states of the project. There are a few different models and

different maps that will be applicable to different situations and questions. I think these models

are very useful and can help a project manager out tremendously.

Blog Posts

Starting with the first blog post “Eight to Late”, there were some connections that

related to communication and how during a conversation with an anthropologist, the question

of “How do you think humans will react to AIs that are conversationally indistinguishable from

humans?” The answer was that we are talking about a hypothetical future, and we have not

gotten to a point of indistinguishability yet. The conversation later when on to conclude that in

most human interactions, non-verbal signals like tone and body language matter more than

words. I found this to be especially interesting because it is something I never thought about

and the more I do, the more I agree with it. I have learned many things in this course about

communication, and especially emotional intelligence and empathy. So, I found this conclusion

to be rather enlightening and I see how this potential future could happen. I also connected this

conversation to the point of managing uncertainty, and that project managers need to use
knowledge-centric strategies to do their best to predict the future. And I believe that this blog

post conversation was a perfect example of this in action.

Second Blog Post

The second blog post that I selected was “Guerrilla Project Management” which is a blog

that focuses on the foundations of effective project management. This post illustrates how

every industry has its own unique language, and how the corporate world is no different. This

post also describes just how prevalent these unique language words are and how much they

are used in the corporate world and business environment. It goes on to illustrate how project

management is no different, and how the project management world has its own unique

language and key words that are used extensively. One connection that I made to the learning

from this module is that an effective project manager knows how to motivate and set goals for

individuals differently. Basically, meaning that different people are motivated in different ways,

and it is not wise as project manager to try to motivate different people in the same way. This

post goes into depth about how sometimes, these different unique languages at the end of the

day mean similar things. I compare this to when an effective project manager knows how to

motivate two different employees in the same way, using different language.

Harvard Simulation

This week’s Harvard simulation was fun and exciting, and I learned very important

project management concepts and skills during it. There was an unexpected project deadline

change during week 5, which altered the course and necessary course of action of the project.
This closely related to the concepts from chapter 3 and 4 from the book “Managing Project

Uncertainty”, and that there are specific protocols that can be put into play when these sorts of

things happen. Another concept that could be implemented in a situation like this is

knowledge-centric strategies. Now in the case of the simulation, there is not really much

foreshadowing going on that would indicate a deadline change of this significance to occur. But

I would like to think that an expert project manager in this scenario could use critical thinking

and perhaps predict a possibility of this happening in the future, and taking small measures

such as getting ahead of schedule at the start of the project. Or, preparing a plan of how to get

on par with a deadline sooner than expected just in case. All in all, this simulation was very

tightly connected with the learning materials and I learned so much about managing project

uncertainty and strategies to use when uncertainty arises.

 Resources:

Cleden, David. “Managing Project Uncertainty”. (Chapter 3 and 4)

Sudakow, James. “Guerrilla Project Management”. Dec 21, 2016.

http://www.guerrillaprojectmanagement.com/

“Eight to Late”. https://eight2late.wordpress.com/