Module 7 Final Paper

By: Hadley Schmidt

PMG 321

Professor Ben Pandya

October 7, 2022
 Introduction

“If you think you know most everything about a subject, you probably don’t know

very much about it.” - Hadley Schmidt. Before this class, I thought I knew a fair bit about

project management, and thought I could easily glide through my upcoming PMG 321

class. What I did not expect, however, was the varyingly difficult simulations that would

prove me wrong. Every week this class has pushed my project management skills to the

limit and made me stretch and grow. In this paper I will review how I’ve improved,

assess how I approach project management, and see how I can apply these lessons to

my own life. This is what I’ve learned from PMG 321.

How Good Are Your Project Management Skills?

At the beginning of PMG 321 I took a quiz titled, “How Good Are Your

Project Management Skills?” Looking back now, it’s strange how words that previously

had little to no meaning at the beginning of the semester are now a vital part of my

project management approach. At the beginning of this semester, I saw the statement;

“I use customer/stakeholder requirements as the main measure of quality for the

projects I manage.” At the time, I was confused why stakeholder requirements would be

so important. But, with every simulation I completed, the better I understood that the

objectives set by the stakeholders should be guiding principles that aid project

managers in daily decision making.

The importance of decision making and how their guid project objectives, is

made clear in the first chapter of, A Project Manager’s Guide to Making Successful

Decisions, by Dennis Buede and Robert Powell. It is appropriately titled, “Good

Decision-Making: The Key to Project Success.” This chapter mentions a trend in project

management in the 90s, where project managers were expected to accomplish projects

in a shorter time frame, with fewer resources- and create a higher quality product. The

quantity of failed projects quickly rose, which left many project stakeholders scratching

their heads. In the end, I think these project failures are partially all due to a

misunderstanding of project objectives. I’ve seen this in my own experience when time

and time again I have skipped the project objectives section of a Harvard Simulation,

leaving me worse off.

Project’s that ignore the importance of project objectives fail because they

prioritize the project’s deadline or the project’s budget over the project itself. At the

beginning of a project, a group of stakeholders who have an invested interest in the

project have already created a vision for what they want the completed project to look

like and how they want it to be completed. If the project objectives are set carefully and

consciously they can correctly guide the project to a successful completion. If the

project objectives are not understood, or disregarded, the project will rarely end

successfully. Ignoring project objectives leaves project managers projecting their own

project objectives or simply guessing what the most vital parts of a project should be.

I remember in many of my projects, I guessed that the most vital part of the

project simulation was completing the project on or before the deadline. This turned out

to be spectacularly wrong when I overlooked the project objective to stay in budget and

disappointed the stakeholders in the process. This “stakeholder objective’s first” attitude

is highlighted in a chapter named, “Preventing Scope and Schedule Risks”, from the

book, Project Manager’s Spotlight on Risk Management, by Kim Heldman. In it she

states the importance of clear and concise communication between stakeholders and

project managers. She points out that many, if not the majority, of problems that arise

with projects are a result of miscommunication between project managers and

stakeholders. This class and it’s repeated simulations have taught me that a project

manager should be guided by the objectives laid out before the project begins, and that

following these objectives and leading the team to their completion makes everyones

job a lot easier. This has lead me to the view that a project manager is less like an artist

creating an art piece and more of a musician, playing a carefully composed piece of

music. This view has become an important foundation to my project management style.

Another statement that caught my attention from the “How Good Are Your

Project Management Skills?” quiz was, “When a project gets behind schedule, I work

with my team to find a solution rather than assign blame”. At the beginning of this class,

I assumed that projects that were behind schedule were simply not being managed

correctly, and it was the fault of lazy team members or bad project managers. This view

fell apart as I quickly fell behind on my project deadlines due to unexpected

circumstances or what seemed like impossible time restraints. Instead of giving up

when this inevitably happened, I learned the importance of “rallying the troops” so to

speak to make up time and solve the present problems we were facing.

During the various simulations, I learned that project setbacks could come from a

diverse form of circumstances. These varied from a supply shortage, to problem found

in the prototype of the project. These setbacks forced me to become flexible and made

me ask “How can I solve the problems I’m facing now?” instead of trying to fall back on

my original plan. An example of this was from Harvard Simulation F when, five or six
weeks into the project, my now experienced and confident team was thrown off course

by a car accident that forced many of them out of commission for the next few weeks. I

quickly realized I could not treat the new replacements like I was treating the older,

more experienced team members. I had to stop and ask the question “How can I solve

the problems I’m facing now?”. This lead me to increase the amount of one-on-one

training meetings while also increasing the amount of project status meetings to get the

new members up to date with the project’s progress. These unforeseen circumstances

lead me to adapt a more flexible leadership style that pushed me to solve problems

instead of blame teammembers or circumstances outside of my control. Because of this

class, I believe I’m a better project manager through learning to understand project

objectives while aslo being able to accomplish them during unexpected setbacks.

My Approach to Project Management

Due to the multiple Harvard Simulations we were able to run through, I’ve had

the opportunity to see recurring themes on how I approach projects in general. This has

shown me my instinctive approach to project management, and the strengths and

weaknesses this approach entails. During this class, I noticed one of my project

management tendencies was that I tried to be as efficient as possible. I personally hate

meetings. I understand their importance, but I also have seen how much time they could

waste both in the simulation, and in real life. In the area to toggle the amount of

meetings the projects should have each week I saw a small number to the right hand

side that rose and fell based on the number of meetings I set. This was the “number of

hours spent in meetings” number. Something else I noticed was the expected
completion time of a project could be pushed back based on the amount of time the

team spent each week in meetings.

Not only did this lack of time frustrate me as the project manager, but it also

frustrated my team mates and reminded me of an article named “The Real Reason Why

Developers and Designers Hate Meetings”, taken from a blog named activecollab.com.

In this article, it states that a surplus of meetings can frustrate employees and leave

them unfocused and less time too accomplish their tasks at hand. This article, and my

experiences in the simulations, lead me to limit the amount of meetings we had to a

bare minimum and only hold meetings based on my team members needs. This

sometimes meant near the end of a project that I was going weeks at a time with no

meetings being held at all.

This drive for efficiency also become a weakness when it came to meeting the

project’s budgets. Every Harvard Simulation came with a limited budget that pushed you

to wisely use your resources and management skills to accomplish all the project

objectives, while also being below the set budget. But, with my hyperfocus on getting as

much done as fast as I could, this meant I usually ended the Harvard Simulation with a

spent amount much higher than the given budget. Throughout this class I haven’t been

able to kick this habit, which has left me nervous for the potential situation of me being

trusted with an actual budget to keep in my professional life. These tendencies have

given me an awareness of what I should look forward to in my own life whenever I’m

managing a project or doing something similar to that.

Knowing that I have a “laissez faire” or “hands off” project management style

means I’ll work well with people who like to be left alone or people who generally are
confident and know what they’re doing. This also means that I run the risk of leaving

inexperienced or inconfident teammember confused and directionless with my lack of

meetings or general communication. Because of this, I have to be aware of individual

team members and apply their needs to my project management style instead of trying

to apply my “laissez faire” attitude to everyone. My next problematic tendency is

regularly spending more money than my budget allows me to. Hopefully I’m more

careful when It comes to real money and real projects, but I think sticking to a weekly

allotted amount and never going over it will helping my overspending tremendously.

After this class I’m more aware of how I could potentially manage projects and what my

potential weaknesses as well as my potential strengths could be. I think the most

important thing I’ve come to understand is that I’ve developed a project management

style that could successful lead a project to completion. But with that, an understanding

that my project management style won’t apply to every team member and project

perfectly, and conscious and careful adjustments to my project management approach

should be made accordingly.

Applying Project Management to My Life

During this class, multiple articles and principles have struck me as something

that goes beyond a textbook to something I could apply to my life. Currently, I’m working

my dream job of being a seminary teacher at a highschool, where I teach religion. Now,

I don’t manage projects or deal with budget restraints, but I do have a team that I’m

leading who needs guidance and coaching to understand and excel in the given subject.

Like I’m sure all teachers experience, there can be issues that pop up in the classroom
such as students not participating, or being a distraction for the rest of the class. There’s

a big temptation to blame the classroom whenever these problems arise and say to

yourself things like, “my classroom would be better if my students were better”. This is

where a great article at melissaperri.com named “Stop Blaming the User”, by Melissa

Perri helped me take responsibility for my classroom and become proactive instead of

reactive.

In this article, Melissa shares an experience where she felt wronged by an airline

she was going to fly on, but instead of taking responsibility, the airline blamed her for

misunderstanding their misleading information. Melissa uses the article as a critical

lesson for business owners and project managers alike to take responsibility for

everything they do so they can change and improve as a company instead of disappoint

and potentially lose customers or even team members. I realized that in my classroom I

could learn from frustrated and distracted students and adjust my teaching style to their

needs, or at least recognize that studying scriptures can be difficult to understand some

days. I’ve found that this responsibility approach keeps me on my toes and makes me

constantly aware of how I’m doing and how I can improve. But, I’ve also learned that

this approach is less frustrating because you see progress and results, instead of

having to face the same issues everyday.

Another resource that has been applicable to my day to day experience is the

article “Get Serious: What's the Role of Happiness in the Workplace?” from the blog

pmsolutions.com. This article is based off results from a new study done by the

University of Oxford, Said Business School, and tries to understand the importance of

happiness in the workplace. Now a lot of this study and article don’t directly relate to a
classroom full of high school students, but I did find it interesting that the study found

that the amont of support an employee felt was a predictor of their overall wellbeing.

Seminary, in general, is very different from high school classes, and I try to invite the

students to share their own experiences or insights that relate to the passage we’re

studying. One thing I’ve noticed is that the more a student feels valued by a classmate

or class, the more likely they are willing to share their thoughts.

Referring back to the Harvard Simulations, you could almost see this openness

as a sign of the morale of the team -or the class I’m leading. It was interesting to see

that in both project management and my daily job, it’s important to build a positive

supportive culture within the teams you're leading. I think many times this aspect of

team building is overlooked in both project management and in classroom teaching.

This article was a nice reminder of how important the culture of the team your leading is

and how taking the time to help students and team members feel listened to and

supported aids the entire team and classroom as a whole.

The last resource I found that helped me in my daily life was a Reddit post by a

new project manager named, Need Insights. I'm a PM and I feel like I'm an overpaid

glorified secretary. The author felt like they weren’t doing anything useful and felt they

were a glorified secretary. In a response a more experienced project manager said that

the work of a project manager may seem unimportant, but to not underestimate the

impact of the work they do. Although this doesn’t directly apply to project management

as a whole, I was motivated by this response. As a seminary teacher, you sometimes

feel the students aren’t understanding anything, and some days they probably aren’t.

But this little response helped me see the bigger picture and that sometime what we’re
doing seems less important than it actually is. These three resources helped me

become a better project manager and seminary teacher by helping me take

responsibility, create a supportive team culture, and not underestimate the importance

of what I’m doing.

What I Wish I’d Known Before Starting PMG 321

My three words of advice for someone taking PMG 321.

● Always work with a small team no matter the size and scope of the project

● Don’t be afraid to experiment and see how different inputs create different

consequences during the project.

● Take time to thoroughly read through your classmates posts during the

simulation debriefs.

Conclusion

“If you think you know most everything about a subject, you probably don’t know

very much about it.”- Hadley Schmidt. At the beginning of this class I admittedly didn’t

know very much about project management. And now at the end of the class I can

honestly say that I don’t know everything about project management, but I do know a lot

more. I know the importance of a project’s objective and how they can guide projects to

completion. I know what my approach to project management is and how I can

successfully apply it to different situations and team members. I also know how I can

apply different principles of project management to my own life and how it’s helped me

become a better seminary teacher. Hopefully, I’ll be able to apply the lessons I’ve

learned to coninually improve as a project mangager, as well as in my day to day job as

a seminary teacher. This is what I learned from PMG 321.

 References

Buede PhD, D. M., & Powell PhD, R. A. (2008). The Project Manager's Guide to

Making Successful Decisions. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Cabanis-Brewin, J. (2017, March 20). Get Serious: What's the Role of Happiness

in the Workplace? pmsolutions. Retrieved August 28, 2022, from

https://www.pmsolutions.com/blog/view/happiness-in-the-workplace/

How Good Are Your Project Management Skills? - from MindTools.com. (n.d.).

Mind Tools. Retrieved October 6, 2022, from

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_60.htm

Heldman, K. (2007). Project Manager's Spotlight on Risk Management. Wiley.

Need Insights. I'm a PM and I feel like I'm an overpaid glorified secretary. :

r/projectmanagement. (2016, November 21). Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/projectmanagement/comments/5e195j/

need_insights_im_a_pm_and_i_feel_like_im_an/

Olic, A. (2017, September 7). The Real Reason Why Developers and Designers

Hate Meetings · Blog · ActiveCollab. ActiveCollab. Retrieved September 11,

2022, https://activecollab.com/blog/project-management/why-designers-

developers-hate-meetings

Perri, M. (2016, October 23). Stop Blaming the User — Melissa Perri. Melissa

Perri. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from

https://melissaperri.com/blog/2016/10/23/stop-blaming-the-

user#.WQKzkVMrKi4=