Hailey Babcock

OGL 321 – Project Management

Professor Bankim Pandya

27 March 2022

Module 2 Paper
 To start I am going to go over what project management is. Then I will be discussing the

article, “Good Decision-Making: The Key to Project Success”. Then I will be discussing two

blog entries that I felt that I relate to the most when it comes to my experience with Harvard

Simulation A. I will also be providing key take away points from both the article and the two

blog entries.

As defined by the Project Management Institute, “Project management is the use of

specific knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to deliver something of value to people.” (PMI).

The article “Good Decision-Making: The Key to Project Success” enhanced my

knowledge of project management by showing the importance of decision making and how

important it is to ensure you make very sound decisions. There are eight steps to follow when it

comes to making successful decisions, defining the problem, establish the objectives, identify

alternatives, identify uncertainties, assess alternatives, gather information, and update the

assessment, decide and implement, and then monitoring. (Powell, 2008). “The framework is not

a panacea for bad decisions; it is intended to organize and improve the decision-making

process.” (Powell, 2008).

This article provided a lot of insightful information and I agreed with all the assertions

provided in this article. One of the assertions that really clung to me was “When decisions are of

poor quality, untimely, or altogether absent, the result is frequently a failed project. That is,

projects stand a far greater chance of succeeding when quality decisions are made. It can be

stated with certainty, then, that good decision-making leads to successful projects.” (Powell,

2008). I believe that this is an important statement to remember as a leader because this shows
how your actions as a leader will affect the project. Just because you make a decision does not

mean that it is a properly assessed decision. You as a leader have to really evaluate the issue at

hand and make a quality and comprehensive decision to ensure the success of the project.

When it comes to relating this article to my experience with Simulation A, one thing that

stood out to me was, “Projects traditionally have three overarching objectives—meeting the

budget, finishing on schedule, and meeting client specifications (product performance). These

objectives establish the control parameters and discipline by which a project is managed. When

these three project objectives are achieved, the project is usually considered a success.” (Powell,

2008). This automatically made it relatable to my experience with Simulation A because we

were given the three parameters to help in our decision-making process to ensure we were able to

have a successful project. When it came to the budget, we were told that the budget was $42,500.

We had a timeline of 18 weeks, and the specifications of the project was that the client wanted a

level two printer. When it came to making decisions, it was a very stressful situation. Not only

do you want to ensure that the three parameters are met, but you also want to ensure that your

team members are happy and not stressed out to ensure the quality of the project is not

compromised.

I did Simulation A twice. For the first attempt I completed the simulation on day 22, so

four days past the deadline. My main focus was to ensure I stayed within the budget. I feel that

the budget was more important to meet than staying within the deadline. My rationale was that if

you do not have the funding, how can you continue the project? However, I failed at this attempt

when it came to staying within budget. My ending budget for this attempt was $48,600, so

$6,100 over budget. The only thing that I ended up doing was accomplishing what the client
wanted (the project scope) and provided a level two printer. My team morale was overall average

and not bad but not also at it’s finest.

For the second attempt, I had a different approach and that was ensuring that the project

scope was the number one priority and ensuring that I met the deadline. I was not focused on the

budget so much this go around. I also wanted to ensure my team members were happy and not

stressed. I ended up completing the project in 17 days, so one day ahead of schedule. The budget

was over by $2,280, putting the ending budget at $44,780. So again, I was over budget, but not

by as much this attempt. I was also able to provide the client with a level two printer as

requested. The moral of my team members was overall was good and the stress level was typical.

I learned that decisions are everything and that every little decision I made affected the

outcome of the ending project. Even though my goal was to ensure that my decisions stayed on

track to meet all three parameters of the project, my decisions I made affected this outcome and I

did not meet all three objectives.

One of the takeaways from this article that I tend to use in the future is ensuring that I

know what to do first when it comes to making decisions. Looking back, I believe I may have

rushed in the decision-making process and not always assessed the decisions appropriately and

the objectives, or the correct objectives first. As the article stated, “An important issue in

understanding the decision context is determining which comes first, the objective(s) or the

decision.” (Powell, 2008). I never thought about this part when it came to making decisions. The

article points out how knowing what comes first will help with determining the outcome of the

project. Which means the objectives come first and then knowing what objects are considered

appropriate and inappropriate to be focusing on first.

 For the blog I chose “Easy in theory, difficult in practice” by Kiron Bondale. I found

two relatable entries that I can relate to when it comes to my experience with the Harvard

Simulation A. The first entry is “Do less, finish earlier”, the second relatable entry is

titled, “Project Planning Should Start with the 5 W Questions before Getting to the How?”.

The first blog entry enhanced my knowledge of project management by teaching me

that there really is no way of shorting the cost, deadline, and the scope of the project. You

can try, but it will only compromise other aspects of the project or the project as a whole.

So doing less, doesn’t actually allow you to finish earlier.

The second blog entry enhanced my knowledge of project management by

reminding me that it is easy to lose sight of what is the most important aspects of the

project. Kiron states, “With all of the tools, techniques and processes within our profession, we

sometimes lose sight of the basic principles of project management.” (Bondale, 2012). I think

that this is important to always keep in mind, and to ensure you do not lose touch with the basics.

Things do not have to be over complicated.

I would say that Kiron had some pretty good assertions. One of the assertions that stood

out to me was, “…crashing a schedule will generally result in cost and possibly other impacts to

a project and might not improve the timelines enough to offset these impacts…” (Bondale,

2022). This is something that I found to be true. In my Simulation A initial attempt, I was trying

to shorten the timeframe by adding more team mates to the project and all it did was significantly

increase the cost and I ended up being behind schedule.

Another assertion that I liked was from Kiron’s blog entry “Project Planning Should

Start with the 5 W Questions before Getting to the How?”, which stated, “On project planning,

understanding & communicating the five W’s can provide context and perspective for the low-
level details found within the individual project plans.” (Bondale, 2012). I think that this is

important and also a takeaway for the future because I tend to overthink things, and this implies

and also helps you to not over think things and stick to the point. I need to remember that things

do not always need to be so complicated.

The first blog entry, “Do less, finish earlier”, was relatable to me, mostly because

the title was catchy and went along with my thought process on my second attempt at the

simulation. Essentially, I didn’t do as much as I did on my first attempt and tried to not

overthink so much, by doing less I was able to finish the project a day earlier than the

deadline. However, I ended up compromising the cost of the project.

I was able to relate to the second entry, because I think that I did not have the

understanding needed to accomplish the project successfully. I believe that I could have

attempted the scenario many more times and my score would not have increased by much. I

did not have the basics and I overthought what was expected. Kiron states, “The project

manager’s focus can now shift to the question that too often gets all the attention before there’s a

good understanding of the five W’s: How?” (Bondale, 2012). This showed in both of my

attempts. I immediately went to the question of “How?” before having a good understanding of

the five w’s: who, what, where, when, and why. I believe that if I had properly answered the five

W’s then I would have had a better outcome.

The first blog entry pointed out “Crashing is the addition of labor or equipment to effort-

driven activities in the hopes of shortening their durations.” (Bondale, 2022). This is one of the

takeaways that I plan on not doing in the future. Kiron states by crashing, you will only increase

the costs. I found this to be true. As previously stated, in my Simulation A initial attempt, I was
trying to shorten the timeframe by adding more team mates to the project and all it did was

significantly increase the cost and I ended up being behind schedule. Therefore, this is a

takeaway that I plan to remember and not to do on future simulations.

The second blog entry stated, “One way to ensure that you are not over-complicating

things is to assess your approach from the perspective of a small child.” (Bondale, 2012). As

stated above, I need to work on not overthinking things. In the past, and on both attempts of my

simulation I ended up overthinking, and therefore it prohibited me from focusing on the three

main parameters at hand. So, for the future I will ensure that I focus on not overcomplicating the

tasks and keep it simple.

To conclude we went over what project management is. Then I discussed the article,

“Good Decision-Making: The Key to Project Success”, and pointed out some key assertions that

I felt were important. Then I discussed two blog entries that I felt that I related to the most when

it came to my experience with Harvard Simulation A. I also provided key take away points from

both the article and the two blog entries, “Do less, finish earlier”, and “Project Planning

Should Start with the 5 W Questions before Getting to the How?”.

Works cited:

Bondale, Kiron. “Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice ‘Do Less, Finish Earlier.’” Free Word

Press, 13 Mar. 2022, https://kbondale.wordpress.com/. Accessed 11 Mar. 2022. 

Bondale, Kiron. “Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice ‘Project Planning Should Start with the 5

W Questions before Getting to the How?".” Free Word Press, 27 May 2012,

https://kbondale.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/project-planning-starts-with-5-ws/. Accessed

11 Mar. 2022. 

Powell, R. A., & Buede, D. M. (2008). The Project Manager’s Guide to Making Successful

Decisions: Chapter 1 (Illustrated ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

“What Is Project Management | PMI.” What Is Project Management,

https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/what-is-project-management.