ENGG 701: [Winter 2024] Date: 20 Jan, 2024

Student Name: Jaykumar Rajubhai Galiyel

Student ID: 200513323

Lecture 02

The lecture was held on 19th of January, 2024, which was specifically
focussed on the most crucial aspect for an engineer to learn, “What is
Teamwork & Project Management ?”. The lecture was conducted by Professor
David deMontigny.

The overall objective of the lecture was to provide vital knowledge to

engineers about teamwork, conflict resolution mechanism, project
management and how to efficiently manage people & clients.

Key Topics Covered:

1) What is Team-Work & its importance?
2) How to effectively deal with any conflict that arises in an engineering
project ?
3) What is “Project Management” & how is it different from “Process
Management”?
4) What is the actual meaning of “MANAGEMENT”?
5) What are the different tools used for managing large engineering
projects to keep updated with the project development?
6) Why is “communication” a crucial factor for overall success of an
engineering project?

On an icy, clear and windy morning of 20th Jan, our excitement began when
the Professor asked us about “What do you mean by the word Team-Work?”.
Although, personally, I’ve done a lot of group projects academically as well
professionally in the past. But, I never thought of its actual meaning,
importance & necessity. With detailed discussion on this topic, I came to
realise that Team-work is an essential or a prerequisite requirement for an
overall success of the project. For me, Teamwork can be defined as an
“involvement of members from different backgrounds in achieving common
goals, by contributing their expertise, skills, perspective, new ideas etc and
work in a perfect synergy”. I also learnt about different stages of teamwork like
Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing & Adjourning.
After an in depth discussion about teamwork, we discussed the most
important and challenging aspect of teamwork, that is “Conflict”. Professor told
us that “Conflict is inevitable, when a large group of people work together in
achieving a common goal”. We learnt that sometimes conflict is good,
especially when it is a “constructive conflict”. It eventually helps in overall
success of the project/ goal. But, there are some red alerts, when conflicts
become “destructive” in nature. Because, it has the potential for overall failure
of the project. Moreover, we also came to know about different conflict
resolution mechanisms.

Finally, we delved into the topic of “What is Project Management? And, How is
it different from the Process ?”. Earlier, I was confused that both are the same
term. But, I came to realise that there is a huge difference between both the
terms. Professor had excellently taught us by giving an example that “project
is a courtship” while “process is a partnership”. That sentence gave me a
crystal clear idea about the difference between both the terms. Apart from it, I
learnt that project management has 3 important ”S”, Scope, Scheduling and
Spending. A perfect Synergy is required between these 3 “S”. Additionally, the
Professor also gave us some insight about what scheduling tools are being
employed by the professionals while managing large engineering projects, to
keep them updated with the current development and deadlines.

Later, we discussed the meaning of “Management” and its role in the project
as well as in an organisation. Also, talked about the importance of clear,
frequent & confirmed communication in the project.

To conclude, this 2nd lecture of ENGG 701, was very comprehensive,

insightful and knowledgeable which taught me about the importance of
teamwork, conflict resolution, project management and communication.