Some notes from my first PM class:
Class One: Overview of Project Management
The class was spent half on defining what project/project management and then delved into defining the scope of the project.
Summary:
A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. For each of these we discussed some common resources and broad definitions of managing projects.
One of the interesting aspects of the planning is that you can think of planning like a rolling wave – plan in detail for near future, high-level for further on. Continue to plan on greater detail as you approach near things. I think sometimes when starting a project it’s easy to get caught up in planning out every little detail, which prevents us from seeing the big picture clearly.
For each project you have the following life cycles: Concept, Development, Implementation and Termination (includes lessons learned). I think right now one of the key steps we skip at Boxwood is the lessons learned. After completing a project it’s necessary to do lessons learned – a quick way is by answering the following questions:
-What went well and what did not
-Provide reasons for both.
-Distribute to all appropriate people.
-Keeps you from repeating mistakes.
As we got into Scope, we discuss what’s going into determining scope:
-Initiation
-Scope Planning
-Scope Definition
-Scope Verification
-Scope change control
When scope has been determined, you’re left with the following outputs:
-Project Charter
-Project Manager Identified
-Constraints
-Assumptions
A large part of our scope discussion focused on doing the WBS – Work Breakdown Structure. This is a product oriented family tree composed of hardware, services, and data which result from project engineering efforts during the development and production of a defense material item and completely defines the project/program. A WBS displays and defines the products to be developed.
From the WBS the outtake is:
-Responsibility assignments for tasks
-Estimate costs and budgets
-Perform planning
-Describe project as subdivided tasks.
The instructor suggested just starting out with sticky notes and putting them on the wall to create. Start from the highest level and basically break down each step to the smallest denominator. You can do it inside programs, but sometimes the thinking/planning in an old-fashioned setting is actually a big time saver!
Overall I felt like it was a good class to introduce the concepts and ideas that we’ll really be getting into more deeply during the following 7 courses. In relation to what I do at Boxwood, scope planning is a major process with client customizations and internal projects. Understanding the why’s, along with the how’s, is key.
5:11:09 PM 
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