Why Project Management?  

Project management will help me in breaking down a total work or project into multiple smaller task that are mainly deliverable oriented.

The knowledge acquired from this project management course will help me in planning for the optimal use of the available resources that are required to complete a given project.

Moreover, it will help in following the critical path in a project when there is a strict dead line that needs to be followed. Without proper planning and scheduling of the tasks the outcome of the project will deviate from the desired output set by the project manager.     Use of the WBS helps in determining the detailed deliverable for each level of the WBS. With this tool the scheduling of the different tasks which needs to be streamlined in order to complete any project in the given deadline.  For the smaller projects it is important to maintain the WBS till third level otherwise the project plan and schedule becomes unnecessarily complex.   Riol, H., & Thuillier, D. (2015). Project management for academic research projects: balancing structure and flexibility. International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 7(3), 251-269.

Kerzner Chapter 1  The planning and scheduling plays an important role in scope management for a certain project. We found that, the human resource management and schedule management is important in order to achieve better success rate in the projects.    

 
The work description and the developed WBS must be easily understandable so that every team member in a project team can have clear idea about their responsibilities that needs to be completed by them in order to complete the project.   In any project the functional manager has a vital role in scheduling the tasks required to complete a project in optimum use of the resources and pre-determined time.   From the different previous projects, I found that every project has its own requirements that can be addressed only with the tailored project management methodology.    Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Egelstaff (2013) Academic assignments: Critical thinking and writing critically The critical thinking and writing skills acquired by going through the assignments and throughout the course is helpful in adapting with different circumstances in order to maximise the use of the available resources in order to deliver better ROI (return on investment) against the organisation’s investment.   From the previous projects I have learned to apply different strategies in order to gain commitment from the different team members. In addition to that the transforming my ideas into practical organizational solutions for the identified problems. With this learnings  from my experience I will be able to leverage a range of  tools  that will help in managing  the available resources as well as implementing my ideas. Turner, R. (2016). Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.

Alvarez-Dionisi, L. E., Turner, R., & Mittra, M. (2016). Global project management trends. International Journal of Information Technology Project Management (IJITPM), 7(3), 54-73.

Journals & Standards

• IJPM This a journal that covers and publishes the trends that are used in the different projects completed or going on throughout the world thus helped me to gain knowledge about the different techniques and tools. The journal will be helpful in acquiring and implementing different techniques and tools in order to manage the project with the optimum use of resources so that the deviation between the desired output and outcome of a project.   
• PMJ From this journal, the complexities of the different projects, their risks and resource management plans can help me in respective fields of a project.    With the better knowledge of the complexity of the projects, I will be able to improve the planning and scheduling for different projects.  
• SAI Global From this journal I learned about prioritizing the different tasks in the planning phase of the project.

It will help me in the prioritization of the tasks as well following the critical path for the project so that project can be completed if it is running behind the schedule.  

Portfolio Reflection

Planning and scheduling of the different tasks inside any project environment can be described as the activities that are required for launching a fixed course of action within a predicted environment so the pre-determined objectives of the organization or the project team.  I also learned that the requirements of the organizations play a vital role in setting major milestones for a certain project. These pre-determined project milestones need to be   meet by the project managers and the functional managers. Having the project work statement or the SOW the project manager as well as the team have to set the objectives for different time periods. In order to achieve these objectives, we have to outline the necessary tasks using the WBS (work break down structure) in order to achieve those objectives.

As most of the project planning includes the responsibility of distinguishing the required resources that should be required at any point of the project. In most of the cases it is frequently observed that minor requirements are ignored from the project requirements list. For instance, if a project targets incorporating another sub project administrator/manager, at that point it is important to allocate proper resources to avoid un necessary delay in the middle of execution of a project plan. A point by point and detailed list of required resources helps project plans and budget more accurate.

With the use of the WBS, the Cost for the different tasks in the project, budgets can be established in an accurate manner. Performance of the team members can be easily tracked depending upon their achievement of deliverables at the end of every stage. The project objectives can be aligned to different available resources in order to complete the project in the predetermined time.

The project management plan that comprehend and incorporates too much deliverables in too little time period can lead to the failure of the projects. The reason behind this can be stated as poor financial estimates for the task schedules and plans that are based on insufficient data.

Usually small and medium scale projects mainly depend on the three level work break down structure or WBS. In this work break down structure Level 1 of it is used to define authorization and responsibilities of the tasks or work in the project. Level 2 for formulating the budget for the project and the last level or level 3 to prepare schedules for the tasks defined in the level 1.