For 4-5 years before starting my PhD, I worked at General Dynamics Electric Boat. The company designs and builds submarines. I have worked in the field on submarines overseeing work done by the navy as well as on the design side managing projects in the office setting. I took several project management classes at my company through Stevens Institute of Technology (specifically Dinesh Verma) and at the University of Connecticut. In this post, I want to discuss how I feel the projects I worked on were managed, specially the tools that were used to make it go well.

In the lecture, interpersonal skills were emphasized and awareness, empathy, regulation, motivation and social skills were called out. I completely agree that interpersonal skills were key to managing a project and outputting a quality product! To me, this translates to one thing that is a cancer in most industries and that is micromanagement. For a project to output a quality product, I believe the project manager needs interpersonal skills and specially MUST NEVER micromanage or be micromanaged. This needs to be emphasize in project management courses.

On that note, I wanted to share my favorite excerpt from a project management book: "Micromanagers are rarely likeable enough for anyone to try to help them. Our considered advice to PMs who are micromanaged is to request a transfer." Harsh, may or may not be true....but probably true.

Does anyone else have any suggestions about key things to do or not do when managing a project or want to expand on their experiences with micromanage and the importance of interpersonal skills?

reference: Meredith, JR and SJ, Mantel. Project Management: A Managerial Approach, 7th Ed. New York. Wiley 2009. Print

I work for a class I and II medical device company that carries out development, manufacturing and marketing of implant-based dental restorations. Unfortunately we do not have a well developed project management system, in other words we don't have project managers, usually senior process engineers take the role and run the projects, to keep track of activities we use excel. I have been involved in different projects as testing, design and process engineer; I have seen that one the major problems we faced is ineffective communications. In my opinion to fix this problem; organizations must help everyone learn to say the right things to the right people in the right channels.

As an entry level Mechanical Engineer straight out of college, I'm still learning how project management comes into play into the overall company's work day. Along with my current job and my prior internship that dealt with the design and verification testing of LED lighting fixtures, it seems project managers aren't really your traditional type of manager where people work for you. Project Managers, at least from what I've witnessed seemed to be more involved and you work with them, not for them.

Currently I'm not sure if I could say my current company is advanced in Project Management, but they are definitely aware of its need in order for the company to maintain productivity. It seems a lot of the duties a typical Project Manager would carry out are actually spread out amongst several departments. We do have people in the company with the role as "Project Manager," and they seem to oversee the overall timeline of several projects and handle the budgeting, and strategies in order to reach the overall goal. There's also people in procurement that handle the buying and purchasing of parts needed for a project to continue. As a Mechanical Engineer I take on the technicalities of the design of several projects that are handed down to me by my Engineering Team Lead. I feel so far for my short time being in industry, that the system is working as everybody has a role to play and its the Project Managers that kind of mesh everything together.

When it comes to project management software, since I work for a company that designs servers found in data centers, there are several parts that are needed in the design of a server. In order to keep track of all the parts, project management has an agile system that assigns part numbers to all these parts and keeps track of any changes.

Hello everyone,

I have worked in a small Electrical Engineering company that sells all kinds electric products such as motors, transformers, solar and wind power generators. The company has a store where customers come in and out, but it also has a Project Managing Section. I worked there for 2 years as a Project Manager Assistant. Unfortunately, we don't have a well developed structure. The owner of the company is an Electrical Engineer and also a project Manager. He is the one who runs the projects and makes sure that everything is done on time by the workers. I have had some projects on which I had to do multiple tasks, meaning that my job is not enclosed to only one thing. However, clients always leave with a smile on their face because the owner gives them a great customer service.He cares about them, sells them the product to a very cheap price and delivers it on time. The reason for why the business keeps growing is because of the service offered in every project.

I work for Ethicon Biosurgery and they are a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson. The company's project management awareness is advanced, however it is not without it's flaws. The company provides many resources from conferences, seminars, and online tutorials on topics pertaining to project management and the importance behind successful team work. However, based off the several projects I have been a part of there have been times where the project flowed seamlessly while other times there were many hurdles, mainly due to communication problems and time delays in reporting information between different divisions. From personal experience the fewer divisions that were involved in a project the more efficiently the project was completed. With the couple large scale projects I worked on the main problem I noticed was that there was no sense of urgency when information was requested. I believe that this stems from the fact that other divisions focus more on their own projects and do not give as much priority to a project of such a large scale and a diffusion of responsibilities is created.

The project management at my company is advanced and uses visual project management system to manage projects. Each project begins with the master schedule set up by the member of each department such as quality, product development, material research, process development and regulatory affairs. The master schedule includes 4 stages with major achievement at the end of the stage. Each member completes the schedule to reach each stages of the master schedule. Initial project risk is also identified before start of the project. Team also aligns daily to review the progress of the tasks.

Thanks,
Bhargav

At my current job, I would say that my company is still growing in terms of project management awareness at least in my department. At my company we do have Project Managers or PJMs as we call them that oversee the project budget, deadlines, customer communication, and also dictate information to all different teams involved, teams such as thermal, mechanical, procurement, integration team, and so on. Once the details of the project are out there, they watch from afar to ensure each team is meeting deadlines or progressing at a good pace. They intervene when there are issues causing delays, customers present new information that has to be told to the affected teams, and so on. So far from my short time with the company, I see the system working fine. How well, I can’t say for sure but with each passing project I do see success and improvement being made.

As part of the Mechanical Engineering team, I am involved in the design aspect of the project. I am given a description by my team lead/manager about an accessory or required part that the customers is requesting be made. I then brainstorm and model the new part using SolidWorks. Once the design is complete, I get it approved by my manager. Then I work with the Procurement Team on communicating the design to vendors and have samples be made for fit check and functionality proposes. So in the project I'm on the lower end of the process.

In terms of project management software, my company uses a few. I’ve seen a database software used that creates and keeps track of part numbers of items designed by the engineering teams. Any changes to the items are documented and put into the database to ensure the latest parts are used. These part numbers can used to create BoMs that the database keeps track of. There is also a system that keeps track of inventory via part numbers to ensure we have enough parts to fulfill any customer demands that might arise.

My company uses Microsoft Project to manage project timelines, and we use Windchill to manage project documentation and our DHFs.

I would say our project management awareness is medium. I feel like we definitely could use more project management tools. I find that we really only use timelines, but we don't use all the tools that could help us manage and coordinate timely execution of all the tasks on the timeline. I also often find that we work off of multiple timelines for the same project and then waste time merging them into one overall timeline later on.

I have been involved in projects mainly as a team member, executing on various tasks, and have not had too much project management experience. I feel like the projects that I have worked on and am working on have been poorly managed. However, they were also very challenging projects, with endless technical and manufacturing challenges and setbacks. I have found that tasks which were on the critical path were often overlooked until the last minute and then it was a mad rush to get them done so they didn't delay the project. Also, with the project that I am working on currently, I think a substantial amount of time gets wasted arguing about and trying to agree on a project timeline that keeps changing.

I have worked in the medical device industry for the last 14 years. The last 10 years have been at Cordis which recently became part of Cardinal Health (previously part of Johnson and Johnson). I have always used Microsoft project to manage projects. Johnson and Johnson had very advanced project management awareness with a dedicated project management organization within the company. J&J also had internal training programs for project management. Cardinal Health does not seem to have the same knowledge of project management or experience in managing the types of projects that the Cordis acquistion brought to the company. However, Cordis was able to maintain a lot of the PM infrastructure post acquisition. I have been personally involved in many projects, however not as the project manager. These projects have had various degrees of success. The two main problems I have often encountered are a lack of proper project resourcing, and a poor techinical understanding early on from the people initiating the project. The lack of resources causes projects to miss deadlines and drag on. The poor understanding by the people who evaluate projects means they are often a lot more work than initially thought.

The company that I currently work at is quite proficient with project management. It has a dedicated project management office with several project managers. Projects are ranked in priority, and the status of the highest priority projects are regularly reported to the executive board.

For things like timelines, the software that is primarily used is MS Project. However more day-to-day aspects like status lists and actions that are being taken on open item are kept track of in MS Excel.

I am fortunate to be working on a team with a good project manager. As Dr. Simon says in his lecture, "A project manager goes around and does things for the people on his or her team in order to make their job easier and to facilitate what they can do." This is exactly what my project manager does - and instead of asking things like, "Why is this not done yet?", he instead asks, "What else do you need in order to complete this task?" I think that this is a good way to manage a team because it points out where the delays are specifically coming from.

At my previous jobs, which were not in the medical device industry, the lines of communication were relatively open but not always utilised to the fullest.

* What sorts of project management software or systems does your company have?
We primarily used email or face-to-face communication, which was not always for the best. Often, people were left off of email lists, which caused confusion later down the line. Although attempts were made to mainstream, another issue was that individuals within the company refused to follow-up on emails and preferred only face-to-face communication, which was problematic once the company grew.

* How advanced would you say your company’s project management awareness is, and why?
The awareness was severely lacking -- it was a relatively new organization but the foundation was essentially decimated within the first 6 months of launch. Several key players left and the rest of the staff was left to flounder. However, overtime, the organization has begun to thrive but there are severe internal communication issues.

* How have you personally been involved in a project before, and how do you feel it was managed?
I led a few projects, which I hope were executed well -- the results were achieved in the end. However, recently, I have been in communication with the organization and the management is very much lacking. Many of the employees have left the company because of a lack of clear and open communication from the top managers.

I currently work in the Forensic Toxicology department of a diagnostic laboratory, mostly handling GC/MS confirmation of positively screened drug samples. Within the company, most project management communication is done through emails or in person between lab directors and supervisors along with the technologists assigned to a current project. The company employs regular meetings with supervisors, directors and upper management discussing the progress of projects currently in development. Since the company has managed to maintain a small company environment, even the higher level management, such as the VP of Technical Operations actively communicates with supervisors and technologists directly, which gives them a better idea of how a project is being worked on. Most of my personal involvement in regards to project management has been protocol development and implementation of new tests that the company wants to do ‘in house’. This usually involves planning out the formulation of standard curves and QC checks for the tests, writing the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), validations of any new instruments, and performing validation testing of the actual testing procedure that will later be approved by QC departments and the various accrediting organizations such as NYS or CAP. In my experience most of these projects have been well managed, with only a few being delayed due to a lack of valid samples for validation testing.

My project management skills are from the corporate standpoint and more from the individual projects I have taken on through my personal life. I have handed school projects well and often taken the leadership role for the projects. In my fraternity, I was my own pledge class president. This means I led my pledge class to the best of my ability to get through the process. It was basically an 8-week project that contained a multitude of check points and individual projects that needed to be submitted prior to the end of the process. It was a great experience and I think on of the most important parts was that my group worked well as a team.

Since I am still an undergraduate student, my project management skills stem from previous internships and school projects that I have been assigned. During my internship at Spex Certiprep, a manufacturing company ,in Metuchen, NJ, I (and two other interns) were hired to develop and execute a new organizational system for their chemicals. Since all the employees were overall very busy, a new system wasn't proposed until their old system was too unorganized to handle and products went missing. Utilizing Microsoft Excel, the three of us developed a neater storage system that would allow the chemist to find what they need easily and disposed of any expired or damaged chemicals/products. After a few days of getting to know each other, we were all able to identify our ideal position that would allow the process to run as smoothly as possible. I and one of the other interns took leadership of the project in order to meet the deadline we were assigned. Every decision that was made was brought to us first before being executed and we believe we worked to the best of our ability to complete our task. Taking the time to identify our skills we were able to function like a smooth running machine; which made the project very easy for us complete in less than three months.