I agree with gingeranderson, a company should look at how much time, effort, and cost its going to take to in-source a clinical trial. They then should call a CRO and get a quote from it and compare the two. I believe that in most cases, unless a company has some type of previous experience with clinical trials, it should hire a CRO. These…[Read more]

I would definitely pick an engineering role. This is because, engineering roles are a lot more interactive in terms of hands on projects and technical skills. An engineering role deals with the details and the analysis and everything that actually gets put into a project, while a manager only directs and sees the outcome. The best part about an…[Read more]

Filling a position of an employee that performed critical work for a project can be very challenging. This is especially because he/she is probably an expert in the tasks they perform for the project and know the most about whatever they’re doing. A solution could be trying to find someone on their same team that can take on the work they have b…[Read more]

I believe our company tackles this issue wisely. Each employee has a manager that practices reactive management. But each employee is assigned to a team and each team has a lead. That lead practices preventive management. This combination allows for the good in each style of management to be used and the outcome is a smooth and complete work…[Read more]

I don’t think that using the same supplier but a different coating would satisfy the dual source requirement. Using a different coating might not be as useful and productive because each coating has a different set of properties. These properties dictate the behavior of the coating over time. They might last a different amount of years, be used f…[Read more]

In the monitoring and controlling phase, it is very important to keep track of unexpected growth. That growth can be in terms of monetary value. The project might go through a scope change that would require a larger sum of money to complete. The monitoring and controlling phase helps keep track of those scope changes and those planned and actual…[Read more]

A change request at Lockheed Martin works in a very similar manner. First the person submitting the change request must log it on a special program and that program. That program will ask him a series of questions about the change like why is it being made and how important it is and if it’s a flaw or an enhancement. Then that program provides the…[Read more]

We have a very efficient way of tackling this dilemma. Every two weeks each team sits in a room and looks through the work needed to be performed for the following two weeks. Based on this, we write tasks for about 45 minutes to an hour. Then, after everyone is done writing their tasks, we discuss them one by one. We give an hour estimate to how…[Read more]

The project manager should look at other vendors in a timely manner and contact them for a quote. He should also look at the all their track records and only contact the ones with a clean record. He could also host a meeting with project team members and ask their thoughts. He could host a vote amongst members. One of the most important things is…[Read more]

To have the deliverables ready in time, as a manager, you need to take certain steps and plan ahead. First you need to be a very organized and communicative manager. You need to set deadlines, communicate with the different teams and be able to keep track of progress. I believe the most important step in delivering everything on time is setting…[Read more]

I would have to agree that the most important phase is the planning phase. It is what the other phases ride off of. In the planning phase, the project blooms. It is defined. In my company, during the planning phase, we hold meetings and discuss ideas on how to carry out a project. We discuss the minor details needed like staffing, resources,…[Read more]

The planning phase in our company is crucial for any project. This is because the projects we take on are government funded projects and any mistake in the planning phase would risk us losing the entire project. This is why planning at my company is taken very seriously. We hold meetings and discuss daily/weekly/monthly goals. We outline action…[Read more]

Logging work is beyond important. In my company, we also write a lot of scripts so it’s very helpful to keep documentation on how to use each script. We also have to keep track of certain things we tested and how we tested them. We have to keep a detailed record in case someone new joins the project/team they would be able to pick it up quickly.…[Read more]

The first thing that should be done when looking at change requests is the reason behind them. We receive a lot of change requests on projects we work on. Some of these requests are unnecessary because one parameter was overlooked somewhere. It is critical to evaluate these change requests and make sure that they are actually needed. To do so, you…[Read more]

I had a coworker that worked in the company for 14 years. Since the day I started working, she did nothing the entire time but talk to other coworkers and sit on her phone. She had no communication and wasn’t responsive to any reprimands. My manager would always ask me to give her an update of how she was doing because I worked on the same team as…[Read more]

Within my company, project managers go through numerous challenges. Some of the main challenges are communication, managing styles and organization. Communication is usually the main problem a project manager runs into. A project manager usually has to communicate across multiple teams, other managers and sometimes even different companies for…[Read more]

In the planning phase of a medical device, some more aspects that should be discussed are: stakeholders, roles and responsibilities, scope, schedule and cost, management plan, staffing plan, quality and risk. These are some very important terms to discuss in the planning phase. Roles and responsibilities include project sponsors, project team,…[Read more]

Delays in a project can be a major factor for the failure of it. There are multiple solutions around this however. The solutions are specific to what the time delays are caused by. But in general, most unexpected delays can be solved by getting inputs from team members and collaboratively thinking of a solution. If that doesn’t work for whatever…[Read more]

If a manager or team member has a personal connection to the project, and that project looks like it will not succeed, it can be very challenging to pull it off. If a risk management team decides that a project is too risky to keep going, they should have the power to shut that project down. But there should be an opportunity for the employees…[Read more]