I personally think the planning phase is the most important phase during a project. It sets the tone for the project and as Dr. Simon mentions if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. For instance if you have gone through the proper steps in planning and have a great plan, if something happened at the company and you could not move forward to the…[Read more]

As @cdj24 mentioned SV=EV-PV. Where EV is the percent complete* original budgeted cost of task and PV is the vale of the work you are supposed to have on a certain date. I agree as others have mentioned that in order to have a positive SV which means you are ahead of schedule, you need to have have a larger percent complete than planned. The…[Read more]

If you’re in the Executing Phase it is the Project Manager’s responsibility to make sure that the team is performing their tasks on schedule and to deal with a team member’s vacation, or absence. As @cdj24 mentions, it should be communicated in the planning phase if a team member is planning to take a big vacation or be absent from work. However,…[Read more]

As a means to save time and money and still hit the product launch, I agree with @cdj24 to get as much research done as possible so that you don’t spend as much time and money on experiments that might ultimately fail. For this week’s simulation our group had many rounds back and forth with having a plan to use a particular carrier and then…[Read more]

I agree with @srg36 that even if you use project management tools like Pert charts, Gantt charts, there will still inevitably encounter pitfalls, but you will be able to more effectively manage these scenarios with these management tools. As Dr. Simon mentions in lecture, it is important not only to schedule the tasks but to account for costs and…[Read more]

I agree with @bnb6 that I wouldn’t consider there to be risks with the V&V process itself, but rather the risks if there was a problem during the verification stage or even the verification was completed successfully that the device could be properly validated. For example maybe all the specs are correct and the design outputs are equal to the…[Read more]

I agree with @srg36 and @cdj24 that the four categories are in order. Upper management is responsible for developing the strategic plan and how it can be executed. I agree that it can be frustrating for upper management to make these decisions without having input from the Project/Portfolio managers who will end up doing the work, but the reality…[Read more]