This disconnect doesn’t really surprise me. It’s very easy for someone who didn’t spend much time working on a specific project (usually upper management) to take a quick look at some metrics they might have available (hours worked, number of…   Read more»

After becoming more familiar with managerial roles over this past semester, I can say that I don’t particularly want to become a manager anytime soon. I have a newfound understanding and appreciation for what managers do, but I think I’ll…   Read more»

I think my biggest potential motivator is good coworkers. I’ve made some real lasting friendships through work that have carried on even after parting jobs. It’s interesting for me to learn more about people and it goes a long way…   Read more»

I think these reasons will definitely vary based on the kind of work people do. I think these numbers are pretty reasonable for a private sector engineering job, and generally within my expectations. When you get down to more part-time…   Read more»

The first capstone project I was assigned to suffered from scope creep, or rather a lack of scope definition. When the professor was describing the project at first, it was rather vague and only described the subject that the project…   Read more»

I could consider my one summer internship an integration of sorts. I was in charge of designing a website with Google Maps API, and eventually we would have to integrate it with external data coming in through another website. The…   Read more»

Although I haven’t had any direct experience with procurement myself, I’ve caught glimpses of the processes in some previous jobs. When I worked in a restaurant, I often had to go back into storage to refill our supply of cups,…   Read more»

I think in general IPEC is always the framework for projects. What I’ve been told is that this cycle is typically disrupted when other people (usually higher-ups) hand you unexpected challenges and force you to do something.Speaking as something who’s…   Read more»

I think depending on the severity of the reason for recall, a number of scenarios could occur. For a situation where the risk to the consumer is small to moderate, as is with this EpiPen recall, the previous responses are…   Read more»

I’ve only been part of an “unofficial” design review meeting, but from what some of my classmates have told me it’s quite similar to what they experience. Everyone was emailed the document in review (in this case a DSD) a…   Read more»

I think the multitude of project document updates is one of the most important but often overlooked aspects of monitoring and controlling. All of these documents are going to be audited eventually so it is paramount to keep them organized…   Read more»

I was working on a project during my undergraduate where I had to develop a rehabilitation glove for stroke patients. We had acquired a budget of $3000 and had to decide what we needed for a prototype. I was made…   Read more»

Adding on to this, here are some more quality assurance tools and techniques: Pareto chart: This is a bar graph where length represents frequency (e.g. of complaints) or cost, and where the bars are arranged left to right in order…   Read more»

For vacations specifically, it helps a lot for a PM to talk with each team member they’re managing and perhaps get a heads up on when exactly they may take a vacation. This will help you avoid conflicts in the…   Read more»

Thinking optimistically, I think the only way a missed milestone could be a positive would be when it reveals an issue. From what I gather, sometimes project managers don’t have total control over the deadlines of a project. Sometimes it’s…   Read more»

One of my friends had taken this course before and suggested it to me because it really helped with her knowledge of FDA regulations and when interviewers asked her about this. I had previously taken a few courses about FDA…   Read more»

There definitely will always be challenges communicating with international branches of the same company. As was previously stated, time differences, language differences, and cultural differences are all challenges to consider. However, I think the cultural differences will be the most…   Read more»

Like many of the previous replies, a lack of communication and time has been one of the most prolific problems in the projects I’ve worked on. In one such project we had made an initial WBS that we would have…   Read more»

I’ve experienced this during one of my internships. One half of the team was set to work doing programming for some output data from a technology no one had experience with (RFID chips), and the other half’s goal was to…   Read more»

I was once working on a small-scale project at Monmouth University where the project sponsor was the local fire department and my project managers in a sense were two professors. These made up the enterprise environmental factors since I don’t…   Read more»