My greatest motivator is the desire to accomplish my goals. I’m blessed to be in a position that I’ve dreamt of obtaining where my goals are merely within arms reach. I’m able to work alongside some of the greatest PhDs…   Read more»

This is a great question that I can actually personally relate to. I currently work as a clinical scientist in a large laboratory within a specialized hospital. In this role, I’ve learned a great deal and have had lots of…   Read more»

There have been many great takeaways from this course. Some of the skills that I found most useful was the importance of communication and effective planning. All professions require some form of communication and/or social skill and some scale of…   Read more»

Personally, the reason why I chose to work for the company that I work for was due to meaningful work and the endless career growth and opportunities. Once I began working, the work was certainly exciting and challenging, which increased…   Read more»

Before taking this course, I was not familiar with what project management was. As a laboratory scientist, my “field-of-view” is very limited to my personal experiences and the roles I’m familiar with within the laboratory. After learning about project management…   Read more»

When there’s an underperforming employee, it’s essential to get a clear understanding of why the employee is not performing up to standards. If I were in this position, I would meet with the employee to try to understand their reasoning….   Read more»

In the mini-sim, we learned that having more vendors meant more time, money, and a broader range for the specs. Other things to consider are whether or not the service or product can be produced from within, which would also…   Read more»

I agree with @anthonynjit . Although the analogous approach is quicker and less costly, its downfalls include being less accurate, considering little detail and understanding in preparing estimates, and caps on overall project costs. On the other hand, the bottom-up…   Read more»

Personally, I’ve only had the opportunity of working within laboratories so the companies that come to mind for me are: Thermo Fisher Scientific  Agilent Bio-Rad Johnson&Johnson Roche Diagnostics PerkinElmer It’s also good to note that a lot of major hospitals…   Read more»

This is a great point! I don’t have any experience working in design transfer projects but in my opinion, the specification of project managers for research and development and design transfer is essential. Research and development is the trial and…   Read more»

This week’s simulation tasked teams to find out what is causing the product to fail cytotoxicity testing at Nelmsa Toxicology. Due to this result, the verification of the product is at a halt and further testing of the ingredients is…   Read more»

I agree. With a schedule variance, the project may need more hands on deck or modification to the workflow. My first instinct would be to meet with the team to discuss how we can make the workflows with each task…   Read more»

Hi everyone! I’m Jada Barbee, a master’s student at NJIT  studying biomedical engineering. I currently work at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC as a licensed clinical laboratory technologist. Let’s connect! I look forward to it. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jadabarbee  

I agree with the comment above. Success can certainly be defined by the completion of all tasks but as stated, success in not equal. The success of a project could be many different things including simply completing all tasks, all…   Read more»

I agree with @nk434 ! Delays may occur due to a plethora of different uncontrollable factors and the project team members are not always to blame. The implementation of personnel evaluations can definitely improve productivity within project teams by setting goals…   Read more»

I think falsifying progress would be extremely difficult. Within the initiation phase of a project, project planning takes place and is a crucial step in keeping on track to meet deadlines. Any reason for falsification would mean that the progress…   Read more»

The board of directors is a constituent of the organizational governance in ensuring accountability, fairness, and transparency to stakeholders. They reinforce standards and compliance along with organizational policies and much more. In project management, the project team will have considerably…   Read more»

I think experience in project management would be a great indication to land a position in the field. Without experience, I do not think a degree specific to project management is necessary. People seeking opportunities within the field would have…   Read more»

In my opinion, there’s benefits to both having a project management department within the company and hiring from outside of the company. By creating a project management department within the company, the team will specialize solely in the products that the…   Read more»

When scheduling tasks, the expected duration of each task is based off of the relationships between the tasks and an estimate of the duration. In the last lecture, Dr. Simon mentioned the importance of incorporating all team members in deciding…   Read more»