Like many of you who have already discussed your ideal career plans on this thread, I would also like to start my professional career as an engineer and work my way into management as my career progresses. I did not…   Read more»

I definitely suffer from this same “tunnel vision” issue when it comes to the simulations. Because there are many variables that can be changed during the experimental process, I also find it hard to switch gears sometimes when I feel…   Read more»

I do believe the project manager’s level of motivation has a large and direct impact on the rest of the project team. Team members look up to the manager as their leader and the culture of the team ultimately stems…   Read more»

It makes sense that exciting and challenging work is what keeps people motivated to continue working, especially when their work is their passion. But I can also see how this correlates with the #1 reason for why people leave work,…   Read more»

As I am still an undergraduate student and have no experience in industry, I am very grateful to have taken this course before I graduate. Most, if not all, of my classes up until this point have been purely technical…   Read more»

For individual work and projects, my motivator is a desire to get better and make progress each day. It is easier to be motivated when you are working towards something that you are passionate about, but it takes inner determination…   Read more»

The three main purposes of human resource management include organizational planning, staff acquisitions, and team development. Organizational planning includes identifying and assigning project roles and responsibilities to members of the team and reporting any relationships within the team. Some inputs…   Read more»

Quality assurance includes the activities performed within the quality system and answers the question of whether or not a project is equipped to handle the quality standards and requirements. Some inputs to quality assurance are the quality management plan, project…   Read more»

Communication is crucial for the progress of any project regardless of whether the project consists of 2 team members of 5 different departments and should serve as a two way street between management and the team members of the project….   Read more»

Before a team is selected, management should be made aware of any planned absences of any project team members so that they can plan the timeline of the project accordingly and adjustments can be made. Having knowledge of absences, such…   Read more»

1. Agreeing on the project goals is important to overall team success, and most importantly, chemistry. Team work is the main component of all projects, and if team members do not agree on the overall goals of the project, a…   Read more»

The cost of each task within a project, which as already mentioned in this thread, can directly relate to the duration of each individual task. Therefore, certain costs, such as earned value, play a big part in judging whether or…   Read more»

Increasing risk in order to decrease the length of a task, and subsequently the project as a whole, is a tactic that should be strictly situational, depending on the type of risk and amount of risk involved. If the reward…   Read more»

During the Closing Phase, contracts must be closed, all payments must be completed, final performance reports must be given, lessons learned from the project must be logged, and the project must be handed off. For the completion of every product,…   Read more»

My personal experiences regarding logging work are very similar to many of the replies on this thread. For my capstone project last semester, we had to test all of our components of the project in a research lab. Because there…   Read more»

There are many different factors that can lead to the failure of a project, some preventable and some unpreventable. Some preventable issues that may arise during the course of a project that can be detrimental to the success of a…   Read more»

This post thread brings up some great points regarding time sensitive experimental testing. Over the course of last week’s simulation, it took our group several attempts at a solution before realizing that we needed to propose an experiment that tested…   Read more»

The word “risk” does tend to have more of a negative connotation attached to it, but this is misleading and can be disproved by a singular phrase we have learned in this course – “risk vs. reward.” This statement implies…   Read more»

Although I do not yet have any industry experience as I am an undergraduate student, I did learn about Gantt charts and had to use one for my Capstone project that took place the previous two semesters. Due to COVID-19…   Read more»