As compared to the rest of the world, Americans do on average work more, and this overworking could definitely been seen as detrimental for motivation, happiness, and overall production. From my point of view, the reason for this overworking is…   Read more»

Motivation of project managers have a direct correlation on the overall productiveness of the team. For team members to stay engaged and productive, they generally need proper motivation. This is just another incredibly important aspect of the project managers job….   Read more»

Project managers are required to be a sort of jack-of-all-trades. Meaning, as you said, project managers must have strong qualities of communication, interpersonal skills, organization, crisis management, along with others. Managers are tasked with managing a project by managing the…   Read more»

Personally, I don’t find this list of motivations to work particularly surprising. Most people enjoy challenging and exciting work to keep them engaged in their job. And generally this will go hand and hand with the career growth and development…   Read more»

One of the most important aspects of project management I learned in this course is just how crucial proper communication is. In almost every lecture, and every aspect of project management from planning to execution, communication is key. Communication between…   Read more»

The WBS lays out all the small tasks required to be done for the completion of the overall project. In order to have a plan set for all aspects working together, which is necessary for product development, the WBS is…   Read more»

In my experience with procurement management, it is necessary to have a very clear idea of the plan of the project and the specs of the materials needed. This is where procurement management becomes important. There are a lot of…   Read more»

Communication should be present between all people in every branch of product development. Communication is the key for success in the development of a project and if even one part of a team is slacking in communication it can have…   Read more»

Planned value and actual costs, relating to the overall budget is one of the most important factors, if not the most important, in product development. While it would be nice to say money doesn’t matter, and the goal is only…   Read more»

It is a common theme that different phases of product development can flow into one another. This is the same case with design verification. However,due to the nature of design verification being to check that inputs=outputs, this does not mean…   Read more»

It is a very important aspect of the planning phase for the team to ensure they have covered all the ground and assessed possible risk from every stakeholder. There will be varying opinions about possible risk from all departments, and…   Read more»

A planning phase is essential to the product development timeline. Having a good idea of budgetary needs, timelines and deadlines to meet, and team member duties is necessary for success. However, I like the idea you bring up, things change….   Read more»

I personally do not have any first hand experience with this situation. However, based on what I have learned in this class, I can imagine that if this were to happen, it could cause a variety of problems within the…   Read more»

As stated in previous forums and lectures in this class,, communication is the key to a large part of the product development process. In the case of the miniSim, both major delays seemed to have the best outcome, when the…   Read more»

Design validation is incredibly important in the product development process because it is what actually tests to make sure you fulfilled your goals. In the early phases of planning, a list of necessary customer needs, should have been translated into…   Read more»

Agreed, at this point it will not be possible to not delay the project, unless the quality of the product is sacrificed, which is the last thing any company would want to do. So as for minimizing the delay caused…   Read more»

Like said in another forum post, a large challenge that all project managers face is communication. It sounds simple, but all projects, especially larger ones rely on so many people to complete their responsibilities on time because someone else is…   Read more»

This is a very important task in planning out the ES, EF, LS, and LF dates for a task, because it sets the timeline that must be followed for all progress made on the project. If the range is too…   Read more»

Communication is a key aspect of both managing a team and operating as a member of a team. As the PM, having a member who is unresponsive and lacks either communication skills or the desire to make an effort to…   Read more»

Communication is really the key for all project teams. Both communication between team members and communication between the team members and the project manager are essential to the performance of the team. In terms of taking vacation as you mentioned,…   Read more»