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. A workplace that has no social aspect between employees or limited communication…[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 people working on it. This is a difficult job and one that it…[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 aspect. One thing I do find surprising is the only 32% who are motivated by fair pay. This isn’t saying…[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 all people on a product development team (or any team for that matter) can make or…[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 crucial. Like you said, the WBS is not a replacement for other documents necessary in planning phase, but it is a crucial part of…[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 products and materials out available for purchase and many of them can be interchanged to complete similar tasks.…[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 detrimental effects on the overall project. It is the responsibility for the project managers to facilitate…[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 to create the best product. That is not the case. Money is the driving factor behind product development and minimizing…[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 that verification tests can just be done for no reason excessively prematurely. It is necessary to…[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 getting a broad range of views to asses is imperative in order to not oversee any glaring risk of the project.…[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. Throughout the development process, things change and the schedule and budgets might need to be adjusted.…[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 development process. Staying on track in product development is very important, but maintaining a high standard for the work done and…[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 rational discussion between all parties involved was selected. As for your animal testing question relating to 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 technical requirements to satisfy them. After development of the product has taken place, a…[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 by receiving a high quantity of defects in a shipment form a vendor, the most viable option would be to immediately contact your current…[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 depending on it to continue their progress. Therefore, everyone on all levels of the team 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 broad, some tasks will be done early and further developments will be delayed while waiting for others. If the range between earliest and latest dates is…[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 communicate can be detrimental to the progress made on the project. Ideally, everyone on the team has a specified set of roles and…[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, this should be settled at the start of the project, knowing when team members are going to have…[Read more]