CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Project Management
LEARNING OBJECTIVES—
This chapter presents a broad introduction to project management. After completing this chapter, each student should be able to perform the following:
Core Objectives
Define a project and project management in your own words, using characteristics that are common to most projects, and describe reasons why more organizations are using project management.
Describe major activities and deliverables at each project life cycle stage.
List and define the ten knowledge areas and five process groups of the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK®).
Delineate measures of project success and failure, and reasons for both.
Contrast predictive or plan-driven and adaptive or change-driven project life cycle approaches.
Behavioral Objectives
Identify project roles and distinguish key responsibilities for project team members.
Describe the importance of collaborative effort during the project life cycle.
TEACHING STRATEGIES
Each chapter starts with learning objectives stated in measurable form as shown above. All chapters will have core objectives, which we believe any student of project management, should master. Chapters also include behavioral and/or technical objectives, which you can also use depending on what you wish to emphasize. If you start with slides that list the objectives, you can emphasize that the students need to be able to accomplish each. We find it helpful to paraphrase a few of them and pick one to ask the students why they think it is included.
Many students will not have read the first chapter before the first class. Mike’s introductory essay on how he successfully climbed Mount Aconcagua (second highest of the Seven Summits after Mount Everest) whereas others died in the attempt is a great attention getter.
We believe in active learning, so we include at least one breakout session every hour. These are often preceded by an introduction of the material and we pose at least one question or framework for the students to follow. We find a few simple rules are fun for the students and encourage participation. Ask one person to record what the group discussed/decided. Ask a different person to be the group’s spokesperson – that way at least two people stay alert. Ask the spokesperson to state what they learned from the exercise and “ditto” does not count. That means they cannot take the easy way out and say another group took their idea. This encourages volunteers to report first and forces teams to think beyond the obvious lesson and think creatively. If there are points we especially want to emphasize, we will summarize by repeating the points (and crediting the groups who made them) or introducing them if no group mentioned them. The first example breakout session follows.
Once we briefly cover what a project is (students in discussion will provide examples) and why project management is important, we ask the students to work in groups of four or five with large paper or sections of a chalk or white board. We ask them to describe project success and reasons for each for about 10 minutes. Alternatively, you can ask the students to describe project failure and the causes of it. Either way, you set the expectation that students will actively participate in every class. It also serves as in introduction to the need to develop both soft and hard skills.
Since some students enjoy software, we mention MS Project early. An easy way to do this is to have the students look at the inside front cover on the left to see what MS Project is used for and where it is covered in the book.
We like to cover the concept of project life cycles. It is easy to use a house-building project as an example since the walk-through to inspect the project result helps students envision the idea of an approval to pass from one stage to the next.
The increasing popularity of the agile (adaptive or change-driven) approach to projects creates another opportunity for discussion. You can introduce the extremes of totally plan-driven versus totally adaptive project schedules and ask what type of projects might lend themselves to each and what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each. This discussion can culminate with the idea that contemporary project management can use parts of both and that we will explore differences throughout the course. An agile icon appears in the margin in many places in the text where either different methods and/or different terminology is used in agile versus plan-driven approaches. The corresponding text is in alternate color to call attention to it. There is also an agile appendix that lists all of the ways agile is emphasized differently than traditional project management and the chapter in which each point is covered in the text.
Introduction to Project Management
LEARNING OBJECTIVES—
This chapter presents a broad introduction to project management. After completing this chapter, each student should be able to perform the following:
Core Objectives
Define a project and project management in your own words, using characteristics that are common to most projects, and describe reasons why more organizations are using project management.
Describe major activities and deliverables at each project life cycle stage.
List and define the ten knowledge areas and five process groups of the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK®).
Delineate measures of project success and failure, and reasons for both.
Contrast predictive or plan-driven and adaptive or change-driven project life cycle approaches.
Behavioral Objectives
Identify project roles and distinguish key responsibilities for project team members.
Describe the importance of collaborative effort during the project life cycle.
TEACHING STRATEGIES
Each chapter starts with learning objectives stated in measurable form as shown above. All chapters will have core objectives, which we believe any student of project management, should master. Chapters also include behavioral and/or technical objectives, which you can also use depending on what you wish to emphasize. If you start with slides that list the objectives, you can emphasize that the students need to be able to accomplish each. We find it helpful to paraphrase a few of them and pick one to ask the students why they think it is included.
Many students will not have read the first chapter before the first class. Mike’s introductory essay on how he successfully climbed Mount Aconcagua (second highest of the Seven Summits after Mount Everest) whereas others died in the attempt is a great attention getter.
We believe in active learning, so we include at least one breakout session every hour. These are often preceded by an introduction of the material and we pose at least one question or framework for the students to follow. We find a few simple rules are fun for the students and encourage participation. Ask one person to record what the group discussed/decided. Ask a different person to be the group’s spokesperson – that way at least two people stay alert. Ask the spokesperson to state what they learned from the exercise and “ditto” does not count. That means they cannot take the easy way out and say another group took their idea. This encourages volunteers to report first and forces teams to think beyond the obvious lesson and think creatively. If there are points we especially want to emphasize, we will summarize by repeating the points (and crediting the groups who made them) or introducing them if no group mentioned them. The first example breakout session follows.
Once we briefly cover what a project is (students in discussion will provide examples) and why project management is important, we ask the students to work in groups of four or five with large paper or sections of a chalk or white board. We ask them to describe project success and reasons for each for about 10 minutes. Alternatively, you can ask the students to describe project failure and the causes of it. Either way, you set the expectation that students will actively participate in every class. It also serves as in introduction to the need to develop both soft and hard skills.
Since some students enjoy software, we mention MS Project early. An easy way to do this is to have the students look at the inside front cover on the left to see what MS Project is used for and where it is covered in the book.
We like to cover the concept of project life cycles. It is easy to use a house-building project as an example since the walk-through to inspect the project result helps students envision the idea of an approval to pass from one stage to the next.
The increasing popularity of the agile (adaptive or change-driven) approach to projects creates another opportunity for discussion. You can introduce the extremes of totally plan-driven versus totally adaptive project schedules and ask what type of projects might lend themselves to each and what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of each. This discussion can culminate with the idea that contemporary project management can use parts of both and that we will explore differences throughout the course. An agile icon appears in the margin in many places in the text where either different methods and/or different terminology is used in agile versus plan-driven approaches. The corresponding text is in alternate color to call attention to it. There is also an agile appendix that lists all of the ways agile is emphasized differently than traditional project management and the chapter in which each point is covered in the text.