Course evolution and expansion over time

Summarize How This Course…

This course has changed how I think about project management in a few ways. I think when I first started, my view was mostly on the upside – how to take a plan and make it happen. What I didn't realize what that so much of project management involves the downside, the unforeseen, those aspects that aren't part of the project plan, but that can get in the way of success. Being able to anticipate and avert disaster or crisis is a bigger part of project management than I thought. This matters because that is a more creative side of the brain than the one normally associated with project management. I feel that with a focus more on the risk management side of things it also shows what your bosses feel – they are more worried that the project is going to fail, and avoiding failure is more important than any focus on a degree of success.

The other aspect is just learning that much more about project management. This is one field that really does seem to become deeper and more complex the more you learn. It is easy to think, when starting out learning about project management, that it is just about the orderly apportionment of resources. That's true, but first that is much harder than it sounds when dealing in the real world. Resources are finite, and sometimes they are perishable, like labor hours. Moreover, there are always constraints that have to be managed, and while it is not hard to envision a best-case scenario, it is also understood that you will never achieve that scenario. It's an interesting field in that sense.

Of interest to me is actually the risk management part. I think that in a large project, there are multiple roles within project management. One is to look at whatever it is you are building, and make sure that it gets built, but the other is that more creative side where you are looking at what might happen, envisioning problems, and proactively addressing them. Building a proactive vision of problems into your original plan is especially interesting to me, because this taps into that creative part. What I feel is that it's easy to envision disaster scenarios, but knowing how to create a structure around countering each of them is an entirely different matter, and that's where it becomes amazing. I like the idea that I am challenged in my project management to create a bulletproof plan, but then it is also my job to make sure that the plan is truly bulletproof.

The constant state of flux I feel is something that will be the best part of the job. I have my misgivings about never being able to achieve perfection, but honestly, I feel that constant change presents the sort of challenges on which I thrive. My personal reflection on the matter is that I want to be in a situation where I need to constantly adapt to changing circumstances. If project management was about identifying risks, having plans, and setting a course of action, then never having anything change that, I am not sure that would be satisfying, at least past the first time. In reality, the idea of aiming at a moving target is interesting enough, but aiming at a moving target with a wobbly gun is a whole other ball game.

In terms of the academic side, I am not sure I struggled too much, but then I really was focused on the practical side. This is a very hands-on role, I know, so it was important to envision exactly what the day-to-day life of the project manager looks like. If anything, I worry that the practical aspects and the academic aspects exist on a separate spectrum from one another, and that in the real world I will only think of the practical and sometimes forget to apply some of the academic concepts. So maybe there's that, but I will not really know just right away.

One thing that is definitely a little bit of a struggle is the idea that you can never really get it 100% right. I find this an odd paradox – to be a good project manager it would seem that you need to be a perfectionist, and yet that side of you will never be fulfilled. Projects always have snags, and ultimately you have to reach this point of acceptance, and more important adjustment and dealing to aim for the next-best scenario. But it really does seem odd that the project manager is put in the position of never being satisfied. I mean, I cannot imagine a project manager who is not a perfectionist – it seems to me that person would be ineffective.

On the whole, I found this course to be quite instructive as to what project management actually entails in the real world. There is definitely more risk management than I thought – in a sense I felt that the key was to execute the plan, not to avoid pitfalls, but of course it is the pitfalls that create the situation whereby you are not executing the plan. There is little doubt that risk management is a bigger part of project management than I probably anticipated.