In week 10 of ITEC 830, we had a guest speaker named Rodney Dunican give a presentation on an introduction to Project Management and Project Management training. He asked the class, “What is a project?” According to PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge), a project is:
Temporary undertakings to create a unique product or service.
It has a defined start and end point and specific objections
A project manager is an individual responsible for managing the overal project and its deliverables. They are responsible for controlling the planning and execution of the projects’s activity and resources. Most importantly, they must ensure that the established cost, time, and quality goals are met.
I thought that the speaker did a fairly well general overview of project management and the roles of a project manager. Especially for the short amount of time he was given. Because I work for a company that provides project management training to corporations, I was already familiar with most of the content in the Rodney’s presentation. The speaker talked about the five phases of project management: initiate, plan execute, monitor and close. I would have liked to hear more about what goes into these phases, especially the planning phase since that is the most crucial.
Its true that you don’t need a PMP (Project Managment Professional’s) certification to be a project manager or teach project management skills. It is however, encouraged and sometimes required by some companies to obtain it within a certain time frame. Companies with PMP certified project managers looks good on their portfolio. It is important to at least take a class in Scheduling and Cost Control, because it is an important skill set to have and there are number of sections in the PMP exam that brush on this topic.
I currently have a project manager’s master’s certification in project management, which meets the educational units needed in order to take the exam, but I need to have over 2 years of documented experience managing projects. It would be great to work with someone who is really good at what they do and following in their footsteps. It would also be interesting to work with someone who really sucks at their job and see a project turn into a complete disaster…no, that would be cynicle… but at least they’d be a prospect for training.
Later in the class, we got into groups and had to brainstorm a presentation on ITEC Master’s Program at SFSU. My group decided to present on the course descriptions. I think this is important to research on so it can help guide students into deciding what courses will best suit their interest and ensuring that they meet all the requirements to graduate. Currently, we are brainstorming through Google docs and are deciding on how we will present this. Thankfully we will have time to get together before it is due.
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