This is the last week of my Project & Team Management course and I have to say that my game plan for this class was about 75% successful. I was able to utilize all of the course materials for mastery goals, which were:
Learn the basics of project management
Work with a budget on a larger scale
Motivate a team to accomplish project goals
I found that the textbook, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management by Eric Verzuh, was very insightful, as well as many of the suggested readings from Safari’s Creative Edge, the archives to each week’s GoToTraining sessions, and also the videos posted in the course announcements. Even though I wasn’t able to squeeze in a Lynda training that I planned for, I was still extremely satisfied with all the other resources provided within the class itself.
The one thing I really learned the most from this course was the variety of spreadsheet templates presented for each weekly assignment. For example, the spreadsheets for Project Definition, Work Breakdown Structure, and Risk Management from Weeks 1, 2, and 3 had nice layouts that would allow me to think of any project’s “big picture”. I will definitely be using this anytime I pursue a new endeavor, which happens very often for me. This way, I can slow down my creative thoughts and focus on every aspect that will affect the project and the chances of me missing details will be minimal.
Additionally, it was nice to write down a solid plan for conflict resolution. I knew I was pretty good at most conflicts so when I had to write out a step-by-step guide for the future, the words came out rather easily. It was also nice to see my approach to conflicts supported by articles and texts from the course. If you’re interested in seeing my conflict resolution policy, check out the file attached to this post below. I hope you find it useful for your own personal or professional conflicts. If you have a specific issue that you’re concerned about right now, I’d love to work it out with you. If I can’t resolve it with my policy listed on this file, then I’m excited to learn a new approach.
While I’m excited to see what next month will bring, I’m just as eager to hear what you think, so feel free to reach out to me if you have any insights on any of the topics I’ve shared in this post or really anything. :D