Project Management in Multicultural Environment

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Teacher: Pekka Käyhkö

Type of course: Free choice studies, toolbox courses in ICT

Code: TOO8LF001

Tools covered: w:Microsoft Project and using w:Microsoft Excel for project management purposes

Project Management in Multicultural Environment - Session 1

• A project is a temporary endeavor designed to produce a unique product, service or result with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. ( Wikipedia on project management )

• In contemporary business and science a project is defined as a collaborative enterprise, involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim ( Wikipedia on projects )

• Project Management is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems. ( Wikipedia )

• Project planning is part of project management, which relates to the use of schedules such as Gantt charts to plan and subsequently report progress within the project environment.

• A project plan, according to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, is:

"...a formal, approved document used to guide both project execution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions and decisions, facilitate communication among stakeholders, and document approved scope, cost, and schedule baselines. A project plan may be summarized or detailed.". ( Wikipedia )

• Usual project progression: Preparing -> Planning -> Implementing -> Closing ( Teacher's PPs )

• Preparation and planning is often the most crucial phase in a project ( Teacher's PPs )

There are lot of competitors in the area of project management software. See Wikipedia list of project management software.

Project Management in Multicultural Environment - Session 2

Six Phases of a Project

1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the guilty
5. Punishment of the innocent
6. Praise and honors for the non-participants ( Teacher )

Instructions for making the project plan for the case company:

• Understand the case
• Think of the whole
• Know the environment
• Structure should be clear and cover all required areas ( Teacher )

Steps in a project:

0. Decision - Understand the field. Do we need a project or not ?

1. Goals - Set project goals ( customers, users, project mgr )
2. Deliverables - Based on goals, create a list (when/how) project should deliver things
3. Schedule - Based on deliverables, create a list of tasks (days, resources)
4. HR plan
5. Communication plan
6. Risk management plan
7. Ending

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Tasks during lessons:

1. Get a good understanding of case 1
2. What is the purpose of a project plan?
3. Evaluate a project plan taken from the Internet - Can you use it as a plan template?
4. Find some templates you can use
5. Define
   1. A process
   2. A change

Project Management in Multicultural Environment - Session 3

• In product development and process optimization, a requirement is a singular documented physical and functional need that a particular design, product or process must be able to perform. ( Wikipedia )

• A work breakdown structure (WBS), in project management and systems engineering, is a deliverable-oriented decomposition of a project into smaller components.

A work breakdown structure element may be a product, data, service, or any combination thereof. A WBS also provides the necessary framework for detailed cost estimating and control along with providing guidance for schedule development and control. ( Wikipedia )

• A statement of work (SOW) is a formal document that captures and defines the work activities, deliverables, and timeline a vendor must execute in performance of specified work for a client.

The SOW usually includes detailed requirements and pricing, with standard regulatory and governance terms and conditions. It thus overlaps in concept with a contract, and indeed SOWs are often legally equivalent to contracts. ( Wikipedia )

Project management softwares

Microsoft Project is a project management software program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads. ( Wikipedia )