Project Management - Essay Sample

Introduction

Over the weeks that I have undertaken this course, I have been able to learn a lot of things that I can apply in different areas of life. The first week of the course was important since I had no project management skills whatsoever. I was kind of nervous about the course since I did not know what to expect. I just hoped that I would be able to get some good information that I would take and utilize it in the future. After all these weeks, I am confident that I have learned a lot about project management and even though it is a wide field, at least I know the basics of the field. Further, other than accomplishing my goal of learning some project management skills that I can apply in different areas of life, I also managed to fulfil all the course’s learning outcomes. I now know what a project is and the different methodologies in project management. I also got to go through the PMBOK Guide and take important note of some of the key information regarding project management. Finally, I learned different aspects concerning project management process groups. All of this knowledge would be useful as I continue to pursue my career goals.

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Materials Used

One of the things that I liked about the course is that the materials used were all free. The two textbooks were available for free online. On the other hand, the ProjectLibre was also an open-source tool that was easy to access. Making the materials used for the course free was convenient first because of the zero cost but also it allowed me to have all the materials on the first day of the course. There are some previous courses that I have taken before which required the use of paid resources and at times, one could order these resources and they delayed. As a result, the first week of some of these courses was challenging as I did not have all the materials. With this in mind, I have to say that open-source materials are convenient for students and they contribute to the experience that one has on a particular course.

There are various topics, techniques, and tools that I have learned from this course that have impacted how I perform in my job as well as other daily activities. One of the topics that was very instrumental was stakeholder management. I came to realize that every project has stakeholders and thus it is important to take the needs of all the stakeholders in order to ensure a successful outcome for the project. Having good stakeholder management ensures that all parties can understand the objectives and expectations of a particular activity and hence allowing them to support the project and this is something that would increase the likelihood of obtaining successful outcomes. I can use this knowledge I learned from stakeholder management both in my home and work life to ensure that all people that are affected by a certain activity has a say on how the activity should be conducted. This will allow to better processes to complete certain tasks, more ideas being put on the table, greater community support and finally, a more effective effort from all people who have an interest in a project or are affected by it in one way or another.

Risk Management

Apart from the knowledge of stakeholder management, I also found risk management as an important technique that will help me in different areas of life. Risk management has a lot of benefits to an organization. It allows organizations to identify potential project risks early on and thus reduce their severity in case they occur. Also, not only reduces unexpected events from happening but also creates financial benefits to the organization. With this knowledge about risk management, I will be able to use it as a guide to making strategic decisions that affect important life and career aspects. Further, risk management will allow me to be able to prepare for the unexpected and thus maximize project outcomes.

While I have gained a substantial amount of knowledge regarding different topics, techniques and tools of project management, one of the topics that I want to explore further is communication management. I feel that communication management is something that I can apply in many instances in my daily life. communication is an important tool to ensure that people can complete tasks efficiently. When it comes to project management, if there is no effective communication among different parties, then the project is most likely to fail. As such, communication management is an important tool to ensure project success. I want to learn more about communication management and I will learn about this topic mostly through the information available online for free, in addition to the textbooks that we have used for the course. Getting a deeper understanding of communication management will allow me to be able to ensure that a message is sent clear, the right message is sent to the right people, it is received, and the people receiving it understand it.

Conclusion

Overall, I have had a good experience undertaking the course and the way it was structured allowed me to learn several concepts about project management and how I can apply them in future.