Affect
During this course, I have to admit that the emotion I most
felt was stress. That being said, it wasn’t a negative stress overload like
some classes cause. It was the stress of hoping that I was understanding
everything correctly and ready to contribute to each project as expected. This
is class functioned under an organization model that is very different than the
one I use in my personal life. But as I mentioned earlier, I’m not saying this
was a negative thing to happen to me. I feel that it was an opportunity to
learn adaptation skills and work in a changing environment.
The group work is what mostly caused that feeling of stress
as the seemingly chaotic block quickly came to a close. As part time students
after full time work, we each felt the strain of making schedules and ideas
work with other group members. But I feel that I needed to learn more of this
skillset to enhance my career and leadership methods. Although it seemed
difficult to keep up with each assignment and new concept, I understand that
this is your teaching method, and it added a new dimension to my education.
In the other class I took during this block, we learned that
to truly change anything in an organization (or a person), it is essential to feel the need for the change, rather
than simply hear why it is important. During this project management class, I
have felt the need to learn new styles of projects, work tasks, leadership
methods, and teaching types. Being able to feel, instead of hear only, has been
beneficial in my quest for constant improvement
Behavior
I feel like I was one of the few members of this class that
does not regularly participate in project management of some sort. As unrelated
as it may seem, however, I am an event and project planner at heart. I am
always planning and creating some type of party, reunion, work events and
trainings, etc. Last summer, I planned my family reunion of several hundred
people for three days. As I look back at some of the methods I used to make
sure everything was in order, I realize that several of the tasks and tools
taught in this class can help me more successfully plan and coordinate my future
projects even better.
For my actual job at DMBA, even though I don’t manage any
projects, I am on several teams that are working on different projects
throughout the department. I noted several tools and methods that we could
start using to better communicate and coordinate tasks among team members. I
think there are several projects we do that would benefit from using something
like Asana or Trello to help create a work breakdown structure. One area I see
that we can improve is having a clear identification of what is expected of
each team member.
I have been working on a project over the past few months
that involves reorganizing and restructuring the training and recertification
in our department. Since I was taking this class during this project, it was
helpful for me to break down the tasks of the project and separate them out
into clear and precise pieces. This was something I learned in class. When it
came time to present my work to leadership, they were impressed in the detailed
steps I had listed to achieve the goal we are trying to accomplish. I
appreciate the insight gained from this class.
Cognition
Since this was the first project management experience I
have really had in a formal setting, I came away from this class with a lot more
knowledge than I had before. I really didn’t know anything about any of the
crucial pieces to putting together a successful project. For example, I had
never heard of a stakeholder analysis, work breakdown structure, or many of the
online tools we learned about in class. I have used things similar to these
ideas in several work and school project without really knowing what their official
names were and why they are so important.
Beyond just learning the mechanics of a well-organized
project, I think more about the process of each task, and I never really used
to focus much on these aspects of a project. During the planning and creating
ideas portion of a project at work, I now recognize what parts of our goal is
weak or what project piece we are missing to fully capture the scope of the
project. Similarly, with school projects, I now know some good ways to assign
and follow up in a project that requires several different people to be working
on various tasks.
Overall, one main thing I have learned during this class is
that sometimes, it’s okay to feel a little stressed while projects and due
dates seem to loom. As I mentioned, this class was run using a different model
of organization than I prefer, but that doesn’t mean that it is bad. It means
that I have a lot to learn about different learning models. I think this class
has done a good thing for me.
