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1. How effectively do you think Rachel spent her day? 2. What does the case tell you ask what it is like to be a project manager? Project is a complex, non-routine, one time effort that is limited by time, budget, resources and performance specifications and it’s implemented to meet the customer requirements: This case shows a daily working life of Rachel, the project manager of large information systems project; the case mainly discussed the way a project manager allocates her time to spent one day in her life.
A day in the life also shows a glimpse of what it is like to be a project manager. It also underscores that being a project manager is more social than technical and that project manager spend the majority of their time interacting with various people who impact on a project. The effectiveness of Rachel spent her day project is complex, non-routine, one time effort limited by time,budget,resources and performance specifications designed to meet customer needs. Considering the case study, Rachel allocates her time significantly n activities not done respectively before that in my point of view can be applied as project activities.
Activities such as going over project reports and preparing for the weekly status meeting, going over problems with her boss, participating in a conference call and responding to the issues arise in the project could be determined as project activities. In contrast, the characteristics of non-proJect tasks are regular daily works which required respective and routine activities. It is seen that often limited time she spend her day on these types of activities. Those can be illustrated in gossiping about internal politics with Eddie a worker in finance office. Technically evaluating by dividing her done tasks into.
FIRST ROUTINE WORKS, PROJECT TIMES AND SECOND ROUTINE WORKS. FIRST ROUTINE WORKS (FROM 7: 40AM TO 10: AM): SHE SPENT FOR; soctaltztng and catching up on personal news ,thus 10minutes Getting to her office and settling in (checking voicemail and turning on her computer) -1 Ominutes Reviewing her schedule and “to do” lists for the day before responding to messages that require mmediate attention-1 5minutes Going over project report and preparing for the weekly status meeting-25minutes Discussing the project with her boss:20minutes Project status meeting: 1 an hour.
PROJECT WORKING TIMES (FROM lo:oo AM to 05:05 PM) WAS USED FOR: Revtewtng projects assignments with another project manager-30minutes Checking projects status meeting and listening patiently for over-20minutes Having lunch with Eddie who works in finance office and gossiping about internal politics-half an hour
Returning to her office and going over problem-30minutes Exploring ways of getting necessary equipment’s to the project site earlier than planned:30minutes According to her schedule, she have participated in a conference call at 2:30pm,they spent 1 hour to exchange information about the technical requirements associated with a new version of a software package they are using on systems projects like hers Discussing with Mary, a senior marketing manager and agreeing to talk to her people about what was promised and what was not promised: 0minutes Reviewing the impact the clients requests could have on the project schedule:30minutes AND LASTLY-SECOND ROUTINE WORKS (FROM 5:05AM TO 6: 55AM): SHE SPENTS HER TIMES FOR: Updating to her boss on key events of the day:20minutes Reviewing emails and project documents:30minutes Logging on to the MS project schedule of her project and working with “what if” scenarios:30minutes Reviewing tomorrows schedule and writing some personal reminders before starting off on her-30minutes In conclusion, this case shows to me about spending time of a project manager. It oes not only show how to use effective time in working day, but also how to separate the limit time for routine works and flexible time for project, it also helped me distinguish between routine works and projects. A project manager is the one responsible for managing the project, so as an appropriate project management, he Ishe must act like a captain of a big ship, understanding exacting which way we should move on in the Centre of the huge ocean; project management not only has to have good sense of direction, but also has to monitor what is going on in each phase.