Project Management
The project management competency is a necessary skill for leaders of all different walks of life. Project management is present in teams, schools, the workplace, and in everyday life and as a leader you must have the diverse skillset. As a project manager you must be prepared for many different scenarios and roadblocks. Spending time diversifying your skillset will help you be a more effective leader that is adept at problem solving, planning, communicating and time management. Resource allocation has also proven to be a useful skill in project management because you don't want to jump into your project too eagerly and outpace your funds or available resources before your project is complete. The purpose of project management is to construct and act out a plan that produces a polished and finished product that achieves your desired goals, objectives, and deliverables.
Project Management in Leadership
Managing a project requires the use of a multitude of skills. As a leader, we strive to develop a skillset that prepares us for many different scenarios with varying difficulty, tension, and emotion levels. Project management teaches you some thorough lessons on extremely valuable skills such as time management, resources management, planning, and communication. The contribution that project management makes to leadership is the opportunity to practice and develop these skills in a relevant context. Understanding how to apply these valuable skills to solve problems within a project will help you reach ideal solutions and your desired objective. These newly learned skills will also carry over to benefit other areas of your leadership.
Artifact
The piece that I have chosen to display and reflect on is from OGL 320: Foundations of Project Management. To understand project management, you must understand its limitations. Throughout this piece I spent time breaking down a few of the key reasons why projects fail in organizations and in everyday life. The key reasons that I discussed were scope creep, a lack of resources, gaps in communication, a lack of risk management, and unrealistic expectations. I believe that constructing this piece during the project management course was very beneficial to me because it gave me the opportunity to spend time focusing on and learning about what things doom a project. I believe that this course and this piece specifically, taught me how to avoid the biggest reasons for project failure and by doing so, made me a better project manager and leader. With increased awareness of these issues, they are less likely to go unaddressed during the planning stage of projects I partake in.
Reflection
Project Management and Organizational Leadership
I believe that this competency has been extremely relevant to my Organizational Leadership degree because throughout this program we work several teams. Throughout the final two years that I have spent in this program, the majority of my classes have had at least one group project that requires me to use skills that I learned in OGL 320: Foundations of Project Management. I think that project management is vitally important to the Organizational Leadership degree because it teaches you important and relevant skills that are not covered in the same depth in any other class. Projects, big and small, occur all throughout our everyday life, schooling, and careers, so it is important that we are educated and prepared to manage them effectively.
Personal Growth & Development
I think that project management benefitted my personal growth and development by giving me real opportunities to practice skills that will greatly benenfit me as a leader. Throughout this course I learned how to manage time more efficiently and evaluate risks that may come up and doom a project. Had I not taken OGL 320: Foundations of Project Management, I would be far less prepared to manage projects and teams. I am someone that does not attempt to emerge as a leader in a group or project if I do not feel prepared, but this course and competency gave me the specific skillset and education that I needed to feel prepared to manage a project. Prior to the project management course, I would never have been able to identify risk factors and roadblocks to my project as confidently as I can now. This course also taught me how to be more specific with my communications. Now I make sure to communicate details and timelines very thoroughly as to avoid delays, miscommunication, and wasted resources.