Discussion Question #1: As a project manager for an electronics manufacturer, you are supposed to design a new, low-cost MP3 player in three months’ time working with a “virtual team” of three technicians. Because outcome, schedule, and resources are all interrelated, what are some options you might consider if you suddenly lose two of your technicians? (p. 24 Project Management Textbook)

  • Assuming the three resources initially assigned to the project all possess the same subject matter expertise the simple answer would be to extend the project schedule by 3x.  Assuming there are some interdependencies between tasks serializing tasks may not extend the project schedule by 3x but there are many unknown variables so for the sake of argument, and in the interest of brevity I’ll just assume a 3x factor applied to the schedule.
  • Look at project funding and the value of on-time delivery and potentially engage contract labor to help offset the loss of the two technicians.
  • Review the project plan and the desired outcome.  Are there trade-offs of compromises willing to be made that might impact resourcing and scheduling?
    • On a personal note, this is something I do daily as part of an Agile project management methodology.  Managing sprints and a backlog daily against project burndown forces us to shift priorities often and delicately balance scope, defects and an ever growing backlog.
  • Look at resourcing and potential efficiencies that might help offset the loss of the two technicians.  Are there other stakeholders, like the project manager, the functional manager, executive and upper management who can play a more active role in the project to offset the loss of the functional employees.

References
Portny, Stanley E.. Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.

 

Discussion Question #2: As a project manager of a new team that’s developing an online shopping site for a traditional department store, you have been asked to calculate how much your team will spend on user testing in the next 12 months. Your team has never conducted user testing, so this is an unknown. How might you respond effectively to this unknown? (p. 54–55 Project Management Textbook)

  • While the team has not performed acceptance testing in the past, it is possible that the team has performed integration, unit, smoke and regression testing.  While acceptance testing (or UAT) may have more dependencies than other testing methodologies, the team may have a basis for estimating UAT.  Documenting assumptions and limitations and leveraging tangential knowledge from different testing methodologies may allow the project manager to develop a cogent estimate.
  • Leverage best practices, industry standards, existing protocols, and frameworks.  Acceptance testing is a standard software development phase, and an online commerce site is a standard web-based application so the project manager may be able to leverage industry standards and best practices to estimate the amount of time which will be spent on acceptance testing.
  • If there is no basis at all for estimating how much time will be spent on acceptance testing (an unknown unknown), no way to apply assumptions or limitations to some basis of an estimate then the project manager may have to say there is not enough information available to provide a cogent estimate.  The project manager might set the expectation that the schedule and resources for acceptance testing information will be forthcoming as more data points become available.  The project manager may also create a schedule placeholder and inform stakeholders that the schedule will be adjusted as information becomes available.

References
Portny, Stanley E.. Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.