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Running Head: FINAL

Final Paper

Jessica Kostyk

Arizona State University

August 11, 2020

Part One:

When I first took the quiz on “How Good Are Your Project Management Skills?”, I was

surprised by my results. I had little confidence in my ability to lead as a project manager because

I felt that I lacked the proper experience a project manager typically possesses. I thought for sure

I’d have scored low but ended up scoring OK. Previously taking the test, I was surprised to see I

scored well in scope management, people management, and cost management. People

management is something that I strive for. I know that without being aware of the people on my

team I may not be successful in my endeavors. There are many moments where I doubt myself

throughout the day but seeing that I’ve scored high in people management both then and still

now is encouraging.

I needed the most improvement in my communication and risk management. These are

two areas I already knew I would need to put more effort and focus into, so when I saw my

scores were lower, I was not as surprised. Communication is an area that I know I need

improvement on. Growing up, I did not have excellent mental models around me which has led

me to have weaker communication skills. When it comes to communication on projects, I make

sure to ask a lot of questions to ensure my understanding, but sometimes I neglect to ask all

parties involved.

Additionally, in relation to risk-management, I felt I had little to no experience in this

area. While my first score was on the low side, I was impressed that I at least had awareness of

potential conflict I may face and how I would go about handling it. Conflict is something that I

know I shy away from. I have struggled with facing conflict in my past but am learning to work
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with conflict rather than try to work around it. I am learning how working with conflict reduces

stress and anxieties that may arise from unplanned events.

I retook the test again to see if I have improved in any areas, and although I did not

improve drastically, I did improve the skills I already have and improved my communication.

One area that is becoming quick for me to reach is project scope. I think this is due to the fact

that I want to exceed the goals I am given. I also scored well in people management. There are

times when I feel myself doubting my capabilities as a leader but knowing that my team feels

supported even through high levels of stress is reassuring.

I want to continue working on meeting budget goals. Cost-management is a department

where I do fairly well meeting, however, I am not consistent in meeting the budget. Thinking

about the simulation game, I realize I never was under the budget or meeting the budget goal. I

feel okay about this though because in the game I always strived to exceed the stakeholder’s

requests. By pushing to launch a product even better than our competitors I felt I would gain the

confidence, trust, and bring pleasant surprise to my stakeholders. At first, I would beat myself up

over not meeting the budget, but once I realized I was going over budget to create a product that

was even better than what my stakeholders asked for, I kept reminding myself that the budget is

flexible.

My leadership style is mostly democratic, but can change depending on my team’s skills,

personality, and size. A democratic leader is one who openly communicates, is attentive to their

team and team’s needs, and is a team leader. I like to make sure everyone feels involved, knows

what is going on, and everyone feels we are working as a team to achieve success. Even though

my communication skills are not as strong as I would like them to be already, I know they are

stronger than they were six month ago. Communication is one particular area that I actively give
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more consideration to because it helps manage many areas of the project- from team members to

stakeholders.

Given my previous experience in project management is quite minimal, I know my

approach to project management is something that will change periodically. After playing

through some Harvard Simulation scenarios, I am confident that my approach to any project will

vary depending on the scope and specifications set by my stakeholders. While there were many

moments, I felt the simulation was unrealistic, it did teach me to flexible in my plan to see the

project through to success.

My general approach to project management is to have a medium sized team with a

medium to high skill-level. This way, I can remain confident in my team’s ability to meet all

project specifications within a timely manner without needing to check-in on them frequently.

Outside the simulation game, I work with adults with medium to medium-high skills and tend to

use a combination of laissez-faire and democratic leadership. For example, when I am the floor

director at my work, it means I am the leader for that shift. Some people I work with have more

tenure than me and require less guidance which is where the laissez-faire leadership style is more

useful. At the same time, I use the democratic approach to supervise those on my team who have

little experience and need more coaching.

At work, I put a big emphasis on communication. No matter what our position titles are,

we all share store tasks and duties together (besides opening and closing paperwork). Once we

know what our store goals and personal goals are for the day, we tell each other the behaviors we

are going to execute to help hold each other accountable. Taking hourly reads on how our store is

doing and sharing this information with each other helps us stay on track and even reach our

stretch goals. With COVID-19 causing slower traffic, we are often down on our week in terms of
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numbers. My strategy help increase traffic into our store is encouraging our lower level

associates to reach out to clients. Our commission base has changed that now benefits everyone,

so I use this to get our team excited about not only reaching our goals for this year but beating

last year’s sales as well.

My biggest challenge in the simulation game was meeting the budget provided. The first

few attempts I made I wasn’t confident in my understanding of how the game worked and put all

of my focus into either meeting the project deadline on time or ahead of schedule. This tactic

worked but the trade-off for me was meeting the budget. There were several challenges in the

simulation that affected my team directly. I was challenged to work with new team members in

the middle of my project which caused me to fall behind schedule in some scenarios. Thinking

about it now, it reminds me of the holiday season when we hire seasonal workers to help meet

our traffic demand. We add new members to our team in the middle of our year and during a

crucial time of our season. Having the right amount of guidance, communication, and people-

management are key components to producing excellent results.

Another challenge for me on the Harvard simulations was risk-management. I felt myself

strengthening my risk-management skill with each simulation game I went through, but it is still

an area that I need to spread awareness to. Although I took time to consider how my team would

feel with the amount of time they were spending in meetings, I would neglect to think about

outside factors like requiring prototypes during the project to help identify problems or how

advancing more than one week at a time would cause confusion on the project.

It took me until the end of the course to realize that having too many meetings was taking

time away from my team focusing on the many tasks before them. Thinking further, making sure

I met each deadline on time was also a challenge. I was able to end every project successfully on
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time but often times would barely be able to do so. It was difficult trying to hit every parameter

of the project successfully, but I learned flexibility exists if the product is on time and the project

is communicated well.

The project management skills I have learned and strengthened thus far are

extraordinarily valuable when I relate it to my work and personal life. I am more conscious of the

risks my actions may generate and put more effort into exploring outcomes of the decisions that I

make. So far, I am able to weigh these decisions more successfully at work than I am at home,

but I am creating the habit of acknowledgement of my choices. Each day before I arrive to work,

I check our schedule to see who I am working with that day. Doing this allow me to plan for our

success for that day and helps me determine my strategy for the day.

I am cognizant of who is working together because some people on my team require

more guidance and motivation than others. Since the virus happened, we’ve had a change in staff

that’s created a team well-seasoned in retail but are lacking a team-driven mindset. As I have

mentioned before, communication is one component of project management that is vital to

seeing a project reach success. Our team excels at communicating store numbers and if we are on

track to hit our goals, but we need to work on communication on the salesfloor more.

Being attentive to what our clients are interested in and bringing in items before interest

in the product is lost is something that will boost our sales if we can communicate more

effectively. We are great at bringing out fresh product from the stockroom but need to improve

on letting each other know items their clients are looking for. Doing this will allow us to spend

more time with the client, creating a more personal experience which will lead towards a

successful sale and a potential loyal client.

“smart team, smart planning, open communication, careful risk management, and strong project

closure” from the article by Erin Palmer off [Link]. I enjoyed what this article

had to offer because I can apply these five factors to essentially any project. I already believe in

surrounding myself with “smart people” (Palmer, 2019), am conscious about active planning,

and recognize the importance of open communication throughout all levels involved on the

project.

Other than communication being a huge focus in my project management strategy, my

biggest takeaway is the importance of risk-management. I’ve always heard that if you want to be

successful you have to be comfortable with taking risk, but I haven’t thought about what that

looks like within a work environment. In my personal life, I find myself assessing less about the

risks of my decisions because I am wanting to grow my self-confidence and care less about what

people think of me. In my spare time, I am an influencer who emphasizes motivation and

inspiration. A risk on a smaller scale that I find myself thinking about often is not editing the

photos I post on my feed. This is a risk because most companies seek images that are edited for

heightened quality, but I feel it is important to show authentic images to my audience. As a

result, I experience slower growth in my brand but am receiving positive feedback about how

authentic I am.

In my work life, I find myself further investigating the decisions I want to make. For

example, I know I have a large personality. Sometimes, my personality can be a little too much

for clients and pushes them away. Although my intentions are good, there are moments I do not

realize that I am overwhelming clients. Paying attention to the level of energy I am giving off is

one thing I am doing to help clients feel more comfortable and trust my intentions. Evaluating
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the energy I exude when I am working contributes to the success of my sale. I tell myself at the

beginning of the day that I am going to remain calm and pay extra attention to how people are

interacting. Each time I do this I end the day with either a high UPT (units per transaction) or

new clients to add to my client book.

Another taking away for me was handling uncertainty. Uncertainty on a project is

something that is guaranteed to happen. As a project manager, even when we feel well prepared,

there will be moments of uncertainty that will challenge us to step-up and adapt our model of

management. Adaptation is an advantageous skill to possess because it helps manage conflict

and makes problem-solving more approachable. One thing that helps adaptation become easier is

to form contingency plans. A contingency plan is a “plan designed to take a possible future event

or circumstance into account” (Oxford Dictionary). These make adaption to changes in project

plans or parameters easier to manage and execute.

When a project manager faces uncertainty, the best way to understand its effect is to

utilize a strategy calling problem-framing. Problem framing “transforms a particular area of

uncertainty into a set of specific problems. By so doing, we can better understand the nature and

magnitude of the threat posed by the unknown” (Cleden, 2016, p. 42). In other words, problem-

framing identifies problem-patterns which provide us further insight as to where the issue may be

stemming from. I found a blog article that offered a visual explanation of identifying problem-

patterns by Lillian Xao. She mentioned “Rose, thorn, bud is great for visualizing information and

tagging individual data points as roses (positives), thorns (negatives), and buds (opportunities)”

(Xao, 2018). I do better when I have a visual of what is going on, and really connected with this

example for considering problem-patterns.

Three Areas of Advice

Suggestions on How to Manage the Three Most Visible Levers of Project Management

 Scope

o Create a structured approach for each project

o Understand project completion and specifications

o Continuously manage change by advancing one week at a time

o Communicate frequently

o Focus on the “must-haves”

 Resources

o 3 types of resources: people, equipment, and materials

o People:

 have the right skill set for the job

 Communicate with your team frequently on short-term projects

o Equipment:

 Use overtime sparingly (it can cost time rather than improve it)

 Require 1-2 prototypes to help identify product problem

o Materials:

 Be conscious of team cost

 Use outsourcing as needed

o Have a contingency plan

 Have a backup plan for your team

o Don’t be afraid to make the due date earlier

o Don’t schedule too many meetings per week

o Add to your team size to complete more tasks

Patterns Found Throughout the Scenarios

 Overtime caused my teams to fall behind rather than get ahead

 Prototypes help makeup time by identifying problems early on

 The budget is always flexible

Personal “Model” of Casual Relationships Within Projects

 Teamwork makes the dream work

 Skill level affects team morale

 Practice active listening

References

Contingency. (1992). In The Oxford dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved
August 11, 2020

Leadership Styles [Photograph]. (n.d.). The Ideal Leadership Style, WordPress. Retrieved August
11, 2020

Palmer, E. (2019, February 08). Five Factors That Lead to Successful Projects. Retrieved August
11, 2020, from [Link]
projects/

Xiao, L. (2018, December 13). A guide to problem framing. Retrieved August 11, 2020, from
[Link]