Module 2 – Background
PROJECT PLANNING
The Required Sources with an asterisk
(*) are linked to the course, and can be accessed directly. You should
read through, and be familiar with, both sources in their entirety. For
this Module, however, you should study:
- Barron & Barron (2012), Chaps. 7.2, 8, 9, 10 and 13
- New York Guide (2002), Chaps. 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
The Required Sources and the Additional
Sources provide good starting points; however, both the Module and the Case
topics are extremely well-documented, and you will be able to find many links
to both governmental and non-governmental sources. Feel free to use whatever
seems useful.
Be sure to provide citations and
references for whatever sources you use, preferably in APA format.
Required Reading
* Barron, M. & Barron, A.
(2012). Project management for all careers. Creative
Commons. (the Text)
* New York Guide
(2002). Management’s Guide to Project success. New York
State Office for Technology. (the Guide)
Woods, W. (2011). The Apollo flights: A brief history. How
Apollo flew to the moon (Chap 2). NY: Springer Praxis Books.
Optional Reading
Madrigal, A. (2012). Moondoggle:
The forgotten opposition to the Apollo program. Atlantic magazine:
Retrieved on 16 Apr 2017 from www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-opposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/
NASA (2015). The Apollo Mission
(website). Retrieved on 16 Apr 2017 from www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html
NASA (n.d.) The Apollo program
(links). Retrieved on 16 Apr 2017 from https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo.html
TUI (2014). Writing style
guide. Retrieved on 31 May 2017 from
https://mytlc.trident.edu/files/Writing-Guide_Trident_2014.pdf (Also available
under My Resources on the Trident University Portal:
https://mytlc.trident.edu/)
Module 2 – Case
PROJECT PLANNING
Case Assignment
We continue our examination of the Apollo
Project by considering some planning and project initiation issues.
Every project has stakeholders; people and
organizations that will benefit, in some way, from the project. For
a project the size of Apollo, the list was extensive, as were the types of
benefits. But there were also non-stakeholders; those who opposed
the project for various reasons, the most common being that the project would
absorb resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. For the
first part of this Case,do the following:
- List the most important stakeholders, and what they expected to
gain. - List the non-stakeholders – the project opponents – and give
some reasons for their opposition.
The Apollo Project was ambitious to the
point of madness in one respect; both the preferred solution and implementation
plan were unknown at the outset. Achieving the goal would require
inventing the required technology as the project went
along. Accordingly, a series of increasingly more powerful rocket
engines and larger, more capable spacecraft were developed and tested in the
run-up to the Apollo 11 launch. For the second part of this Case,
- Summarize the sequential technological advances that took place
between Kennedy’s announcement of the project, and the Apollo 11 launch in
1968. - Comment on the “build the bridge as you go”
approach. For what sort of project would that be
appropriate? What sort of organization should attempt it?
Resources for this Case are listed on the
Background Information page. These are starting points; feel free to
search the Web for additional information, and use whatever you think is
useful. Be sure to provide citations and references for everything you use,
including materials linked to this course.
Assignment Expectations
- Integrate your answers to the above questions into a
well-constructed essay. Feel free to use tables and bulleted lists, if
appropriate. - The readings do not provide specific answers to every
question. You will need to “fill in the gaps,” using your
understanding of the Project’s history, plus the Background Information. - Style and format must comply with the Writing Style Guide (TUI,
2014). - This is not an English course; however, errors in spelling,
grammar, and style will be penalized. - Provide citations and references. Use of APA style (TUI,
2014) is encouraged, but not required. - There is no page requirement. Write what you need to write.
Module 2 – SLP
PROJECT PLANNING
Barron & Barron (2012) lists six major
categories of project constraints.
PART I
1.
List them.
2.
The following scenarios describe ongoing projects. In each project, one of the major constraints
is either tightened (made more controlling) or relaxed (made less
controlling). Which constraint is being
either tightened or relaxed, and (more importantly) what will be the likely
effect on the other five constraints?
Explain your reasoning. (You may, if you like, go online and find more
information about the project, but that is not necessary. Your commonsense understanding of what is
involved will be satisfactory. The
important thing is to explain how your understanding supports your analysis.)
2.1 Josh and Brittany are planning to paint
the interior of their house, prior to putting it on the market. It is important
that every room be either completely repainted, or touched up. They were planning to use a premium paint
costing $30 per gallon, but after running the numbers, decided that the total
bill would be too high. As a result,
they are planning to use a discount paint costing $20 per gallon.
2.2 An engineering team at Honda is
designing the next generation of subcompact sedan. After considerable debate, they have moved
from a stamped-steel body to a carbon fiber composite body, feeling that less
weight and greater strength is “the wave of the future.” There are many uncertainties involved in
adapting this technology to mass production.
2.3 The design team at a fashion house has
run into problems. Right in the middle
of designing their Spring and Summer Collection, the lead designer died of an
overdose. The remaining team members,
aware of their limitations, decide to make minor changes to last year’s line,
and focus their attention on accessories, such as scarves, purses, and shoes.
PART II
Write a short essay (two or three
paragraphs) explaining the constraints you had to deal with while completing
the project you described in SLP 1.
SLP
Assignment Expectations
Answer the above questions using short,
well-constructed paragraphs. Feel free
to use tables and bulleted lists, if appropriate.
The readings do not provide specific
answers to every question. You will need to “fill in the gaps,” using your
understanding of the questions, the Background Information, and whatever
additional information you can find on the Web. Style and format must comply
with the Trident Writing Style Guide (TUI, 2014).
This is not an English course; however,
errors in spelling, grammar and style will be penalized.
Provide citations and references. Use of
APA style (TUI, 2014)) is encouraged, but not required.
There is no page requirement. Write what
you need to write.
Discussion Due date is
August 29!
Planning vs. Doing
PreviousNext
When your Course Developer was a boy, his
mother had a canned response to his various ridiculous requests (e.g., a pony,
when we were living in an apartment). She would smile brightly and say,
“Well, we’ll think about it.” It took him years to discover that this
meant, “We’ll think about it for ten seconds whenever you mention it, but it is
NOT going to happen.”
This is a small instance of a larger
truth. Although a good plan is essential to a good project, planning can
be an attractive alternative to doing something. In Washington, as in
industry, it’s common to “study a problem to death.”
Can you describe an instance from your own
experience? Did planning take the place of doing something, did good planning
result in doing something successfully, or did inadequate planning result in a
disaster? Explain.
