Module 7: Final Paper

Kaitlin Jacobs

Arizona State University

PMG 321: Project Leadership

Instructor Ben Pandya

June 26th , 2023

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Module 7: Final Paper PMG 321

PART 1

The Evolution of My Project Management & Leadership Skills

This summer I was presented with a unique, and pivotal opportunity for transformation.

I began this course – PMG 321 - to enhance my project management skills . My ultimate goal

after graduation is to become a notable project manager within technology. I want to ethically

advance the development and implementation of AI into our societies over the next 30 years.

While classes were starting, I simultaneously began an internship as a business analyst for a

fintech company. The conjunction of my exposures to these new landscapes provided a

delicately interwoven, professional, and educational experience. Each facilitated the other in

providing me with a transformational period of immense growth. As both a project manager

and a leader.

Taking on the job of being a project manager is no small task. The role itself

requires us to be a jack-of-all-trades. The breadth of our skill set ranges across many fields.

Interpersonal communication. Business analytics. Project planning. Risk management. Resource

management. Finance. All are essential skills used by project managers every day.

I personally came into both of my summer experiences with a plan. I knew I wanted to

focus on building both my technical and soft skills. Specifically, I was hoping to develop a

stronger - more confident - sense of effective communication, problem solving and perspective

skills.
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Since the beginning of the summer, I have noticed a drastic difference in the way I

approach problems and make decisions. When I started this class I took a reactive approach to

decision making and problem solving. I went in guns blazing without an effectively developed

and appropriate plan. I was ready to take on any challenges thrown my way – and thrown my

way they were. During every week of our Harvard Business Simulation.

When my skills were initially put to the test in our simulations, I fell stagnant. For two

weeks after the first, I was unable to improve upon my scores. Each simulation had different

objectives related to scope, schedule and budget. In scenario C I was confronted with a

problem that would inevitably see my staff being laid off mid-way through the project.

Replaced with less knowledgeable resources, I scrambled – and ultimately failed - to make the

necessary tradeoffs and adjustments that would have instituted a successful project (Harvard

Business Simulation). Each run I waited until after the layoff happened before attempting to

restructure resources to mitigate the problem. Which saw myself, and my team scrambling

(Harvard Business Simulation). Leading to poor, ineffective tradeoffs. I didn’t know how to

approach problems or make good decisions. I was simply reacting.

If I were to attempt the scenario again today, I would do so differently. Defining the end

goal is the first step in creating an effective decision making environment within a project. At

the base of all good decisions, lie a consideration for the end goal. Awareness and

consideration can be used as powerful drivers here. Aiding us in our ability as project managers

to make effective decisions. These drivers help guide our consideration in many aspects of the

decision making process. For instance; how much mental weight, or time, to give towards
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making the decision at hand. I ask myself whether or not – and how - my decision will affect me

(and my project) tomorrow, in a week from now, or perhaps in a month, or in a year from now.

I spend significantly less time making decisions that will neither affect my short term, nor long

term life ( or project lifecycle). I place additional considerations towards different aspects of my

decision in relation to the project objectives (Cleden, 2016). I ask myself, “how complex is the

decision I’m making”? If it’s fairly complex, perhaps I might need additional assistance, tools, or

insights from experts. I also ask myself; “How affordable are the options I’m weighing? Could

making this decision affect the structure of my project? If so, to what degree? And what are the

costs associated with restructuring”? Perhaps they outweigh the initial estimated problem costs

entirely. In which case, a different decision might need to be made. Will my decision affect my

resource capacities? All of these are examples of new ways I approach decision making.

Automating the decision making process for myself. Leads me to find better, more

efficient solutions, faster.

Aspects of Project Management Given Greater Consideration.

During the last few weeks of the Harvard Business Simulation scenarios, we were

presented with equally (if not more ) challenging problems than those previously encountered .

In scenario F, we dealt with 3 different points of contention. Stemming from both internal and

external factors. Technology disappoints, scope change and vendor issues provided ample

opportunity to again, test my decision making skills. This time I understood that projects have a

greater chance of success when quality decisions are made. And I knew how to make them
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( Powell, 2009). I used rational decision making skills to mitigate, rather than react to problems.

For instance, when productivity suddenly began to dip in scenario D I knew my plan needed

tweaking. Instead of deviating from the course, I made note of the dip and finished out my run

as planned before analyzing how to make a better choice in the next run.

From the inception of each scenarios project, my end goals were quickly developed and

kept in mind. Each and every choice was made with the awareness that all decisions are

impactful. Each potential solution receiving careful consideration as to the effects of its

implementation on the project objectives. The results, proudly being able to say that I

achieved my personal goal of scoring over 700 points. While successfully managing a project

throughout the entirety of its lifecycle.

I gave additional, specific consideration towards communication and context when

developing my decision making skills this semester. Effective communication is a soft skill I am

currently devoting a lot of time towards understanding. For this reason I am a big proponent of

communicating early, effectively and often. While effective communication skills are

implemented throughout most careers, communication is considered a requisite for successful

project management. It’s importance will only increase as we continue to see projects grow in

size (Kerzner, 2006). As these projects continue to grow, so do the amount of resources and

departments involved. Creating many more lines of communication across functions and

departments. All of which, are being facilitated by the project manager to ensure their success.

Undoubtedly I will not be able to make each and every decisions without counsel. Moreover,

effective leaders empower team members to be involved in the decision making efforts
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typically held by top level management. One of the added benefits to empowering team

members to be a part of this process, is that it opens the door for a vast number of perspectives

to be shared and considered. We can use these perspectives to help reveal decision context.

Decision context takes our initial approach a step further to include consideration

towards the settings in which decisions occur (Powell, 2009). Possible points of consideration

include the current status of team resources, opportunities, organizational desires and

obligations. By considering and bringing awareness to the context in which decisions arise, we

provide ourselves an analytical opportunity to identify, and track dependencies related to

decision making across project lifecycles. Further automating the process. This level of

awareness helped me to be more open with my team. Understanding the context of each

decisions I made, especially in regards to OT, meeting schedule changes or scope changes made

me realize that I needed to add more meetings when implementing any of the above changes.

Doing so allowed me to successfully pivot each project without dips in productivity or moral.

My Personal Approach to Project Management Defined

My approach to project management is one that I would consider to be unconventional.

It is concise, organized and analytical. But also, creative, agile and transformational. After

initially studying and completing a degree in computer science, and a certificate in web

development – I took an exploratory class, fell in love the life cycle development process, and

pivoted. Computer science fulfilled my analytical desires, but failed to provide a creative outlet

for me. Learning about agile processes, SCRUM in particular, served as a catalyst to my
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inevitable career development as a project manager in technology. Koneke describes various

aspects of agile processes central to my personal approach to project management. Of which,

being open to change and resource optimization are most prominent (Koeneke, 2023).

As a new project manager I have to build up my abilities to successfully identify resource

capacity and optimization dependencies. I approached each scenario as if it were an agile

software development project. I utilized my inherent creativity - combined with my analytical

skills - to identify my goals, gather data, formulate questions and come up with solutions. Each

beginning game was played as if it were a sandbox iteration, or sprint. I made a deck of my

personal objectives, including dependencies I wanted to uncover. Like that of the relationship

between top down vs. bottom up tensions related to project completion estimations (Harvard

Business Simulation). Specifically, in this scenario, I wanted to determine the relationship that

variances in completion estimations have on other resources. After identifying my goal I

gathered data by running methodical iterations from a deck of variables against a baseline run.

Often times only making one small change for a predetermined amount of time. For instance,

when running an iteration where I initially over-estimated a project to be completed two

weeks earlier than I had actually intended it to be - I found that my team members were able

to produce far more tasks than ever before (Harvard Business Simulation) . Without additional

problems found. This iteration came from an analysis period I conduct after each sprint, where I

look at my notes and formulate questions.

I am in a constant cycle, running iterations to develop dependencies that lead to more

questions, that uncover more dependencies. The very nature of the sprints allow me the
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freedom to attempt new scenarios and adopt new ways of thinking with consideration of each

run as part of a greater whole.

Areas I Tend to Emphasize or Privilege Where Tradeoffs Are Inevitable

In my opinion, the only static aspects of inevitability reside not in specifics, but in

generalities. The is no certainty to be found in predetermining how they (tradeoffs) will happen.

But there is certainty to be found in the fact that they will at some point happen.

When it comes to tradeoffs I am generally driven by risk mitigation. Wherever the

greatest sense of risk lies in each scenario, in relation to scope, schedule and budget - is where I

direct my biggest efforts. In the later scenarios we were presented with objectives stemming

from industry information related to our competitors. Ultimately the intel was wrong and we

were forced to restructure our scope and schedule objectives mid project ( Harvard Business

Simulation). Knowing a tradeoff was inevitable, I formulated a plan to build up knowledge of

the unknown by organizing and mapping what I did know. Doing so helped me to identify key

drivers (as I mentioned earlier) like those variables that underpin key assumptions and critical

dependencies (Cleden, 2016). I knew there was intel about our competitors projects (Harvard

Business Simulation). But I didn’t know or understand their deliverables, so I couldn’t operate

off of the intel as if it was fact. This helped me realize that I had to direct additional effort to

transformational leadership. Building a team that could pivot and adapt as we learned more

about what we are up against. My risk assessment lead me to trading off part of an initial

schedule plan in order to properly give my team time to stabilize following the pivot. Ultimately
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I did come in on budget, scope and schedule. The tradeoff was only in my initial plan to come in

over stakeholder expectations. Prioritizing risk research and development in this way helps me

to identify action items. Which I use to build and develope my skillset.

My Biggest Challenges

While there were many, many wins this semester – I am no master, yet. Where I find my

biggest challenge and biggest opportunity is in my ability to avoid scope creep. I started this

semester reacting, instead of responding to challenges. When a point of contention would arise

in my gameplay, I would ineffectively attempt to correct a singular aspect of the game without

keeping my overarching objectives and goals in mind. Building my decision making skills has

significantly helped me, in my ability as a project manager, to avoid scope creep as much as I

can by making more effective and productive decisions. However, when confronted with new

unchartered territory’s, it takes extreme awareness for me not to down spiral when a wrong

decision is made. Especially when I have not yet developed a baseline to work off of. Up

spiraling practices have helped me to maintain my awareness of my overarching goals when I

am put in challenging situations. Changing my thought pattern, and the way I respond to

unfavorable outcomes has helped me to view them as a learning experience.

What Skills Have I Learned In My Own Professional Environment/What Are My Takeaways.

One of the more beautiful conjuncture points for my summer experiences, revolves

around my growing communication skills. I am not only able to learn, practice and develop my
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effective communication skills online, through my coursework. Additionally, my learnings are

facilitated and implemented into real life scenarios throughout my intern experience here at

Zelle. Although I have some previous experience in communication - I am a restaurant manager

and office administrator at a local steakhouse – I would not go as far as to say I had effective

business communication skills when starting my summer experiences. I struggled to utilize my

team and optimize resources in our simulation when I was not communicating changes

properly. Often times I would implement mandated overtime without so much as a warning to

them. As a result, their productivity would tank. Every time.

It is through my work at my internship that I truly learned the importance of effective

communication skills and was ultimately able to implement them successfully into my

simulation runs.

As someone with ADHD - who has been on medication for almost 15 years – I have

additional struggles in communication, requiring more awareness than most. After this summer

I am now able to effectively manage my impulses. Interrupting. talking too fast. Being

discursive. Lacking in these aspects of communication had a great effect on others perception

of me. As well as my perception of myself. My independent work taught me that effective

communication first comes with practicing effect listening. When it is an appropriate time for

me to speak I remember to take pauses (London, 2023). I listen more than I talk now, and I pay

more attention to paraverbal cues in meetings (Harrin, 2023). Because of this, I understand

more. I take criticism better, I make assumptions and test out recommendations. I improved my
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scores, in part by listening to – and implementing - my classmates feedback from our discussion

posts. I will take these combined learnings with me confidently as I enter the workforce soon.

PART 2

Areas of Advice for Someone Beginning the Harvard Business Simulation

Learning to effectively manage projects in a sandbox environment - like the Harvard

Business Simulation - has significantly improved my confidence in managing the breadth of

responsibilities required of project managers. I cannot emphasize enough, the importance and

role this simulation has played in developing my skillset as a project manager the last 7 weeks.

However, I can give a bit of advice to others looking to make the most of their experience.

My first bit of advice; Inspect what you expect. We have talked about how to make good

decisions and how to communicate effectively with your team. We’ve even touched a bit on

how to effectively approach, plan and make adjustments within the project lifecycle as well. In

each of these processes, lie assumptions. Assumptions about how your decisions will affect

your team and/or your project. Assumptions regarding resource allocation and dependencies.

Making these assumptions is a critical part to your overall success in the game. There are a vast

amount of nuances to be discovered in a small amount of time.

I start each game with a list of assumptions I have. Towards the end, one of my

assumptions included confidently pulling training (for a 4 person staff) week 5 – before my

team would inevitably tell me they were knowledgeable – with no effect on productivity.

Another; fabricating estimated completion dates from the inception of the project – knowing a
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contention point will arise at a certain time – to instill a sense of urgency. Allowing team

members to produce a greater number of tasks. My hope was to mitigate the productivity

inevitably lost in the contention point (Harvard Business Simulation).

After making my assumptions, I ran each game with a TextEdit window open. I laid out

an experiment with pre-determined variables to test my assumptions. During one of my more

successful runs I decided to start a project insisting our estimated completion date was 2 weeks

ahead of schedule – with intentions to lengthen the estimate during week 7 after a contention

point hit. I listed out my tasks completed over problems found for each week. Additionally, I

was tracking decision assumptions before each week, and insights found after making the

decisions. Inspecting my assumptions in this way - taking notes on the insights I found, and

comparing them to my assumptions – allowed me to analyze my decisions appropriately. I had

an average of 25 more tasks completed in the first 7 weeks when running my estimate variable.

My assumptions do not always pan out the way I expect. During scenario E I was seeing

a dip in productivity levels week 8 – during no point of contention – with my assumptions

hovering around training as a viable culprit (Harvard Business Simulation). Unbeknownst to me

at the time, I spent many runs attempting to conduct root cause analysis. But alas, I was simply

solving a symptom of the problem. The problem was not rooted in a lack of training. That was a

symptom of a larger problem at play. Tensions related to top down vs. bottom up expectations

regarding schedule completion. After recovering from a contention point a few weeks earlier

my project was behind schedule and I had not adjusted my estimated completion date. During

week 8 my team was stressed and completing less tasks, not because I had inappropriately
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allocated meetings/trainings. But because they felt rushed. Luckily I was able to identify the

root cause of the problem after inspecting my assumptions on causal relationships.

Speaking of causal relationships leads me into my second large piece of advice for those

embarking on the Harvard Business Simulation; Begin your work on identifying causal

relationships early, and build upon them often. As I mentioned, there are many nuances to the

project management simulation. Discovering those nuances take time. Your understanding of

them will be a pivotal point in successfully garnering high scores through successful projects. To

identify these relationships I recommend creating a bassline run with a score you are initially

proud of, before running iterations to identify additional dependencies and relationships. The

relationship between tasks produced and your estimated completion date is one example of a

critical dependencies that helped me to receive scores in the 700 range.

Another more nuanced aspect of the game, that admittedly took me awhile to figure

out, is the relationship between team member comments and moral levels. Each week you get

vital feedback from your team members (Harvard Business Simulation). Initially, when

constructive feedback was given to me I would react. Meaning that when a team member told

me that they needed more help building skills on a project I would immediately react and add

an extra coaching session – regardless of how many I was already implementing – to satisfy

their concerns. During one of my iterations I noticed that often times my teams concerns were

not properly reflected through moral metrics (Harvard Business Simulation). After running more

iterations to inspect what I was beginning to assume, I noticed that moreover from being
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improperly reflected, their comments were often in direct contrast to thier rising moral levels

and lowered stress levels.

Through a few more iterations I was able to discover the lack of a viable relationship

between their comments and my metrics. I did not disregard their comments in future

iterations. In fact, I made note of all comments made and identified additional relationships

stemming from them. One in particular, is that your team will technically be adequately trained

before you receive their comments stating they are knowledgeable. I identified this by running

my iterations. Realized they were stating they were knowledgeable by week 5. Pulling training

week 5, and making a note to instead attempt pulling training week 4. When I did so during the

next iteration, my team responded appropriately. They were trained before they told me and I

was able to give them back two hours of their time to focus on task productivity week 4.

As you embark on your journey keep in mind; comments often times reflect

what could have been done last week. My understanding of this relationship saw its

beginnings in my ability to be proactive instead of reactive.

Lastly, I would like to offer a bit of concise advice. Properly identifying these

relationships will take a bit of gameplay on your side. How to appropriately incorporate

them however, will be left up to you to decide. Let them guide you and inspire you

nonetheless: Train early, often and consistently. Teams are built not born; your first few

weeks of meetings and coaching will determine your teams capacity to produce tasks

for the remainder of the project. Have a plan. Take notes during gameplay and leave any

adjustments for your next iteration. Let go of the urge to adjust each and every problem
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right away or you miss understanding the root cause of the problem entirely. When you

get stuck with a scenario step away from your computer and try again later.

That last one was really an important factor to my success. Twice this semester I

spent consolidated amounts of time running scenarios right up until deadline. Feeling

the pressure of submitting an assignment, I oftentimes submitted scores I was not happy

with. But being committed to the process saw me going back to play a previous weeks

scenario the next morning after making my submissions. Attempting the game again,

with a fresh set of eyes, garnered me my highest scores to date each time.

We all have a project manager in us. It is up to each of us to uncover the gems

hidden within ourselves.

WORK CITED

o Harvard Business Publishing. (n.d.). Project Management Simulation. Project

Management Simulation: Scope, resources, and schedule.
https://forio.com/app/harvard/project-management/?x-epicenter-sso-
state=eyJyZXNvdXJjZUxpbmtJZCI6ICI1ODYxMTY2NSIsICJjb250ZW50QWNjZXNzT
W9kZSI6ICJmdWxsLWNvbnRlbnQifQ#/analyze/dashboard

o London, S. (2023, May 30). How To Set Confident Communication Goals For Your
Team [web log]. Retrieved June 18, 2023, from
https://hive.com/blog/communication-goals/.
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o Harrin, E. (2023, April 25). Unlocking the power of paraverbal communication at

work [web log]. Retrieved June 18, 2023, from
https://rebelsguidetopm.com/paraverbal-communication/.

o Powell, R. (2009). Chapter 1. In D. Buede (Ed.), Project Manager’s Guide to

Making Successful Decisions (pp. 1–18). essay, Management Concepts, inc.
Retrieved May 21, 2023,.

o Koeneke, B. (2023, May 9). What is resource optimization? Techniques & Best
Practices. ProjectManager. https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/resource-
optimization-techniques

o Cleden, D. (2016). Managing project uncertainty. Ebook Central . Taylor &

Francis Group. Retrieved June 26, 2023, from https://ebookcentral-proquest-
com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/lib/asulib-ebooks/detail.action?docID=438596.

o Kerzner, H. (2006). Project Management Best Practices: Achieving Global

Excellence (2nd ed.). Wiley.
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