1. In Atul Gawande’s TED Talk he mentions how specialization has led medicine to become a group of components that often do not act as one system. From a Project Management standpoint, how do you think specialization on complex technical projects can successfully be managed to ensure that the quality of the deliverables is maintained?
2. In Augie Picard’s TED Talk he describes how manufacturing is now done in multiple locations to take advantage of the strengths of each location. For example, airplane components may be manufactured in Mexico and shipped to Canada for assembly on a plane. Project Management is moving in a similar direction. It is now not uncommon to have members of your project team located in different cities, states or countries. What are the challenges you see in managing a virtual team? How would you overcome those challenges?
3. W. Edwards Deming is considered the “Father of Modern Quality” and developed many of the methods used today in quality management. While these methods were initially developed for manufacturing organizations, they certainly can be applied to the service sector and specifically to Project Management. The PDSA Cycle is the basis for just about every quality program. As a Project Manager you have two elements of quality to think about. The first focuses on the quality of the deliverables that you will be providing. The second focuses on the overall quality of the Project Management you provide. For most organizations, you will be managing within an established quality management system for the deliverables. Your job is to make sure you have built the necessary budget and schedule to comply with those organizational requirements. For the second focus (your own PM quality) you will need to come up with processes to ensure the overall quality of your project management. As a PM, you will need to develop your own definition of quality/success. What do you think some of those definitions would be on a given project?
