trident PRM301 module 2 case+ slp +discussion August 2018

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.