*inserts a very typical project management picture from here*

Here’s a short summary to get us all on the same page.

Chapter 2 introduces us to aspects of project management. It first establishes a difference between goals and objectives, where goals are shared across all projects while objectives are unique to each project. The chapter also claims that all projects have 6 goals to manage, with 5 phases and 6 activities during the process.

Chapter 5 further delves into project planning. This covers the necessities of planning, the iterative process of planning, fishbone-sque breaking down of tasks, and so on. It also goes into 6 objectives of the project work plan, and details regarding each objective, as well as how to document said plan.

THINGS WHICH I’M INTRIGUED BY

The 6th goal is incredibly interesting to me, of “meeting everyone’s expectations”. It’s surprising to see that the human relationships between you, the clients and the employees is as important as it is. That’s also one of my weakest points, in balancing my happiness, with the happiness of others. Unfortunately, the book can’t give much information, since this is a very situational goal, but it’s still good to take note.

The only solution is probably practice. I’m very sorry in advance to every person who will have to put up with me.

The project manager’s obligation to fulfill other responsibilities is also concerning, especially in small projects, and especially where they’re expected to be generalists. After all, the way companies usually work is that you start as a specialist in a discipline anyway, such as “Junior Graphic Designer”. No one gets directly promoted to a more generalist role like Visual Design Executive. In other words, you need both depth and breadth.

The only solution, probably, is to “be good”.

NOT VERY IMPORTANT THINGS WHICH NEVERTHELESS MAKE ME SALTY

Something which really gets to me is the artificial division of goals into 6 categories. This is because I feel that many of the goals can be subsumed under a similar header, such as “To reach the end within the established limitations”. This would easily cover budget, time, and safety, where these are limitations which must be adhered to. It’s not a major issue, since it IS important to eventually expand on these different aspects, but it’s just conceptually annoying for me.

Something which also gets to me is their definition of efficiency. That, again, is probably a linguistic difference: when I was taught (the equivalent of basics of) project management in my extracurricular activities, efficiency was lauded over effectiveness, where effectiveness was about being successful, but efficiency was about being successful with minimal resources. I guess it’s not a major issue either.