Reflective writing on Project Risk & Quality Management

The Project Risk and Quality Management course offer excellent knowledge and skills that my workplace organization applies. I work as an email campaign specialist, and I can admit that there are many risks involved in the projects we undertake. However, we manage to overcome them by applying the proper risk management steps that the course teaches. There was a project that the organization was undertaking involving studying the behavior of a particular target audience. However, the project was prone to risks that could threaten its success. According to Edwards et al. (2020), this prompted the organization to propose managing the risks through the seven-step risk management process that the course suggests.

Therefore, the team involved in the project had to utilize the process, which establishes the context in which the risks could occur. It helped them to understand the ways risks could have happened. The team then focused on identifying the risks and evaluating them to measure their significance. Through this, it determined which risks have a greater magnitude of severity and benefits, which helped them determine threats and opportunities associated with the project. After following all the seven steps, the team completed the project while accomplishing the objectives.

Another piece of k knowledge that the team applied is communication. Project managing experts believe a project cannot be successful if the project shareholders do not engage in meaningful communications (Demeritt & Nobert, 2014). While working on that project, I observed how the team shared information, opinions, knowledge, suggestions, and warnings. The members based their communication on significant theories of communication that the course explains. Firstly, they utilized the mechanistic theory of communication such that the channel used was appropriate for the messages they shared. In most cases, they used a zoom meeting that allowed each one of them to engage.

Secondly, the psychological theory of communication was evident because each member was allowed to share their emotions ad perceptions concerning the project. Considering the project was about studying a market’s behavior, each participant had their perception of what influences people’s behavior, and they were given chances to communicate with them. Another theory that was useful to the project is the sociological theory of communication. This theory encourages project stakeholders to become social with other’s points of view about the project. Since everybody shared their ideas, the members could consider all the ideas, analyzed them, and came up with the best ones out of the shared opinions. They utilized the theory to accept that other people’s opinions matter.

Lastly, the organization, particularly in my department, has applied the designing project plan concept before starting any project. The course posits that this uncovers the potential risks and opportunities associated with the project, leading to its success (Papke-Shields & Boyer-Wright, 2017). My colleagues and I had a plan to initiate a new message design for the email campaign. Therefore, we focused on coming up with a project design because we knew it was vital for its success. Through the knowledge from the course about a project plan, we were able to set the project’s objectives to establish what we wanted to accomplish. Also, we penned down what we were required to do to achieve the goals, the completion time, and the cost. The plan was significant because the results were pleasant. Generally, the knowledge and skills from the course have been widely applied, leading to successful projects.

References

Demeritt, D., & Nobert, S. (2014). Models of best practice in flood risk communication and management. Environmental Hazards, 13(4), 313-328. https://doi.org/10.1080/17477891.2014.924897

Edwards, P., Vaz Serra, P., & Edwards, M. (2020). Managing project risks. John Wiley & Sons.

Papke-Shields, K., & Boyer-Wright, K. (2017). Strategic planning characteristics applied to project management. International Journal Of Project Management, 35(2), 169-179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.10.015