Posted by Huiqiang Zhao on
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Remember this project? Here’s the update! Over the past beautiful weekend, seven classmates and I spent the two full days helping “Orion Center for YouthCare” re-organize its storage room, food shelves, and receiving area. We all rolled up the sleeves, worked very hard and enjoyed the sweat. Sometimes we separated our tasks to fit each person’s strengths. For example, I handled shelves building with power tools. Other people handled sorting and labeling thousands of clothes. But sometimes we had everybody work on the same task together such as moving all the organized bins back to the storage. When my teammates realized I still showed up even though I was sick, they all stepped up and took over some of my duties. This was a real team because we were helping each other. We showed respect and consideration.
After we completed the project, the center staff was amazed about the new functional storage area. They said we had made their life so much easier. They felt that we provided them a system that allowed them to get and store things effectively and efficiently for their outreach program. This is exactly the learning objectives for OPER 576 Project Management class. I am happy I took this class because it taught me the critical successful functions of project management, but more importantly, this class provided us the opportunity to apply what we learned in class and help those organizations that serve some of the most needy in our community. As we know, every successful project requires commitment from the project manager and each team member. The art and science in project management have to be blended well in order to move the whole project into a right direction. In summary, this project was on budget, on time and on scope.
Written by Derek Zhao, Email: zhaoh@seattleu.edu