Partial 3 – TI 2011

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Reflections

Reflective post on the course TI 2011 – Project Evaluation and Management

What have I learned so far in this class?

Thinking all the way back to February (I can´t believe how much time has passed), so many small things come to my mind that have helped me in the course as well as in other courses I had. One of the most important ones were the conversations we had during class about the book chapters and our takeaways. It was amazing to see how each one of us had connected different topics and examples to the lessons of the book, and talking about those really helped to put together a ‘big picture’.

Another highlight was to work together with students not coming from a business background but IT. I realized that we were able to complement our knowledge very well, and at the same time I found that, with their help and some effort, I could also learn small coding steps quite easily.

Sadly, due to obvious circumstances, our lectures had to take place online. However, in my opinion this was another opportunity to prepare for a future work environment, where more and more people will have to work from home. This requires discipline and the ability to structure ones one schedule, but also trust and the ability to find a way of co-working with other people in other time zones.

Personally, I believe many companies which were reluctant to do so before have now been involuntarily thrown into the cold waters and were forced to let employees work from home, adapt more flexible ways of working, change business processes accordingly and also start to interact differently with their customers.

I could imagine that many people, managers as well as employees themselves might have been surprised

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Partial 2 – TI 2011

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Reflections

Reflective and prospective post on the course TI 2011 – Project Evaluation and Management

What have I learned so far in this class?

The main takeaways for me in the second partial of this semester have been all the guest lectures we had, and the reading of our novel ‚The Deadline‚.

So, what have I learned from the guest lectures?
First of all, we had guest speakers with highly diverse backgrounds and working experience. They have worked in startups, big tech conglomerates or founded their own startups and one even went to Shark Tank to pitch his business. They also worked in all kinds of different areas, from the gaming tech industry to finance to health.
In general message I took from all of them was that we should try to get as much experience in as many fields as possible, to learn new stuff and to figure out what we actually want to do in our lives. While we need to put a lot of effort and dedication in to achieve new things, we should also never forget to take time for ourselves and for hobbies, not only to relax but also to find opportunities for inspiration and motivation. And most importantly, we should not try to do too many things at once but rather focus on one element and do that properly.
Personally, it helped me to hear about their opinions about doing a master’s degree. As it is super important in the working life to be able to work with other people or even manage people, those skills need to be learned and trained. Doing a master’s degree can help you exactly with that, as it requires students to be more like peers of professors or professionals rather than sitting in a

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Partial 1 – TI 2011

--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Reflections

Reflective and prospective post on the course TI 2011 – Project Evaluation and Management

What have I learned so far in this class?

During the lectures so far, I could learn about different concepts regarding economic engineering which are relevant to project management and software development:

  • Concepts & elements of economic engineering
  • Money value throughout time
  • Simple and compound interest
  • Nominal and effective interest rate
  • Minimum acceptable rate of return
  • Net present value
  • Internal rate of return
  • Investment recovery period
  • Economic life of an asset
  • Depreciation
  • Taxes
  • Inflation
  • How to estimate in software development
  • Influences of economics in our daily life

As I am reflecting on project management topics each week by writing weekly book reflections on the book „The Deadline: A Novel about Project Management (Enlaces a un sitio externo.)“ by Tom DeMarco, I have learned already a lot about the important tasks and skills for managing people and (software) projects. So far, the topics discussed included:

  • Essentials of managing people (Hiring, matching people to tasks, motivating, team building)
  • Important requirements for successful projects (investments, support, location, scheduling, timeliness)
  • Importance of safety for employees and how to lead change
  • The importance of sticking up for your employees and for your job
  • The effects of dishonest communication and the effects of honesty, motivation and collaboration
  • Important skills a manager needs to learn on team building and team leading (leading with heart, trusting in yourself, building soul into your team, develop an instinct for problems)
  • How to interview people and to which clues to look out for (listen more than speaking, observe interactions with the team, talk to the team)
  • Identifying and managing risks in projects (identify, assess probabilities, costs and indicators, monitor, follow emergency plans)
  • The importance of both, success and failures
  • The value of modeling system dynamics Continue reading "Partial 1 – TI 2011"
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