Leadership

The core principle of Leadership is to assist students in developing necessary collaborative, interpersonal, intercultural and management skills to utilize in conflict resolution and problem-solving.

Project Management is essentially a collection of foundations, principles, methods, and tools for effective design and management of projects in technology-based organizations. This course can equip students with a variety of valuable skills that can be applied in a range of professional settings through PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) assignments, individual student presentations, and a project team presentation. To name a few, skills can range from effective communication, leadership, problem-solving, time management, and organizational abilities. These skills are essential for success in project management roles and can be transferred to other fields as well, making a Project Management course a valuable investment for any student seeking to enhance their skill set.

Our semester project essentially required us to learn how to identify and mitigate project risks, evaluate performance metrics, and manage stakeholder expectations. Additionally, students learned how to plan and execute complex projects, manage resources and budgets, and coordinate with their team to achieve project goals. As a project manager on my team, it was my responsibility to accomplish and monitor these tasks mentioned prior to successfully lead and ensure project success.

My team's project topic was the development and implementation of security software to Blackstone, a realtor corporation. As their software systems have been outdated for 10 years, it was our mission to upgrade the systems to prevent any breaching of their systems which would result in the leaking of clients' private information. The project ultimately follows a traditional project management model as the project is prepared and organized prior to the start date. While this is the case, software development is very flexible and can have the potential occurrence of random bugs. As a result, during the development phase our project follows more of an agile project management structure to account for adaptability of risks and challenges.

One major challenge our team faced this semester is team conflict due to differences in opinions, values, and personalities among my team members. Team conflict can cause a delay in our software development and even negatively impact our workflow, project quality, and ethic. As the project manager with a leadership role in the team, it was my responsibility to address these conflicts by listening carefully, remain calm under pressure, and communicate effectively to find a mutually acceptable solution. I was able to utilize conflict resolution techniques such as negotiation, compromise, and mediation to encourage my team members to work together towards our common goal. Any team member that felt overwhelmed or discouraged during conflict resolution in our team meetings were provided guidance and support.

By demonstrating strong leadership skills and facilitating constructive communication among team members, I was able to foster a positive work environment and promote a sense of unity and collaboration within the team. This, in turn, led to better project outcomes and increased job satisfaction for each member of my team. Being able to develop these Leadership skills better prepares me for my career goals ahead as it makes me a strong candidate for future employers who seek individuals who not only possess technical expertise, but also have the ability to lead and inspire teams towards achieving their goals as I have been able to do so through this course.