Give the project managers an opportunity to seek input and conduct brainstorming sessions

Members of the project team regularly report their progress to the project manager, who in turn reports to management and users. 

As shown in Figure 3-23, 
the project manager collects, verifies, organizes, and evaluates the information he or she receives from the team. Then the manager decides which information needs to be passed along, prepares a summary that can be understood easily, adds comments and explanations if needed, and submits it to management and users.

Project Status Meetings

Project managers, schedule regular meetings to update the team and discuss project status, issues, problems, and opportunities. Although meetings can be time consuming, most project managers believe they are worth the effort. The sessions give team members an opportunity to share information, discuss common problems, and explain new techniques. The meetings also give the project manager an opportunity to seek input and conduct brainstorming sessions.

Project Status Reports

A project is in trouble, but the project manager is reluctant to report the problems. The case highlights important ethical issues that often arise in this situation. A project manager must report regularly to his or her immediate supervisor, upper management, and users. Although a progress report might be given verbally to an immediate supervisor, reports to management and users usually are written. 

Gantt charts often are included in progress reports to show project status graphically. Deciding how to handle potential problems can be difficult. At what point should you inform management about the possibility of cost overruns, schedule delays, or technical problems? At one extreme is the overly cautious project manager who alerts management to every potential snag and slight delay. The danger here is that the manager loses credibility over a period of time, and management might ignore potentially serious situations. At the other extreme is the project manager who tries to handle all situations single-handedly and does not alert management until a problem is serious. By the time management learns of the problem, little time might remain in which to react or devise a solution.

A project manager’s best course of action lies somewhere between the two extremes, but is probably closer to the first. If you are unsure of the consequences, you should be cautious and warn management about the possibility of a problem. When you report the situation, you also should explain what you are doing to handle and monitor the problem. If you believe the situation is beyond your control, you might want to suggest possible actions that management can take to resolve the situation. Most managers recognize that problems do occur on most projects; it is better to alert management sooner rather than later.

Selected Answer:FalseAnswers:TrueFalseQuestion 125 out of 5 pointsIn addition to tasks, every project has ____, which are reference points used to monitorprogress and manage the project.Selected Answer:milestonesAnswers:targetsmilestonesmembersworkloadsQuestion 135 out of 5 pointsProject status meetings give project managers an opportunity to seek input and conductbrainstorming sessions.Selected Answer:TrueAnswers:TrueFalseQuestion 145 out of 5 pointsGenerally, systems analysts review the work of other systems analysts, andprogrammers review the work of other programmers, as a form of peer review, instructured walk-throughs.Selected Answer:True

Answers:TrueFalseQuestion 155 out of 5 pointsA PERT/CPM chart does not showthe project as a network diagram with tasksconnectedby arrows.Selected Answer:FalseAnswers:TrueFalseQuestion 165 out of 5 pointsCriticaltime is the amount of time that a task would be late without pushing back thecompletion date of the entire project.Selected Answer:FalseAnswers:TrueFalseQuestion 170 out of 5 pointsWhen a project manager first recognizes that a project is in trouble, the options availableto her include ____.Selected Answer:eliminating controls and proceduresAnswers:expanding the project requirementsdelaying the project deadlinereducing the project resourceseliminating controls and proceduresQuestion 18

0 out of 5 pointsIn GanttProject, unlike in Microsoft Project, you create tasks and durations, indicatedependencies, and assign resources.Selected Answer:TrueAnswers:TrueFalseQuestion 195 out of 5 pointsWhen two or more concurrent tasks depend on a single prior task, the concurrent tasksare called ____ tasks.Selected Answer:successorAnswers:descendentsuccessorchildrenantecedentQuestion 205 out of 5 pointsThe accompanying figure shows task ____, which simplify a complex task bycombining several activities.

Selected Answer:groupsAnswers:groupsclustersaggregateslinksInstructionsBefore you start this quiz, first read Chapter 3 Managing Systems Projects. Secondcomplete Chapter 3 Discussion Topic. Third complete Chapter 3 End-of-ChapterHomework. This Quiz is base Chapter 3 Managing Systems Projects reading andassignments.This is a 60 minutes quiz.This is an open book quiz.This is a multiple attempt quiz.This is a multiple choice and true/false quiz.This is a random selection question quiz where each new attempt will have newquestions.ResultsDisplayedAll Answers, Submitted Answers, Correct Answers, Feedback, IncorrectlyAnswered QuestionsQuestion 15 out of 5 pointsA project manager’s scheduling function _____.SelectedAnswer:involves staffing, which includes selecting the project team andassigning specific tasks to team membersAnswers:involves guiding, supervising, and coordinating the project team’sworkloadincludes monitoring the progress of the project, evaluating results, andtaking corrective action when necessary to stay on targetinvolves staffing, which includes selecting the project team andassigning specific tasks to team membersincludes identifying and arranging project tasks and estimatingcompletion times and costs

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What give project managers an opportunity to seek input and conduct brainstorming sessions?

What is a gantt chart and why is it important?

Which type of chart is more useful for scheduling monitoring and controlling the actual work within a project?

What is the name of the project management software released by Microsoft used commonly in industry?