Chapter 4 ideas

Before a project starts to run, there are several items need to be confirmed.
The first one is that all parties need to agree on the goals of the project. There is a guideline for participants to follow in order not to get the project out of control, and it has to be written down to prove that the project gets agreement. A success project means that it meets stakeholder expectations.

The second one is controlled scope. Before a project begins, we have no idea how much it will cost or how much ingredients will be needed. We can only predict and make an estimate quantity statement, but our prediction may go wrong sometimes. To avoid project overruns,the project rules should be made carefully.
I have a personal experience would like to share. There was one time I got a chance to design an identity system for the customer. I have no experience working as a freelancer at that time, so there was no contract signing idea in my mind. The project didn't go well because the customer keep asking for revising. I was really upset because I spent all my time just to change little of this and change little of that. It was like they can do whatever they want because there is no rule and no limit. From this bad experience I have learned that a project should make certain guidelines for stakeholders to follow and be written down. The project will turn out more productive.

The third one is management support. This is what I mentioned earlier about project rules being written. This is to make sure that every stakeholder understand the project and agree to the guideline.

Chapter 3 ideas

In chapter 3, the most important point is to identify who are our stakeholders. The reason is that stakeholders has direct or indirect stake in an organization, and they may significantly influence the success of an activity or a project. If a business organization want to success on a project, identifying stakeholders is a primary task.

So, the question is " Who are our stakeholders?"
The chapter listed out stakeholder roles by different perspectives. They can have positive or negative views regarding a given project. The point I have learned here is that the more disagreement those stakeholders have with one another, the more difficulty the project may be done with. Therefore, knowing the key stakeholders and also win their cooperation is the most challenge.

Each stakeholder is important to the project, and the customer is the most unpredictable and hard to deal with for me. In my job, I sometimes have to deal with customers when they are unsatisfied with my work. Maybe I am more professional than the customer in my field, but I am in no position to argue with them but follow their desires, because they are the one paying for it, and my salary is actually indirectly from them. If the customer doesn't satisfy with the project, then the project directly fails no matter how good the manager or project team think. The customer holds the final decision on if the project success or not.So, how to get an agreement between an organization and the customer is a skill we need to learn.

A leader who I admire

I admire Steve Jobs not only for his great achievement on today’s technology but also for his innovative and unique idea as a leader. Sure competent and determined play an important part forming a good leader. But a leader must be inspiring and imaginative as well. He/She must always pay attention to what is going on now, but also look to the future. Jobs is truly a innovator who always think out of the box.

Another key to make Job successful is that he loves what he is doing and believes in himself. “Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.” (by Steve Jobs) Even when he hires somebody, his question to those people is “Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.” They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else. In a team, it’s important that everyone unites in one mind. Being loyal is also a characteristic that a good leader should has.

Week 2: Chapter 1&2

I totally agree with the point of "Team members who understand project management make the entire project run smoother. They make the project manager more effective because they make better estimates, identify risks, and participate in planning and problem solving."
As I mentioned before, I am working at a start-up Chinese newspaper firm which is having no more than 10 employees. The team is small, even though we performs our duties differently, we are required to participate meetings and have a free say to the project. I think it's smart to have all us understand the project and involved in planning, because participation will make us more responsible to the project. Once we have sense of ownership, we are willing to pay extra effort to make the project achieve the goal. Let employee feel themselves important to the project is a key!!

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On the chapter 1, it mentions that every technique in the book is a communication technique, designed to improve the formal and informal ways we communicate critical project information.

We are individual person who grow in different environment, so even though we receive the same message, we might come out different thought. I was watching the movie "up in the air" the other day and totally saw that communication is important theory.
To lay off people is difficult, but to tell the person who gets laid off is even tougher. How to make the person feel not so bad truly needs some communication skill, and I think that skill applies to everything.

Project: Caketail Music Cafe (CMC)

Caketail Music Café (CMC) is a start-up bakery and coffee retail plan to establish in Palo Alto, California. CMC expects to catch the interest of regular loyal customer base with its broad variety of coffee and pastry products. The company plans to build a strong market position in the city, due to the partners' experience and mild competitive climate in the area.

CMC aims to offer its products at a moderate price to meet the demand of the middle-to higher-income local market area residents and college/ university students.

CMC will also introduce the ‘Sports and Music’ elements as the connection between human. These two elements allow human to get together, express themselves and improve social interaction.

CMC is equally owned and managed by its two partners.

Miss Cherri Chiang has extensive experience in bakery & beverage, sales and marketing. She has 5 years of experience in food industry (Restaurant/ Bakery & beverage) in Europe, US and Taiwan

Mr. Edmond Low brings experience in the area of operation, management and administration with 8 years of experience in food industry (Bakery/ Banquet/ fast food chain) in US, Malaysia, Australia and Thailand.

CMC offers a broad range of coffee and espresso products, all from high quality Brazil grown imported coffee beans by providing each customer coffee and espresso products made to suit the customer, down to the smallest detail. CMC also offer others non-caffeine/ alchoholic beverage products.

The bakery will provides freshly prepared bakery and pastry products at all times. CMC will be introducing the main and new product of “Caketail” that expect to be the all time favorite for it consumer.

Vision

CMC will be the hub of entertainment for 58,598 Palo Alto populations. It will soon attract customers around Bay area (with approximately 7.4 million people).

Mission

CMC aims to offer high quality coffee, espresso, and pastry products at a competitive price.

CMC will create an atmosphere conducive to creative expression and promote the creative process.

CMC is the inspiration of the current social life around the world especially those that live in the urban metropolitan life. People will get together with their friends and families to watch a game or to listen to music. CMC will also be the focal point for businessman to meet up and create business opportunity for Palo Alto city.

Goals

Our primary goals over the 1^st year are:

1. Secure financing for start-up of at least $100,000 for space and equipment.

2. Locate the strategic space in Palo Alto.

3. Acquire equipment necessary for business, i.e. coffee pots, cappuccino machines, blenders, etc.

4. Make agreement with Brazil coffee distributors, and bakery vendors.

5. Create a cozy, artist friendly environment that suits CMC concept(i.e. choice of colors, choice of music, decor)

6. Open for business and aims to be listed among the top 10 hub of entertainment in Palo Alto by first half year of operation (within 6 months)

7. Break even by the fourth month of its operation as it steadily increases and achieve sales of $1.04 Million in Year 1.

CMC SMART goals analysis

With the Vision, Mission and goals statement above, it is crystal clear that CMC defined the specific plan to success with the aim to be the hub of entertainment and high quality products offered as we understand the business needs and nature well with all the market segmentation and analysis done.

We have also clearly stated the primary goal is to secure the start up cost for space and equipment purchasing.

Also, CMC target sales of ~$1 million by end of Year 1 of operation with expected break even by 4^th month of operation is measurable.

CMC partnership of Cherri Chiang and Edmond Low co-operate and agree to set the following humble yet realistic goals with their background of MBA knowledge and experience in food industry globally.

With the network established, we will be able to secure high quality raw material and supplies to support the business needs.

A year of prep and timeframe is reasonable for CMC to establish themselves as one of the most frequent café and entertainment spot in Palo Alto.

Who am I and why am I taking project management?

I am Pei-Jung Chiang. In school my major was graphic design and I thought I would always in this field untill taking MBA program. I still keep my passion on art and design, but I have more interests in business right now since it teaches me how to make more money. (don't know if it's true yet...we'll see :))

I am now working in a start-up Chinese newspaper company as an art editor. Since it is a start-up, almost everyone is required to participate in each project. I like it personally because that makes me learn more by intergrate with each other. Project management has became so important to us because the news update every moment and we need to generate it before releasing to the public. So, if we don't have good management, the project will be affected immediately.

So does other business, project management plays an important role of making good product or not. I guess I will have to learn the knowledge if I get a chance to own a business.

What I expect to learn? Well, I would say everything since it's a new field to me. Looking forward to learning something new!!