A DAY IN THE L IFE

1. How effectively do you think Rachel spent her day?

It depends on how do we understand the term “effectively spent day “, if the day described in the case is
a normal, usual day, then I think Rachel managed it effectively, like over viewing weekly reports,
following up project progress and managing all this everyday routine tasks. This may exactly be the
effectively spent time for project manager, if her main job is to control all directions of project. But as I
see in the case, Rachel is not deeply engaged in details of marketing group actions, as she finds the
problem of promises post factum. That means, she has not established the right process of
communication between marketing and the project management team.

Also I believe Rachel has to control several unplanned breaks and should improve the way she is
managing interruptions and the project status meetings. She wasted time taking responsibility of
Victoria’s project instead of bringing it to the portfolio management team.

On the other hand Rachel has good communication with her boss - she provides feedback on a job well
done at the end of each day.

2. What does case tell you about what it is like to be a PM?

The case clearly shows the variety of jobs PM does, variety of people s/he interacts with. Case shows
that PM has to plan his/her day in details, because each minute has the meaning, s/he even has to plan
for listening to music otherwise s/he will never find the time.

Case shows the difficulty of following up on each team’s progress, as there are so many details and
specifics in each team /department; and it’s real to omit the relevant information while doing such a
complicated job.

Marita Genebashvili

28.02.2011