Briefly discuss the major things you learned in the course.
As you reflect back, what was the most challenging, the most rewarding.
How will you apply what you learned in your current or future work?
During the span of this class I have learned many new concepts and ideas and had others refreshed or elaborated beyond my basic understandings. Communicating with people seems straight forward and is something that we have been doing since babies, and with that the nuances that are necessary for proper communication often times get lost. As you get involved with global team members the skills required increase exponentially.
What I found the most challenging and the most rewarding was understanding how to handle international teams from a PM perspective. The concepts presented throughout the course lay down the fundamentals, but I feel the more challenging part will be putting it into practice in the real world.
In my current job I do not have that much exposure to international teams, however I realize from this class that listening and ensuring proper communication techniques will help to avoid confusion or wrong assumptions.
Additionally, all of the software in the world (virtual meetings, teleconference, virtual worlds, etc) is useless from a business perspective unless the PM is capable of effective communication. For a message to be understand it has to be delivered clearly and concisely. Naturally, communication is a two way street and the PM needs to be able to express in no uncertain terms expectations from the team.
I plan to utilize the material learned in this course to help make myself a better communicator all facets of my life. At home I am a project manager of sorts when it comes to gathering my team (my sons) to complete tasks. Often times my communication methods are not effective and I have to regroup the team and reissue the steps that need to be completed to achieve our goals. Certain times there is a communication barrier that needs to be overcome (ie 3 yr old) that necessitates a different communication style that what was used with the 7 year old. Having the flexibility to craft your message to different audiences should allow a PM to be more successful.
