In response to your peers, build on their ideas and offer mitigation strategies for the project management challenges they have identified.

Esthella Marie Roma
My ultimate goal is to stay in retail and work as a Visual Merchandiser Director (VMD) at the Headquarters. This course, Project Management and Operations, started as a personal growth. My company offered free tuition. I jumped on the opportunity without really thinking what I wanted to do with it. Overtime, I have come to realize that this course is going to be my leverage. As I prepare for the role, this course will give me an in-depth understanding of project management which is critical to the role of a VMD.
The role and responsibilities of a Visual Merchandiser Director is heavily involved in designing and creating attractive visual displays. They are thought to be creative and innovative thinkers. They use their skills in visual design and space utilization to enhance the aesthetic appeal of window displays, walkways, counters, and in-store displays. The Visual Merchandiser Director act as a project manager. This means they are responsible in delivering the projects from start to finish. As a VMD, it is critical to possesses the right knowledge and skills in this area. In this course, we went over very important topics that includes understanding the intricacies of a retail operation and business model, analyzing data, effective management, thinking strategically, etc. The most applicable are:

A. Defining and communicating the vision and how this aligns to business strategy.
B. Managing projects within a defined methodology and lifecycle
C. Understanding the business case and refining the project to maximize benefits and minimize costs.
D. Owning the production of the project deliverables throughout the lifecycle.
The challenges that I have experienced is the inadequate risk management. In the store level, there are a lot of factors that hinders on time completion of projects while at the HQ level, these factors are never accounted for. This discrepancy makes a huge difference of store transitions set on time. For instance, HQ deliverables may contain every detail about execution, inventory, human resources, etc. However, last minute truck cancellations happen. This type of cancellations does not come from suppliers or HQ but could directly come from the store itself. This makes transitions a challenge and something that even HQ could not predict. Store Directors have the discretion to cancel deliveries at the last minute for factors such as safety concerns which could be due to team member call outs or lack of budget from previous week that hampered on time product push that resulted in an overflowing backroom. Thus, posing safety concerns. This bit of small hiccups in store are not accounted for. Reality is that, stores does not practice risk management (specifically for projects). When hiccups happen, the norm is to push back the date. I think this is critical as it hampers the company’s goal which is to offer consistency across its 1940 stores.
Response –
Janis Lullen

Good evening, class! Week 10!!! We made it!

What are your career goals?
For my career goals, I plan to obtain my project management professional (PMP) certification, and then advance to international logistics operations in my organization.

How does this course help prepare you for your future career? Be specific. What aspects of the course do you think will be most applicable?
This course put me in the mindset of presenting to senior management and providing my expertise instead of solely focusing on operations and training behind the scenes. The aspects of the course that helped the most were breaking down the program report as an official presentation to senior management, taking business data and using that data to provide recommendations. This course also challenged me to work with a team remotely. I typically work with a small team in the same vicinity, but this course pushed me to step outside my comfort zone and not be afraid to speak up.

What project management challenges have you seen in your business experience and/or research thus far? Have your views regarding the best way to approach those challenges changed since taking this course? Why or why not?
In my experience, the biggest challenge has been obtaining the same level of understanding in a project team. Having the same understanding of the project leads to a better probability of understanding and achieving the customer’s expectations. This knowledge upfront helps to minimize scope creep and product launch delays. This course has broadened my mindset on how I will approach projects. Each project will have to start with a kickoff. During this event, we will create and agree to our project team objective, review the scope, and identify any immediate concerns or initial risks involved. We will also use milestone dates to review efforts expended, project status, and project expenses to ensure we are still on track with our organization’s goals.