Question

Replytoresponses415W7DQ2ResponsesTOBEDONE2 xReplytoresponses415W7DQ1ResponsesTOBEDONE2 xReplytoresponses430w7TOBEDONE2 x

Original question below for reference only. Not to be answered. Please ONLY reply to responses

415 Topic 7 DQ 2 (NOT TO BE DONE)

Discuss the role of a Christian worldview in IT project management and provide an example of how it can be applied to contribute to the success of a project. In replies to peers, provide additional ideas and examples that have not already been discussed.

Reply to responses 415 W7 DQ2 Responses (TO BE DONE)

Please read before replying to responses. 100-150 words.

Response Requirements

Reminder, each response must be a paragraph which is seven sentences. In addition, I am reminding all students not to lose points moving forward, that the responses for participation need to follow the ABC method. Acknowledge what your classmate has said, build on the content (do not just state, I agree with how you said this, or I like how you said that), and close with a question (an open-ended question). You may send me a message in the private forum with any questions. You must have supporting in-text citations and references to support your discussions posts. Blessings with wisdom and academic growth! Cheers, Professor Ligon Blessings and prayers…

A Georgia

There are many roles of a Christian worldview in It project management. One main role is to know your project team members. This does not only include defining roles and responsibilities within the project team but also build a foundation of trust. As 1 Thessalonians 5:11 states, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (ESV). Keeping your project team motivated leads to increased productivity, collaboration, and an environment of great ideas. Another role of a Christian worldview in It project management is taking care of each other. Luke 15:4-6 states “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home” (NKJV). A project manager should demonstrate a servant attitude, this is focusing on the project team and what that project manager can do for the team and not what the team can do for project manager. In other words, providing the project team with the tools that are needed for them to achieve their full potential in order to deliver a successful project.

B Sabrina

Hello Professor and class,

Since this is a project management class, I feel like its main focus is organization, coordination, communication, and overall leadership skills. There is much to be said regarding how a Christian ought to examine and display these skills and qualities – especially as we look at Jesus’s example. In this week’s first discussion question, I feel like that scenario was the outcome of poor leadership and responsibility. Both of which may happen but are not great demonstrations of the Christian worldview. It only serves the project manager, not the team who has been doing the labor for 9 months just to amount to nothing; not the management who entrusted this project to the PM; not the stakeholders who are expecting a completed deliverable. If we look at Jesus’s ministry we do not see this type of behavior. He is a serving leader. We see this in the scene where he is washing the feet of his disciples. So, in a Christian Worldview, a project manager can contribute to the success of a project by being the catalyst to serve others and ultimately do the job for sake and benefit of others instead of “looking good on paper”.

C Samita

Being an all-around nice with your team is what the Christian world view means. Give trust and earn trust. Allow the team to do their job and support them with kindness. Sometimes a Project Manager needs to be a bit hard on the team but when a firm hand needs to be taken to get the desired results, I follow the saying “Use an iron fist in a velvet glove.” This means that while you make everyone know that certain things must be done, you are not an ogre, use words do not anger, use rewards instead of threats, be a friend to earn a friend. This may sound crazy, but I feel that respect is earned, and the earning process is not an easy road. To have a project succeed, for example, provide as much support as you can for the process and allow the team to blossom and grow and listen to what they are saying, not just the words, what is between the lines and divulge how that can be used to bring about success to the project.

Original question below for reference only. Not to be answered. Please ONLY reply to responses

415 Topic 7 DQ 1 (NOT TO BE DONE)

Imagine the following scenario. You are the project manager for an IT project that had been underway for 9 months. You have discovered that the technology is obsolete and you are over budget, but other than that, the project looks “great on paper.” As the project manager, what is your recommendation for how to proceed on the project? In replies to peers, discuss whether you agree or disagree with the assessments and justify your position with specific reasons, facts, and examples.

Reply to responses 415 W7 DQ1 Responses (TO BE DONE)

Please read before replying to responses. 100-150 words.

Response Requirements

Reminder, each response must be a paragraph which is seven sentences. In addition, I am reminding all students not to lose points moving forward, that the responses for participation need to follow the ABC method. Acknowledge what your classmate has said, build on the content (do not just state, I agree with how you said this, or I like how you said that), and close with a question (an open-ended question). You may send me a message in the private forum with any questions. You must have supporting in-text citations and references to support your discussions posts. Blessings with wisdom and academic growth! Cheers, Professor Ligon Blessings and prayers…

A Sabrina

Although I’m not sure if similar situations happen in real life, I would definitely say that the problems in this scenario are rooted in a poor or inadequate planning/initiating phase. Nine months is not a long enough time for technology to become obsolete and for a project to be “great” on paper” does not settle well with me, especially if the project is already over budget. The panic alarm would be going off and I would be hitting the ground running to find a solution. My first action would be to look at my contingency plans and investigate what can be done that I already thought of doing when these things fail. I would also schedule a meeting with my financial team/contact to see what can be done to give the project a little bit more room so it can be turned around. I think I would also ask, if possible, to reach out to other PMs or mentors for advice as to what alternatives have worked for them. If there is still plenty of time available in the project, I would see what can be done with leadership and asset management to obtain the technology fit for this project. Otherwise, there seem to be several holes in this project. It has bled out and now it’s all coming to light. It may be time to start considering what can be done to salvage anything and save the company money instead of burning it by trying to save my project.

B Lugi

The first step of dealing with the project is clearly identifying the significant issues that are wrong with the project’s current state. The primary issues are that it is obsolete and has gone beyond the schedule. The fact that it ‘looks good on paper’ should not be a factor in allowing it to go on, but a motivating factor in correcting it (Engelhardt, 2019). As a project manager, I would reorganize the project development process, rearrange it, and reschedule it for further development. I would identify the objectives of the project and reorganize the resources available and tea members to start developing the technology. I would then set new milestones with other tracking mechanisms alongside another schedule. This would then set the project on a new course.

References

Engelhardt, N. (2019). Comparison of agile and traditional project management: Simulation of process models. Acta academica karviniensia, 19(2), 15-27.

C Justin

Class,

If you are nine months into a project and are just now finding out that your tech is obsolete and that you are over budget I am sorry to say that there is much more going on than meets the eye. But if we were to take this example and look at it the first action item on my agenda as a PM is to look at the budget and review that in-depth with my finance team and see where we could trim the fat of the project without causing too many change requests for the client. If you have no budget then it might be time to scrap the project and take this one as a loss.

If the tech is obsolete that is a challenge that might take a while to figure out. I would need to meet with my leadership and plan out a strategy to update the tech as soon as possible and within the new budget that has been set forth by our finance team. I would rather be transparent with the client and see if we could gain their trust back. We also would need to offer a possible discount on the product which means that sales would need to get involved as well. All in all, this is not an ideal situation but not something that can’t be turned around.

Original question below for reference only. Not to be answered. Please ONLY reply to responses

430 Topic 7 DQ 1 (NOT TO BE DONE)

Many organizations do not regularly practice/exercise their contingency plans, and some simply do not have one (or lack a comprehensive plan). How would you obtain commitment and engagement from an organization to establish and conduct routine tabletop exercises for incident response and disaster recovery plans?

Reply to responses 430w7 (TO BE DONE)

Please read before replying to responses. 100-150 words.

Response Requirements

Reminder, each response must be a paragraph which is seven sentences. In addition, I am reminding all students not to lose points moving forward, that the responses for participation need to follow the ABC method. Acknowledge what your classmate has said, build on the content (do not just state, I agree with how you said this, or I like how you said that), and close with a question (an open-ended question). You may send me a message in the private forum with any questions. You must have supporting in-text citations and references to support your discussions posts. Blessings with wisdom and academic growth! Cheers, Professor Ligon Blessings and prayers…

A Aaron

I am not surprised that organizations do not regularly practice their contingency plans or even have one in place. The first thing to consider when creating any tabletop exercise is to create a realistic scenario that might happen to an organization because the threats might vary based on industry the organization is part of. During the tabletop exercises, you should present clear objectives and follow a schedule. You should also make copies of the incident response and disaster recovery plans and keep track of the progress on a whiteboard. Before the exercise starts a moderator must review the objectives and the scope of the exercise. Once the exercise has been performed, you should review the process and understand what worked and what needs to be improved on. After the exercise you must act on what was learned and allow the entire team to practice their responses in real time and it can help identify the weaknesses and any gaps that might exist in the organization’s response.

Agility (2019) How to Create a Disaster Recovery Tabletop Exercise. Retrieve from

https://www.agilityrecovery.com/article/how-create-disaster-recovery-tabletop-exercise

B Jacob

Practice makes perfect and in the IT field, there is no exception. “A Gartner report found that only 37% of organizations have a documented cyber incident response plan” (LIFARS, 2020). What makes it worst is that most organizations that may have a cyber incident plan are not practicing for the what-if possibility of attack. This means that employees of the organization have no real grasp of what to do in the event of an attack. A way that organizations can practice for these types of events is to implement routine tabletop exercises which allow either C-level executives or an internal security team to focus on high management employees to analyze the organization’s crisis management, the ability to detect, contain, and respond to a potential attack. Best practices to have commitment and engagement in these exercises are to lay out the objectives of the exercise, truly understand the audience and tailor it to them, outline the scenario for the employees, including a realistic element to the scenario, and conclude the exercise with an after actions report (AAR). Following these few steps will help in giving employees a clear picture of what to expect as well as illustrate the importance of the exercise. Organizations need to move away from just a check the box mentality and start to get hands-on, so everyone is on the same page. This will help in upgrading organizations’ strategies and prepare them for the ever-growing IT field.

C Cody

Hello Professor Ligon and Class,

    One way that an IT Team could obtain commitment and engagement from an organization for routine tabletop exercises is through creating a formal document . This document needs to be signed by the IT Team and by upper management in which contains dates and times of these tabletop exercises for incident response scenarios. According to SANS, ”Tabletops are paper-based, and they are conducted in roundtable discussions guided by an Incident Response Plan, knowledge of the engineering processes, and an understanding of the existing ICS security defenses” (Parsons, 2022). An objective of  one of these exercises could be to act like there is a ransomware attack and then to see if all of the right defenses are in place to handle such an incident. Surprisingly, these tabletop exercises could take anywhere from 2-30 days to fully cover all bases so it is important to plan these out, in-depth, beforehand. Some valuable attributes to obtain in the planning stage could be figuring out the tabletop goals, the frequency of the tests, the scenarios that will be covered and the teams that will be in charge of the different tasks.