8) Can recent college graduates expect to be project managers right away? What is a typical career path for a project manager? Using the internet, research the average salary of a PM in South Florida. Is this for an experienced project manager? Which sites (URL) did you use to find average salaries?

I don't think recent college graduates can expect to become a project manager right away unless they can show that they have enough skills and experience. The career path of a project manager requires certain certificates; such as, the CompTIA's Project + certificate, the PMI's CAPM certificate or a PMP certificate. The salary for a project manager with an experience under a year is 56,000 - 60,000 annually according to salary.com

http://swz.salary.com/SalaryWizard/Project-Manager-I-Salary-Details-Miami-FL.aspx?&yearsofexperience=0

7) Why do you think organizations should develop their own information technology project management methodologies? Why can’t they just follow a book or a methodology that has already been developed?

I think organizations should develop their own information technology project methodologies because every project is different and require different procedures, time management and steps to complete a project. If organizations followed a book or methodolgies that have already been developed, it may not follow accurate procedures needed to complete their particular project correctly.

6) Even if a project team is not part of project selection, why is it important for them to know why their project was selected?

Even if a project team is not part of a project selection process it is still important for them to know why their project was selected, because they can have the knowledge to go through the strategic planing process and have proper methods of completing a project correctly.

5) Process Groups - How much time and money is typically spent on projects in each of the process groups. Assume you have one year and $100,000 to spend. Justify your answer

In each process group according to Andy Crowe, 3% of time goes towards the closing process, 5% goes into monitoring and controlling, 69% for the executing process, 21% for planning and 2% for the initiating process. If I have one year to complete a project and my budget was $100,000, time spent on the closing process will take approximately 10 days and $3,000. The time it will take for the monitoring and controlling process will be 18 days and $5,000. The executing process, which takes the most time, will take 251 days and $69,000. Planning, 76 days and $21,000. Initiating, 7 days and $2,000.

4) Some of the adaptive approaches to developing systems (like agile) are becoming more popular. Are they better or more appropriate than prescriptive approaches in most cases? Why or why not?

Adaptive approaches to developing systems like Agile are better because these popular approaches provide more freedom than a prescriptive approach. Important attributes of this approach are that projects are more mission driven and component based.

3) Briefly describe the strategic planning process; including the SWOT analysis. Which method do you think businesses use most when identifying IT project? Why?

The planning process in IT project management has five different processes. First, is the planning of the project itself. A project team develops a plan to define the work needed for the project. This process includes the three contraints for the planning process to determined the cost, time and scope. Second, is the Executing process. This process includes acquiring and developing the project team, perform quality assurance, distributes information manage stakeholder expectations, and conducts procurements. Third, is the Monitoring and controlling process. The project manager and staff monitor and measure progress against plans and take action when nessessary. Last, is the closing process. This process finalizes activities, documents archiving project files and closes contracts. S.W.O.T analysis stands for Strength, Weakness, opportunity, and threats, and I believe businesses use the S.W.O.T method on identifying a project because it identifies a broad view of the project from its strengths and opportunities.

2) Describe the triple constraint. What are the three components and what is the relationship between them.

The triple constraints is an overview of a project using cost, time, and scope. The cost is an estimate of how much the project will cost overall. For example, it varifies the cost of labor for the workers, risk estimates, resources and bills for materials.

 Time, is the time required to complete a project. It may take a project a couple of weeks, months or years depending on cost and scope of the project.

The scope of a project is understanding the objectives goals throughout the project, whether it is certain tasks that has to be done, tests, additional resources, budget, etc. To determine the scope of a project it must go through different phases, which can change throughout a project.

These three constraints are all related to get an idea of how much the entire project should cost, how much time it will take, and it should let the project manager get an in depth overview of a project to be completed.