Project Management Concepts

Project

A project is a short term undertaking to produce a unique product, service or result (Gray & Larson, 2011). I had the opportunity to involve myself with a special project that was near and dear to my heart. The project was an initiative developed by myself and 12 other ladies from the Kansas City, Kansas alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Sister to Sister was a project where we provided mentorship and health awareness for adolescent girls in public housing in Kansas City, Kansas.

The program provided 12 young women who resided in public housing in Kansas City, Kansas with exposure to mental health professionals, educators, and experts in physical fitness and nutrition. The program provided education of heal and wellness to the girls. Lastly, the program allowed the young women to have contact with professional women of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc. and also began several mentoring relationships. The young ladies that we worked with were able to gain insight into a healthier lifestyle both physically and psychologically.

The following are major characteristics of a project:

1. An established objective.

2. A defined life span with a beginning and an end.

3. Usually, the involvement of several departments and professionals.

4. Typically, doing something that has never been done before.

5. Specific time, cost, and performance requirements. (Gray & Larson, 2011)

The objective was for the young ladies to gain insight into a healthier lifestyle by exposing them to mental health professionals, educators, and experts in physical fitness and nutrition.

The lifespan of the project began in April during the planning phases with a proposed date to execute this project on a Saturday in August of 2009.

13 women all from different professions and members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc, participated in working on this project.

This was a project that had never been done before within this chapter and we saw a need to reach out to this particular group of young ladies.

The Sister to Sister program was a Five-hour workshop held on Saturday, August 29th, 2009. The workshop began at 9am and concluded at 2pm. Included within our proposal for the workshop was a defined budget outlining cost for food, supplies, mileage, and souvenir items. Our plan for measuring our project results was to provide the adolescents and members of the Mini Church Resource Network with evaluations and review the results in detail.

I consider this to be a project as opposed to day-to-day work because this is something that we as professions do not do on a day-to day basis. Although we are all part of different professions, we felt that this project that needed to move forward with this short term undertaking so that the end result was to reach out to these young ladies to show them that they regardless of where they live and the limited resources, they are still able to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Organizational Structure

There are various organizational structures with the main three