Introduction

Welcome everyone. This is a class on Project Management, introduction to project management principles and practices from University of California, Irvine. I am Rob Stone. I’ll be the instructor for these four sessions that we’ll have regarding this topic. I started off in the aerospace industry as a co-op student many years ago. I was a mechanical engineering student. Started working in aerospace industry on projects. I didn’t even know I was on projects at that time. Later on, I looked back at what I was doing, I said, oh, those were all projects. I left mechanical engineering, went into civil engineering and so I did a lot of projects in the civil engineering world. Eventually, I started working for the Department of Transportation. And along the way, started teaching classes at the local university on project management, just a few classes here and there in the extension department. And little by little, ended up teaching a number of classes. My main focus now is teaching classes in project management. However, I still manage projects for people. I just finished a big project up in San Francisco for an organization. About a year and a half long project, I managed that one for them. I coach project managers along the way. I help project help organizations implement project management processes in their organization. So, I do a number of things besides just teach these classes. And since I started teaching, I’ve been exposed to number, numbers of projects in all sorts of industries. For-profit, not for profit, government manufacturing, research and development scientific research like I said non profit organizations the health care industry, a number of different kinds of projects.