Historical Context and Contemporary Trends: Literature
Review Historical Context Project Management - As the name suggests, study in this field will help me in planning, maintaining and execution of any project from initial stage to final stage. This is helpful in every concentration we want to study along with our day to day activities. Most of the time of a Project Manager is consumed in communication whether physical or through any other medium so as to keep all the persons in a project in the loop. The Project Manager have a broad knowledge of every field and he works mutually with technical staff as well as senior management. By having Project Management as a concentration, we can acquire Leadership and Time Management qualities as well as budgeting, ability to make decisions even when the project is falling apart. This area is a never ending one and will not be out of scope ever. Planning ahead is a huge part of it and that skill is acquired by a project manager over a period of time. Every project has a budget, time frame in which it has to be completed and the scope of it. All these three are the major aspect of being a Project Manager. To be a good Project Manager, one should be able to make decisions that is best for all. We cant make decisions which will fulfill the needs of senior management of a company but ignores the requirements of the clients. Project Managers are so far effective in making decisions and doing negotiations for everyone to be satisfied. Communication Engineering This field is related to improving the data transfers between two computers which may be near or across the globe. As a communication engineer, our job is to select the best material used for laying the network. In general, Communication market is expanding at a high rate. Expanding nature of this area can be seen as the internet speeds have touched high rate over the last decade. The advancement in satellites and optical fiber technology have made real time transfer of audio and video like Skype or any messenger. This 2
growth in technology have resulted in performance of every field
we can imagine like defense, space, health care, schools. Generally, Communication Engineers are responsible to provide high speed data services like currently ongoing 5G technology in Japan. Networking Security With the increase in wireless communication and the use of internet over the last two decades, security is a serious concern. The job of networking security engineer is to provide both hardware and software protection to our devices and our data that is on our computer and also that is being transferred. A lot of crimes are happening over the internet in different forms like identity theft, hacker attacks, stealing of sensitive information like bank details. Due to these, security concerns are also increasing. So a lot of Networking Security jobs have been opened recently. All the institutions and offices are hiring people who can set up the security measures for them. Every institution/ organization is concerned with its security and that is where Networking security Engineer comes in. After the installation, maintenance of the network is also required and due to this the scope for the Networking Security Engineer is vast. Contemporary Trends Due to todays tightening budgets and high time constraints, Project Managers are always under pressure. This is leading to the enhancement of their skills by developing faster decision making under pressure. The changing trend of Project Managers to have leadership qualities is already being taken into consideration by many organizations. Now days, certification and experience is not the only thing that is considered in selecting a project manager for a specific job. Ability to lead the team is the changing trend which must be acquired over time. The main challenge already faced by communication engineering is efficient management of the increasing complexity of personnel and technology. As seen in the book Rise of the Robots, artificial intelligent machines have made a breakthrough in the innovation and technology. The technology in the current decade is rising 3
exponentially as compared to the last few decades. Alternative
solutions are being searched in order to fulfil the need of high bandwidth and data rates. The basic problems which needs to be fixed are complexity of the layout, security, scalability, fault tolerance, fast integration of new technologies with the old one and a good business model. Here the project manager comes into work. These changes which are to be made in existing structure can be well managed by the project managers as they will be able to get a proper estimate of time, cost and scope for these projects. The new upcoming innovation which is currently being tested is 5G which will not only provide better connectivity and data speeds but also better security. It will also address to network congestion, energy efficiency, cost and connection to billions of people and devices. Now days fiber cables are used everywhere for the better transmission of data packets. 2014 was the year of fiber everywhere propelled by efforts to improve connectivity and address demand increases from the use of high definition video, 3G/4G, streaming, podcast and other broadband services. This increased demand exposed existing bottlenecks in the communications infrastructure, and the solution that the doctor prescribed was a fresh new round of investments and activity in fiber (FTTx). Cybersecurity is a critical issue. As everything is on server now days, only protecting the system which have user data is not enough. Infrastructure of networks, routers, domain name servers which connect the world should also be protected. The trends in networking security is changing on a regular basis due to the changes in the type of cybercrimes. They have increased a lot in the last decade and so are the security measures. Justification The universal problem with the current curriculum in Communication Engineering is that there are no management courses offered. Due to this, most of the graduates do not have the skills to work independently and have to rely a lot on
functional managers. Having Project Management,
Communication and Security together can be a solution to this problem and will increase the overall efficiency and productivity. Adding networking security to this will surely help me figure out if our network is compromised or how to fix it. This will be effective if there is a security breach in the network as we can stop the stolen packages to be received by the hacker. Also, by the skills acquired by project management program, I will be able to check the budgeting, risk management and other aspects of the project which will definitely be more efficient and time saving. Having these courses and doing group projects in RIT will definitely help me in gaining knowledge and exposure to different ideas. It will help me prepare well to go out in the world and fulfil my dreams. Management courses offered in RIT have a great course structure including assignments and class activities. PMP certification course is also provided for free to the students which is the most recognizable certification for a project manager job. We can start with certifications like CAPM if we are not having enough experience in management for a PMP certification. REFERENCES https://www.sophos.com/en-us/security-news-trends/securitytrends/network-security-top-trends.aspx. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/scope-electronics-communicationengineering-blessin-thomas. http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/project-scope. Meredith, Jack R., and Samuel J. Mantel, Jr., Scott Shafer, Project Management: A Managerial Approach, Ninth Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015. http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Project-Management/10-Trendsin-Project-Management.
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