Project Manager Responsibilities

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Project Manager Responsibilities

• Functional Responsibilities
• Organizational Responsibilities
• Team Responsibilities

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Project Manager Responsibilities

• Functional Responsibilities
• understanding project requirements
• planning controlling the project
• implementing the project
• completing the project on-time, within budget,
  according to specifications

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Project Manager Responsibilities

• Organizational Responsibilities
• understanding the organizational context
• nurturing authority
• learning how to influence others
• resolving conflicts
• understanding the political situation

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Project Manager Responsibilities

• Team Responsibilities
• selecting and developing staff
• assigning tasks to staff
• serving as management / staff intermediary
• effectively communicating with others
• providing leadership
• motivating team members
• building a cohesive team

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Qualities of a Good Project Manager(Page-Jones
1985)

• . personal integrity . sensitivity
• . ability to inspire . tenacity
• . willingness to serve . competence
• . courage to make decisions . courage to
  delegate
  
• . ability to set meet objectives
• . ability to communicate reality
• . ability to think and be innovative

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Leadership

• Leadership is a matter of intelligence,
  trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and
  sternness.
  
• -- Sun Tzu
• Leadership is solving problems. Leadership is
  the art of accomplishing more than the science of
  management says is possible.
  
• -- General Colin Powell

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Leadership

• Objective to get diverse set of actors
  performing at maximal effectiveness
  
• Leadership / Management Styles
• autocrat
• consultative autocrat
• consensus manager (democratic)
• shareholder manager (laissez-faire)

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Leadership Styles

• autocrat
• managers solicit little or no input from team
• managers make decisions themselves
• consultative autocrat
• intensive information input is elicited
• managers make all substantive decisions

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Leadership Styles

• consensus manager (democratic)
• elicit group discussion
• allow group to make decision
• shareholder manager (laissez-faire)
• little information input or exchange in team
• team has ultimate authority for final decision
• poor management

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Pressures Affecting Leadership

• problem attribute pressures
• problem is ambiguous
• not enough time to make decision adequately
• decision is critical to organization
• decision is structured or routine

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Pressures Affecting Leadership

• leader personality pressures
• need for power
• people-oriented
• high need for achievement
• organization / group pressures
• decision likely to lead to conflict
• good leader / group relations
• highly participative culture

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Leadership Research Findings

• Youre more autocratic than you think.
• But its okay.
• Its easy to collect more (or less) information.
• Its hard to turn decisions over to
  subordinates.
  
• If subordinates expectations are not met, morale
  can suffer.
  
• Be flexible.

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Motivation

• Herzbergs dual-factor theory
• Motivators
• factors producing good feelings in the work
  situation
  
• existence of motivators cause satisfaction
• Hygiene factors
• concerned with the work environment
• lack of job hygiene will cause dissatisfaction
• job hygiene factors will not cause satisfaction

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Motivation

• Motivators
• achievement
• recognition
• work itself
• responsibility
• advancement
• growth

• Hygiene Factors
• company policy administration
• supervision
• salary
• interpersonal relations
• working conditions
• status
• security

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Motivation

• Job Characteristics Model (job design theory)
• -- Hackman Oldham
• Jobs are designed with 5 core job dimensions
• skill variety
• task identity
• task significance
• autonomy
• feedback

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Motivation

• that lead to a set of critical psychological
  states
  
• experienced meaningfulness of the work
• experienced responsibility for outcomes
• knowledge of the results of activities
• that result in personal work outcomes
• high internal work motivation
• high quality work performance
• low absenteeism and turnover

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Motivation

• Motivation is a matter of matching individual
  desires for personal growth and accomplishment
  with characteristics of the job.
  
• Guidelines for implementing the JCM
• combine tasks
• form natural work units
• establish client relationships
• vertical loading
• open feedback channels

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Motivation

• Goal setting theory (cognitive theory)
• -- Locke, Latham, Hollenbeck, Klein
• behavior is influenced by conscious goals
  intentions
  
• performance is associated with goal difficulty
  specificity
  
• harder goals result in higher levels of
  performance
  
• specific goals result in higher levels of
  performance

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Motivation

• Goal setting theory (continued)
• goals must be accepted by the individual
• involve individuals in setting goals
• goal commitment may be stronger when goal is made
  public by communicating it to peers
  
• feedback is needed to sustain high performance
  levels
  
• good feedback can engender feelings of
  achievement, accomplishment, and recognition

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Building Teams

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• why do people behave as they do?
• categorization on 4 scales, each of which
  represents a different dimension of human
  behavior
  
• test results can
• provide insights on roots of conflict
• help select staff for a project
• improve relations with staff
• provide self-knowledge

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Building Teams

• Extrovert-Introvert Dimension
• extroverts are attuned to outside world they
  are practical
  
• introverts are inner-directed they are deep
  thinkers
  
• Sensing-Intuition Dimension
• sensing individuals form perceptions of the world
  based directly on information garnered from all 5
  senses they like facts
  
• intuitive individuals massage data and are more
  concerned with possibilities suggested by data

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Building Teams

• Thinking-Feeling Dimension
• thinking individuals make decisions using a cool,
  detached, logical process
  
• feeling individuals make judgments using
  subjective considerations, responding from the
  heart
  
• Judging-Perceiving Dimension
• judging individuals are quick to make judgments
  and have opinions about everything
  
• perceiving individuals defer making judgments
  until more information is available

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Building Team Cohesiveness

• 1. Make the team as tangible as possible.
• hold productive meetings
• include a kickoff meeting, status reviews
• meetings can reinforce identity of the group
• create a team space
• co-locate the team, when possible
• war room as an alternative
• create team signs
• symbols reflect reality
• publicize team efforts

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Building Team Cohesiveness

• 2. Develop rewards for good behavior.
• salaries, promotions, vacations
• write letters of commendation
• use job assignments and schedules
• provide comp time
• offer team members increased visibility
• take team members to lunch or dinner

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Building Team Cohesiveness

• 3. Develop an effective personal touch.
• get to know the team members
• provide positive feedback on performance
• publicly acknowledge good performance
• dont publicly criticize team members
• clearly define work expectations requirements
• acknowledge milestones special occasions
• be willing to do the work
• be accessible, consistent

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Project Team Structures

• Goal to enhance efficiency of the team
• Efficiency of the team is affected by
• poor communication
• poor integration and coordination of work
• lack of staff continuity

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Project Team Structures

• isomorphic structure
• team structure reflects structure of
  deliverables
  
• minimizes integration of project pieces
• effective when deliverables highly independent
• simple structure

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Project Team Structures

• surgical team structure (chief programmer/engineer
  )
  
• truly superb individual who carries out most of
  the work
  
• need assistant who can take over
• other team members provide support to chief
  programmer
  
• little integration is necessary
• each module is given to a surgical team

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Project Team Structures

• specialty team structure (matrix structure)
• team members apply expertise across tasks
• e.g.., independent test teams and QA teams
• coordination can be complex
• integration can be difficult
• no clear responsibility for deliverables

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Project Team Structures

• matrix structure
• people shift from project to project
• experts are assigned to different projects
• flexible, efficient use of resources
• staff are simultaneously accountable to
• PM (responsible for project results)
• functional manager (responsible for providing
  resources for performance evaluations)

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Project Team Structures

• egoless structure (democratic, self-managed
  teams)
  
• truly collaborative effort
• all decisions made by consensus
• all members assume responsibility for outcomes
• PM role is not as leader, but as coordinator
• all members share goals and norms
• effective when
• low staff turnover
• low structure projects
• using small teams of senior, experienced people

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Project Team Structures

• self-managed teams
• gaining prominence in 1990s
• hierarchies are out, group focus is in
• collectively, team members
• define approach they will take to do work
• assign the work
• conduct performance appraisals
• make hiring and firing decisions

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Project Team Structures

• theory behind self-managed teams
• empower people to do the best job possible
• people who are closer to the work have a better
  sense of it than managers who are removed from
  the day-to-day scene
  
• if individuals make the decisions, they will be
  more committed to the decisions

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Project Team Structures

• pitfalls when using self-managed teams
• leadership may be lacking
• decision-making may be slow
• solution may appeal to lowest common denominator
• people do have egos

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Project Team Structures

• keys for success when using self-managed teams
• upper management must truly empower team members
  to make independent decisions
  
• team members must demonstrate leadership
  qualities and must not be frightened of
  responsibility
  
• team members must be highly motivated and must be
  willing to do what it takes to get the job done
  
• team members must form a cohesive body of players
  (rather than borrowed resources)

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Project Team Structures

• for small projects (staff
• basic project structure
• development and support functions
• for larger projects (staff 20), add
• deputy project manager
• quality assurance
• configuration control
• possibly subproject management (staff 40)