Managing Projects: The Role of the PM

1
Chapter 3

• Managing Projects The Role of the PM

2
Project Management and the Project Manager

• The best way to explain the unique role of the PM
  is to contrast it with that of a functional
  managers.
• The PM starts with being a specialist but
  gradually it metamorphose from technical
  caterpillar into a generalist butterfly.
• The PM is required to have an ability to put many
  pieces of a task together to form a coherent
  whole
• The functional manager uses the analytic approach
  and the PM uses the systems approach.
• Pm should be both a facilitator but a generalist
  also and have a reasonably high level of
  technical competence in the science of the
  project.

3
Cont..

• There are 3 major questions that PM faces
• What needs to be done.
• When it must be done.
• And how are the resources required to do the job
  to be obtained.
• Pm is responsible for the project, and depending
  on how the project is organized, the functional
  managers will make some of the fundamental and
  the critical project decisions.
• The PM is responsible for organizing, staffing,
  budgeting, directing, planning and controlling
  the project.
• In other words, the PM manages it, but the
  functional mangers may affect the choice of
  technology to be used by the project and the
  specific individuals who will do the work.

4
Project Responsibilities

• The PMs responsibility are broad and fall
  primarily into 3 separate areas
• Responsibility to the parent organization,
• responsibility to the Project and the client,
  and
• responsibility to the members of the project
  team.
• The PM MUST NEVER ALLOW SENIOR MANAGEMENT TO BE
  SURPRISED.
• The PMs responsibility to the project and the
  client is met by ensuring that the integrity of
  the project is preserved in spite of the
  conflicting demands made by the many parties who
  have legitimate interest in the project.
• The PMs responsibilities to the members of the
  project team are dictated by the finite nature of
  the project itself and the specialized nature of
  the team. PM must be concerned with the future of
  the people who serve on the team.

5
Special Demands on the PM

• A number of demands are unique to the managements
  of projects and the success of the PM depends to
  a large extent on how capably they are handled.
• Acquiring adequate resources
• Acquiring and motivating personnel
• Dealing with obstacles
• Making projects goals trade-offs
• Failure and the risk and fear of failure
• Breadth of communication
• negotiation

6
Acquiring adequate Resources

• The resources budgeted for a project are
  frequently insufficient to the task. Many details
  of resources purchase and usage are deferred
  until the project manager knows specifically what
  resources will be required and when.
• The good PM knows there are resources trade-offs
  that need to be taken into consideration.
• The problems of time and budget are aggravated in
  the presence of a phenomenon that has been long
  suspect but proved in mid-1980s.
• Resources acquisition by PM.

7
Acquiring Motivating Personnel

• A major problem for the Pm is the fact that most
  of the people needed for a project are borrowed.
• PMs quest for quality people
• Motivation problem
• Skills for selection process
• High-quality skills
• Political sensitivity
• Strong problem orientation
• Strong goal orientation
• High self-esteem

8
Dealing with Obstacles

• One characteristics of any project is its
  uniqueness, and this characteristics means that
  the PM will have to face and overcome a series of
  crises.
• From the beginning of the project till the
  termination, crisis appears without warning.
• The Pm learns by experience, the wise PM learns
  from the experiences of the others.
• Managing a project is just like managing a
  business.
• At the project completion, obstacles tend to be
  clustered around 2 issues 1st, last minute
  schedule and technical changes, and second a
  series of problems that have as their source the
  uncertainty surrounding what happens to members
  of the project team when the project is completed.

9
Making project goal Trade-offs

• The PM must make trade-offs between the project
  goals of cost, time, and performance and, of
  course, the ancillary goals.
• The PM must also make trade-offs between project
  progress and process. i.e. between the technical
  and managerial functions.
• The first set of trade-offs is required by the
  need to preserve some balance between the
  projects time, cost and performance goals.
• During the design or formation stage of the PLC,
  there is no significant difference in the
  importance PM place on the 3 goals.
• It appears that the logic of this findings is
  based on the assumption that the project should
  be designed to meet all the client-set goals. If
  compromises must be made, each of the objectives
  is vulnerable.

10
Cont

• Schedule is the dominant goals during stage,
  being significantly more important than
  performance, which is in turn significantly more
  important than cost.
• Scheduling and performance are approximately tied
  for primacy during the main stage of the PLC when
  both are significantly more important than cost,
  though the importance of cost increases somewhat
  between the buildup and main stages.
• During the final stage, phase-out, performance is
  significantly more important than scheduling,
  which is significantly more than cost.
• The second set of trade-offs concerns sacrificing
  smoothness of running the project team for
  technical progress.
• The PM also has responsibility for the other
  types of trade-offs. If the PM directs more than
  one project, he or she must make trade-offs b/w
  the several projects.

11
Cont

• The PMs enthusiasm about the project-a prime
  requirement for successful project management-can
  easily lead him or her to
• Overstate the benefits of the project
• Understate the probable costs of project
  completion.
• ignore technical difficulties in achieving the
  required level of performance.
• Make trade-offs decisions that are clearly biased
  in favor of the project and antithetical to the
  goals of the parent organization.

12
Failure the risk fear of failure

• It is difficult to distinguish b/w project
  failure, partial failure and success.
• What appears to be a failure at one point in the
  life of the project may look like success at
  another. If we divide all projects into 2 general
  categories according to the degree to which the
  project is understood, we find some interesting
  differences in the nature and timing of perceived
  difficulties in carrying out a project. These
  perceptions have a considerable effect on the PM.
  
• That I TYPE 1
• TYPE 2

13
Type 1

• Assume that type 1 projects are generally
  well-developed, routine construction projects.
  Type 2 projects are at the opposite pole they
  are not well understood, and there may be
  considerable uncertainty about specifically what
  should be done.
• When type 1 project begun, they appear simple.
  The later in the life cycle of the project thee
  problem appear, the more difficult it I to keep
  the project on it time an cot schedule.
• Contingencies allowance for the time an cot to
  overcome such problem are often build into the
  budget an schedule for type 1 project.

14
Type 2

• Type 2 project exhibit a different et of problem.
  There are many difficulties early in the life of
  the project, mot of which are so-called planning
  problem.
• By an large, the problem result from a failure to
  define the mission carefully and, at times, from
  a failure to get the client's acceptance on the
  project mission.
• Failure to define the mission leas to subsequent
  problems.
• These failures often appear to result from the
  inability to solve the projects technical
  problems. In fact they result from a failure to
  define project requirements an specification well
  enough to deal with the technical glitches that
  always occur.

15
Breadth of Communication

• Most of the PMs is spent communicating with the
  many groups interested in the project.
• Running a project requires constant selling,
  reselling, and explaining the project to
  outsiders, top management, functional
  departments, clients, and a numbers of others
  parties at- interest to the project, as well as
  to members of the project team itself.
• The PM is the projects liaison with the outside,
  but the managers must also be available for
  problem solving in the lab, for crisis in the
  field, for threatening or cajoling the
  subcontractors, an for reducing interpersonal
  conflict between project team members.

16

• Certain fundamental issues that the managers must
  understand an deal with as follows
• The PMs must know why the project exists that
  is, the PM must fully understand the projects
  intent. The PM must have a clear definition of
  how success or failure is to be determined.
• Any PM with extensive experience has manage
  projects that failed.
• It is critical to have the support of top
  management.
• The PM should build an maintain a solid
  information network. It is critical to know what
  is happening both inside an outside the project.
• The PM must be flexible in as many people an
  about as many activities as possible throughout
  the entire life of the project.

17
Negotiation

• In order to meet the desires of the job of the
  project manager- acquiring adequate resources,
  acquiring and motivating personnel, dealing with
  obstacles , making project goal trade-offs,
  handling failure and the fear of failure, and
  maintaining the appropriate patterns of
  communication-
• The project manager must be a highly skilled
  negotiator.

18
Selecting the Project Manager

• Selection of the project manger is one of the two
  or three most important decisions concerning the
  project.
• The following is a list of some of the most
  popular attributes, skills , and qualities that
  have been sought when selecting project manager
• A strong technical background
• A hard-nosed manager
• A mature individual
• Someone who is currently available
• A person who can keep the project team happy
• One who has worked in several departments
• A person who can walk on( or parts) the waters.

19
The perceptions required for the PM

• It is not sufficient for the PM simply to possess
  these skills they must also be perceived by
  others. The fact and the perception are equally
  important.
• Credibility the PM needs 2 kinds of
  credibility. 1st is
• Technical credibility the PM must be perceived
  by the client, senior executes, the functional
  departments, and the project team as possessing
  sufficient technical knowledge to direct the
  project.
• A PM with reasonable technical competence seems
  to be associated with project success and is seen
  by project team members to be a positive
  leadership quality

20
Technical credibility

• The PM does not need to have a high level of
  expertise, know more than any actual team member,
  or be able to stand toe-to-toe and intellectually
  slug it out with experts in the various
  functional areas.

21
Administrative credibility

• The PM has several key administrative
  responsibilities that must be performed with
  apparently effortless ease.
• One of these responsibilities is towards the
  client and the senior mgt.
• Responsibility towards the project team
• Responsibility towards the interest of all the
  parties
• Responsibility of the trade-offs.

22
Sensitivity

• The PM must keep project team members cool .
  This is not easy. As with any group of humans,
  rivalries, jealousies, friendships, and
  hospitalities are sure to exist .
• The PM needs a sensitive set of technical
  sensors. it is common, unfortunately , for
  otherwise competent and honest team members to
  try to hide their failures. Individuals who
  cannot work under stress would be well advised to
  avoid project organization.

23
Leadership and management styles

• Leadership has been defined as interpersonal
  influence, exercised in situations and directed
  through the communication process, towards the
  attainment of a specified goals or goals.
• PM must have other skills as enthusiasm,
  optimism, energy, tenacity, courage, and personal
  maturity.

24
Ability to handle stress

• Life in Projects is hectic like a pressure
  cooker. Therefore PM must deal with all the
  stress that comes his way
• Following are the types of stress in a project
  life.
• PMs never develop a reasonably consistent set of
  procedures and techniques with which to manage
  their work.
• Too much on the plate
• Some have a high need to achieve that is
  constantly frustrating
• The parent organization is in throes of major
  change.