First up it is important to understand the difference between project management and other management principles.
Project management differs in two significant ways:
- First, it focuses on a project with a finite life span, whereas departments or other organisational units expect to exist indefinitely.
- Second, projects frequently need resources on a part time basis, whereas permanent organisations, departments or units try to utilise resources full time. The sharing of resources can frequently lead to conflict and requires skilful negotiation to see that projects get the necessary resources to meet objectives throughout a project’s life.
Projects are likely to be less challenged and more likely to be successful with a competent and experienced manager at the helm. This might sound obvious but many organisations still choose the wrong people to lead their project efforts.
The Project management process requires the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities with the objective of meeting not only the project requirements but also to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations.
Meeting or exceeding those needs and expectations involves balancing:
- Project scope
- Time, cost and quality
- Stakeholders with differing needs and expectations.
The resources available to the Project Manager include:
- Time
- People
- Expertise
- Money
- Other assets such as equipment and technology.
How does this work in your business?Besides the explicit role of managing the project, the Project Manager will have to perform the related role of leading, negotiating and communicating. In doing this the Project Manager will need to have other people do what their project requires and often with limited “line” authority.
Within your business this could involve the Project Manager in -- Supplying information to the Project Sponsor and/or Program Office and/or Business Unit General Manager.
- Understanding and coordinating the interdependencies of their project with other business projects.
- Delivering project outcomes on time, to specifications and in full.
- Understanding how this project fits with the business’s strategic goals.
Within a project this means –- Supervising
- Highlighting problems and assisting with resolutions
- Leading weekly progress meetings
- Providing resources
- Protecting the team members so they can accomplish the project and
- Champion the use of rigorous project management methodology.
With your stakeholders it means –- Communicating project status
- Managing expectations, and
- Ensuring the “client” remains satisfied.
Two important employer considerations- Carefully consider the competencies required to perform the project before assigning the role of Project Manager to a member of staff.
- Working on projects and working with “good” Project Managers can be a wonderful development opportunity for your employees, encouraging leadership competencies.
What key skills are required to manage projects?A wide range of skills is needed, not all of which are likely to be found in a single Project Manager. If this is the case look for the missing skills among the project team’s members.
The types of competencies that good Project Managers tend to have can be grouped as:
- Managing for results
- Drive for results
- Process management
- Prioritising and resource management
- Priority setting
- Managing & measuring work
- Planning
- Timely decision making
- Time management
- Building results-oriented teams
- Motivating others
- Building effective teams
- Developing and managing people
- Confronting direct reports
- Directing others
- Delegation
In more detailA Project Manager needs the ability to:
- Identify outcomes and variables - there is an overriding need to determine what is wanted in a project. The Project Manager must evaluate the needs and wants of various parties and then be able to maintain clarity on what will be delivered.
- Devise a sequence to achieve the goal - knowing what is wanted leads directly to deciding how to get it. The ways of achieving the goal need to be identified and evaluated.
- Assess the capability of the sequence - this is a central quality question. Having decided what is wanted and having chosen a path or sequence of activities to achieve it, the Project Manager needs to be confident that the desired results will be delivered.
- Recognise if, and when, the outcomes have been achieved - there is a need to know if the required work has been done. The Project Manager will also need to know that work has been done to the required standard.
- Deal skillfully with people - project sequences require considerable interaction with those involved. Clear lines of communication along with morale must be maintained. Much of the work must be done in the context of teams and a wide variety of people will be involved.
- Manage unfamiliar complex systems and technical specialists - project sequences are usually multi-faceted and require management across wide, possibly unfamiliar, disciplines.
- Identify key issues within large volumes of data - project sequences generate a huge volume of data, most of which is unimportant. However, some of it is crucial and central to the good management of the project. Unfortunately, the important and unimportant data are mixed together.
- Respond to contingent decisions - the work of creating a project is rarely a steady state activity and the Project Manager is likely to face changing and unexpected situations. Project Managers may find themselves constantly trying to keep the project sequence on track, and often trying to pull it back on track.
- Identify and manage interfaces - maintaining an overview and managing the inter relationships between the parts of the project is the Project Manager’s responsibility.
- Manage time and cost - Project Managers need the key project management skills of managing time and cost in one-off situations.
- Set up and run the project management information system - the Project Manager will have to set up a new system, essentially from scratch. Decisions will need to be made on how data is to be managed and how it is to be captured, analysed and stored.
- Manage political and community issues - external political and community issues could strongly influence the project and its outcomes.
- Manage contractual matters and contract strategy - projects usually involve many contracts; if it is international, then the contractual matters are more complex. On the basis of advice, the Project Manager will have to decide how contractual matters are to be handled and how the ongoing contract is to be dealt with.
- Maintain a sense of urgency - the Project Manager will need to drive the project, to keep it going, to push the project sequence to the next step. This requires energy and enthusiasm for the progressing of the project to sequence.
- Cope with risk - projects are risky, some more than others. Project Managers need to come to terms with the fact that their profession always has a level of uncertainty associated with it. It requires psychic energy to keep dealing with uncertainty, and one should actively set out to identify the areas of danger.
What does this mean to you as an employer?- Carefully consider the competencies required to perform the project before assigning the role of Project Manager to a member of staff.
- Appreciate that working on projects and working with “good” Project Managers can be a wonderful development opportunity for your employees, encouraging leadership, teambuilding and strategic management competencies to name just some.
- Understand that the best Project Managers are not necessarily the ones with the best technical understanding of the project. Team members and the appropriate involvement of stakeholders can cover this expertise.
Tips for Negotiating and InfluencingAll Project Managers will have to negotiate with their team members, whether they are external or internal staff, at some stage of the project in order to get the project completed. To do this successfully:
- Choose a neutral setting in which to discuss the problem. Your office is not the best place, since it automatically puts the other person at a disadvantage.
- State your sincere desire to resolve the conflict or difference to the satisfaction of the other person and yourself.
- Do not assume that you know the other person’s motives, intentions, thoughts, or feelings.
- Deal with the issues, not the character of the person.
- Where differing values have caused the conflict, deal with the tangible effects of the difference, not the values themselves.
- Practice active listening.
- State what you want as a request, not as a demand. Ask what the other person wants of you. If you cannot or will not comply with the other party’s request, make a counterproposal. Try for win-win. Compromise only as a last resort.
- Try to work on one issue at a time, when several exist. Begin with the issue(s) where you think it is more likely to reach agreement.
- Don’t rush the process. Conflicts resolved in haste may come back to haunt you later.
- Once an agreement has been reached, ask the other party if there is anything which might prevent them complying with the agreement. Ask the same question of yourself. If there are any potential obstacles, try to find contingencies. This is called doing an “ecology check” at the end of the negotiation. Failure to do so can result in a failed resolution of the conflict.
- Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
- Always give the other person a chance to save face. Never belittle his position.
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