The Skills, Tools, and Management Processes Required to Undertake a Project Successfully - Essay Example

?Order 514249 Topic: Project Management is not just about the “tools”… Project Management is not just about the “tools”, we use it as anything about people - how they interact, how they are motivated and how they are lead. Focusing on these issues, I will discuss how a project manager would go about engaging with and leading a new project team whom he had never previously worked with and who had never previously worked with each other. Examples will be given along the discussion to further discuss the topic. The analysis of the study is achieved in three main sections. Firstly, project management is defined ‘as the skills, tools and management processes required to undertake a project successfully’ (Westland 2003). Furthermore, I will discuss the project lifecycle and the different processes that go with it. And finally, the importance of people in the success of a project will be investigated before concluding. For a project to be successful, the project manager must understand the different characteristics of a project. A project has a start and end dates. It has dates that properly specify when the project activities will start and when it is going to end. It uses resources – time, money, people and equipment. And finally, a project has an outcome - whether it’s a new condominium, building, satellite or a new highway. ‘A project is considered successful if it delivers the outcome with an agreed quality, does not overrun its end date and remains within the budget (cost resources). Note however, that outcome, time and budget are interrelated, and during a project the project manager may need to do trade-offs between them’ (Singh). Say for instance, if you want the project to be done more quickly, you have to pump in more money for additional resources like people, time and equipment. Because of the increasing competition in the business environment, organisations are forced to come-up with high quality products at a lower cost and in a shorter time. And that’s the reason why project management exists. Project management allows the project manager to plan and organise resources to achieve a specified outcome within the allotted timeframe. The techniques of project management allow the project manager to manage and anticipate risks in a structured manner. Through proper project management better utilisation of resources, shorter development time, reduced costs, interdepartmental cooperation and a better focus on results and quality is achieved. ‘A project has a lifecycle. It starts with the initiating process, then the planning, executing, controlling and monitoring and the last phase is closing’ (Singh). Throughout this lifecycle people are employed to do the tasks. The workforce spells the success or failure of a project. But before a project starts, a project manager should be appointed. As a project manager, he must have the Project Charter or commercial contract to get the wheels spinning in motion. At the minimum, the Project Charter designates the person as the project manager with the authority to use resources to bring the project to completion. This is formally done by the project sponsor or main stakeholders. The charter provides a short description of the result, outcome, product or services to be produced by the project. It also refers to the commercial contract (if there is a formal contract) as the basis for initiating the project. During the initiating process, the project manager refines the project goals, reviews the expectations of all stakeholders and determines assumptions and risks in the project. This is also the time when he selects the people to form the project team. However, there are times when the project team has already been imposed. If that’s the case, the role of the project manager is to familiarise himself to their skills and understands their roles in the project. He should ask the project sponsor and main stakeholders to share with him any emails, letters, memos, project feasibility, meeting minutes, requirements or other documents related to the project. If by chance, a similar project has already been completed, he could ask a meeting with the project manager of that project for an advice. At the end of this phase, the project manager will produce a Statement of Work (SOW) which is a document that provides a description of the services or products that need to be produced by the project. ‘The Statement of Work (SOW) is a crucial document that is constantly updated and used as a baseline for the project. Depending on the size and complexity of the project, the knowledge about the subject matter, the project manager needs to organise meetings with the stakeholders in order to refine the SOW and get it approved’ (Westland 2003). Once the SOW is approved, the project planning can start. During the project planning process, the project manager gains more knowledge about the project. ‘Working on the SOW helps him refine a number of aspects of the project. His project planning should involve detailing of activities that make up the project. He can use the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to accomplish this’ (Singh). To begin the project planning process, the project manager starts working out the WBS which is an effective tool in listing all the tasks involved in the project. The WBS allows the project manager to group all the tasks under main activities ensuring that he has a clear overview of the needs to execute during the project. A good way of developing the project’s WBC is by using the major milestone/deliverables that is identified in the SOW. Once the milestones have been identified, the project manager must brainstorm with his project team to detail the tasks that must be accomplished to achieve the milestones. If the project manager and his team are familiar with the project, a milestone approach will work very well. If this is not the case, then someone who may not be in the project team but has previously completed a similar project must be included in the workshops. The project plan should include creating a network diagram to determine the dependencies of the different activities. The resources (people, equipment, facilities, etc) should be identified. The project manager details the project in terms of its outcome, team members’ role and responsibilities, schedules, resources, scope and costs. At the end of this phase, he produces a project management plan which is a document that details how his project will be executed, monitored and controlled, and closed. Such a document also contains a refined project scope and is used as a project baseline. After having a better overview of the activities and schedule of the project, the resources that will be needed to execute the activities should be determined. Resources such as people, material and other supplies will be needed. For example, in a website design project, the project manager would typically need graphical designers and programmers, access to room to hold the meetings, software, computers and others. . Let’s begin with the most important resource – people. The skills required for accomplishing the activities of the project should be determined. The project manager should match people with those skills required. A good way to do this is to create a skills sheet that matches skills to activities. Also, columns for the names of people, their start dates, their cost and other information should be kept. ‘The sheet goes beyond simply matching activities and skills. It should also contain columns for the names of the people who will execute an activity, their skills level, the deliverable that they are expected to produce, the date on which they can start and finish, and their cost’ (Singh). Often, the managers of the people that a project manager need will be able to commit the availability of those people for the project. However, it is recommended that this information always be cross-checked with the project team members. A project manager must check the availability of the project team members by taking into account their vacations, sick days and other projects that they are already working on. He should ask the functional managers of the project team members to assess the skill set of their people and the effort days that will be required by them to accomplish the activities assigned to them. The functional managers should be able to tell the project manager how much their people cost. The more detailed the project manager goes into when estimating the costs, the more accurate the cost estimates will be. The most frequently brought up issue later in the project is the costs. The project manager must establish a level of signing authority for the project’s budget. If he has to get multiple approvals for spending money, he will waste a lot of time, thus, imputing his ability to get his project on time. To avoid future misunderstandings, the project manager must see to it that the main stakeholders review the project plan. Make sure to put into place a document versioning system for the plan as it will be always updated throughout the project. Before starting the project executing process, a project management approval page to get sign-off from the main stakeholders is used. After this is the executing process. The project manager applies the project management plan. In other words, it’s time for action. This is the time when he directs his team to perform the work to produce the deliverables as detailed in the plan. It involves implementing changes and corrective actions. A kick-off meeting starts the execution phase of the project. After the end of the meeting, the project manager writes a kick-off meeting report and sends it to all the stakeholders. It is usually sent at least 48 hours after the meeting. To avoid conflicts, the project manager must always send out reports after each meeting throughout the project. All the reports along with project documentation should be put in a centralised location accessible to the stakeholders. The role of the project manager has always been described as confusing as it does not have any clear-cut real authority over the people in the project team. There might even some people on the team who are more senior or have far more project management experience than him. It only proves that managing project teams composed of people from different departments, levels of seniority and cultures is an achievable goal. That is why a good project leader must have the ability to use different project leadership styles such as directive (he makes decisions and set the direction for the team), participate (encourages participation in decision-making), and task-oriented (focuses on achieving the project’s objectives by organising people and people activities). These styles must be adapted to the current project situation, people in the project, the organisation, the culture/country of the workforce and the project’s outcome. For the project team to gel and work effectively, the project manager must ensure that there is no overlapping of functions and each member knows his role and responsibilities. People should also be encouraged to think as a group and not as individuals. The project manager should know how to communicate and listen. A good communicator is a good listener. In this way, he’ll be able to know the needs of his team. He should also be dependable. Always do what has been promised. Nothing saps team moral as much as a manager who does not abide by his own promises. Also, never miss a chance to praise or reward the team or team member after a job well done. ‘A simple thank you or praise motivates a person to work harder’ (Pfeffer 1998). Never forget to communicate a team member’s achievements to his functional manager. Be enthusiastic because being positive is infectious and motivates the team. Provide training on teamwork if the team is not working well together. Since the people involved in a project have never worked with each other before, constant and good communication should be encouraged. Throughout the project, it should be communicate, communicate, and communicate. And the communication should be two –way so the team members will appreciate that their opinions are valued. Healthy discussions should be encouraged. Listening is also very helpful as it provides the project manager feedback on whether the team member understands him. Giving the stakeholders access to information about the on-goings of the project is important. Ensure that the project team has access to an information sharing system such as an intranet or a similar collaborative environment. In large projects, a team member may be designated to supervise the project information sharing system. Next is the controlling and monitoring process. In this stage, the project manager supervises project activities to ensure that they do not deviate from the initial plan and scope. When this happens, the project manager uses a change control procedure to approve and reject change requests and update the project plan/scope accordingly. The controlling and monitoring phase also involves getting approval and signoff for project deliverables. Meeting should be held at regular intervals to control project progress. To ensure that the review meetings are effective, have an informal discussion with the key team members before the meeting. Do a detailed project review. ‘The project manager must carefully review all the tasks that need to be completed in the next 3 to 6 weeks’ (Westland). Issues will be identified by doing so. Circulate a meeting agenda to all participants. If decisions need to be made at the meeting, make sure that the person in authority is in the meeting. Conflicts are inevitable when people from different backgrounds work together on a project. Examples of conflicts that usually arise are conflict over different objective and expectations, unclear roles and uncertainty about who has the decision-making authority and interpersonal conflicts between people. For a “win-win” approach, Manjeet Singh of Project Minds recommends that ‘before starting resolving the conflict, analyse it by asking questions from the conflicting parties. Once sufficient information about the conflict, actively seek common ground in order to emphasize the agreement side of things – this starts the conflict resolution process on a positive note. Then ask the conflicting parties to brainstorm possible solutions to the issues at hand. Once you have identified resolutions, agree upon guidelines on how to implement these resolutions. And finally, document and then implement the resolutions’. If the conflict is of a technical nature, bring in a technical expert. If the conflict is not of a technical nature, involve the project sponsor or a senior manager to help. However, this method should only be used when all other methods have failed. People don’t like being forced by supervisors to do something they are not comfortable with. It is also noteworthy that if properly managed, certain conflicts can be actually good for the team as they may generate new and more effective ways of accomplishing activities. However, the project manager should be careful in dealing with multi-cultural team as conflicts are not perceived the same way in different countries. Whenever the conflicts arise, always keep the goal of the project in mind and try to resolve them as quickly as possible. Examples of project problems are the team lacking required skills to accomplish the project activities correctly, project is falling behind schedule because of lack of manpower, project costs are exceeding the established budget, and the scope of the project keeps changing. In controlling change, the project manager must use a formal change control procedure such as, when someone asks for a change that has an impact on the project, insist that the requestor submit the change request in writing. Also, the impact of the change in the project in terms of cost, schedule, performance and outcome must be reviewed. Accept or reject a change – depending on the importance of the change, the project manager can involve the team members and/or project sponsor in making the decision. If the change has been accepted, document it and update the project plan. After all of these, closing process takes place. The project manager formally accepts the deliverables and shut down the project or its phases. He will also review the project and its results with his team and other stakeholders of the project. At the end of the project, the project manager produces a formal project closure document and a project evaluation report. References Pfeffer, J1998, ‘Six dangerous myths about pay’, Harvard Business Review, May-June, pp. 9-13. Singh, M, Power Minds’ Quick Guide to Project Management, VI. 3. Westland, J2003, Project Management Guidebook, USA, Method 123 Ltd. Read More