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Learn the key roles and skills of a project manager, as well as the criteria for project success. Understand the importance of effective communication, team motivation, and conflict resolution within project teams.
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Tomsk Polytechnic University International Management Institute Project Management Prof. Dr.-Eng. А.А. Dulzon
Contentsof the Module 2 • 2.1. Introduction • 2.2. The Project Manager • 2.3. The Project Team • 2.4. Project Team Staffing Profile and Operation • 2.5. Project Team Evolution • 2.6. Project Team Motivation • 2.7. Project Team Communication • 2.8. Project Team Stress • 2.9. Conflict Identification and Resolution
2.1. Introduction Modern software provides project managers with a level of effective support that could not have been imagined even some years ago. Despite all the assistance from the use of modern computerized tools and techniques some projects fail, others are very successful. People make projects succeed or fail.
2.2 The Project Manager • Introduction responsibility – skills challenge - danger responsibility – authority
The Project Manager • The project manager is usually responsible to a project sponsor. In the case of very large projects, or those that will have a significant influence on the future of the organization, the sponsor will normally be a board member.
Competency Professionalism Reputation Skill Interpersonal skills Alliances Project manager Functional managers The Project Manager Sources of the influence for the project manager
The Project Manager • The project manager occupies a central position relating to communications between the various people and organizations involved, like a spider in the center of a web.
The Role of Project Manager The primary requirements of the project manager’s role can be summarized as: • planning the project activities, schedules and budgets; • organizing and selecting the project team; • interfacing with the client, the organization and all other interested parties; • negotiating with suppliers and clients; • managing the project resources; • monitoring and controlling the project status; • identifying issues and problem areas; • finding the solutions to problems; • resolving conflicts.
The role of Project Manager important to remember: • The roles of the project manager are intrinsically linked and cannot be regarded in isolation; • the project manager works in a dynamic environment.
The role of Project Manager • In meeting the above requirements, the project manager will use many different skills, ranging from entrepreneurship to large-company politics, from diplomacy to single-mind determination, from technical skills to leadership skills. • The role calls for skilled and competent generalists who, in the case of large complex projects, must also be very high achievers with strong communications and interpersonal skills.
Success orfailure criteria The requirements have to be carried out within the overall success or failure criteria established for the project as a whole. These include delivering the project: • within the agreed time limit; • within the agreed cost limit; • to at least the minimum quality standards laid down; • to the satisfaction of the client; • to compliance with the strategic plan of the organization; • within the agreed scope. In some cases, the safety standards are also very important project success criteria!
Personal, managerial and leadership skills of project manager • be flexible and adaptable; • be able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time; • demonstrate initiative; • be persuasive; • be a good communicator; • be able to keep multiple objectives in sight and be able to balance them; • be well organized; • be prepared to generalize rather than (always) specialize; • be a good planner and implementer; • be able to identify problems, find solutions and make sure that they work; • be a good time manager; • be good at negotiating and influencing (rather than arguing or giving orders) • be diplomatic.
Technical and Business Skills of Project Manager • understanding how to set up a team and run it; • the ability to develop complex time and cost plans and achieve them; • understanding of contracts, procurement, purchasing and personnel; • active interest in training and development; • understanding of the technology that is central to project success; • ability to translate business strategy into project objectives.
Selecting the project manager • For internal projects the project manager is usually selected from the ranks of functional manager or staff. • Advantages: • Little, if any, time will be required to develop an understanding of the organization and how it works; • He is familiar with the technology and bring credibility built up during performance of the functional role. • He is likely to know the key players and have established relationship with them. • Problems: • The organization may be unwilling to release a good functional manager because of difficulty in finding a replacement. • The projects may demand some skills that are very different to those of the normal functional manager. It is easy to lose the respect of the project team if the project manager either does not understand the technology or makes technical errors.
Selecting the project manager • The other primary alternative is for the project manager to be an external consultant. It may be even necessary if the project demands some skills that are very different to those of the normal functional manager. • Disadvantages: • The project manager is not familiar with the organization and there will therefore be a learning curve involved. • The project manager does not owe any particular allegiance to the organization and there may therefore be scope for some disparity of interests.
Essential Project Manager Requirements • An effective project manager needs to be able to execute a number of primary functions: • Project planning; • Authorizing; • Team organizing; • Controlling; • Directing; • Team building • Leadership; • Life-cycle leadership.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsProject Planning • Planning is usually the first stage of any project and is one of its most critical. • As the project progresses and is being implemented, the level of planning activity usually reduces substantially. • Errors or omissions discovered during the initial planning stages are usually relatively inexpensive to rectify. In the later implementation stages that can be very expensive. • Planning covers the activities to be accomplished and the sequence in which they are to be executed. • Many different planning applications will be involved: • technical planning will be required for project time planning and control, cost planning and control, and quality management; • planning and establishing both individual and team authority and the communicational relationships necessary for the project organization system to function effectively.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsProject Planning - taskresponsibility matrix • A task responsibility matrix shows • key milestones; • individual important activities; • general responsibilities; • specific responsibilities; • dates. • Responsibilities would include such details as responsibility for: • approval; • preparation; • checking; • Making and input; • authorizing.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsProject Planning - taskresponsibility matrix “I” indicates input, where the individuals concerned has a responsibility to make a defined input to the stated design stage report. “C” indicates a responsibility for checking the report. “A” indicates an authority for authorizing the contents of the reports prior to submission to the client. “O” indicates responsibility for organizing reports.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsAuthorizing • Project managers are interested in accumulating sufficient authority to get the job done. • The most obvious authority problem relates to the peer equality of the project manager and the functional manger. Officially, in matrix structures, both may have equal authority over certain project team members. Добрым словом и револьвером вы можете добиться гораздо большего, чем одним только добрым словом. Аль Капоне
Essential Project Manager RequirementsAuthorizing • Authority is not the same as power. Authority is a type of ability to control and direct that is delegated from higher levels in the organization. Power, in contrast, is given to an individual by subordinates at lower levels. • Authority is a key project-management characteristic. It is essential that the project manager can demonstrate authority across the various project, functional and organizational boundaries that exist.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsTeam organizing • The project manager is responsible for organizing how the work is to be executed. • Project managers and functional managers might have completely different views how their organization works and should be structured. • By understanding the viewpoints of the various stakeholders, the project manager is more likely to be able to devise ways to get support of the key managers. Any one-side attempt to impose a philosophy that is different from the prevailing is likely to meet with strong resistance. • Different approaches can be considered from viewpoints arising from empirical, behavioral, decision and system theories.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsTeam organizing – “first meeting” • Typical items that would be communicated and agreed at the first meeting would be: • individual responsibilities; • project organizational breakdown structure (OBS); • project task responsibility matrix; • communication links; • authority links; • information configuration management system; • project program.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsControlling • Controlling involves the project manager being responsible for establishing, desired targets for performance, measuring actual performance against the targets, and initiating corrective action where the actual performance deviates too far from the desired. • Controlling is a four-stage process: • Targeting. Targets should correspond and be aligned with the stated success and failure criteria. • Measuring. The measurementof the extent to which actual progress is achieving targeted progress. This could be formal, such as by the use of earned value analysis or informal. • Evaluating. This includes the identification of areas where progress is not being made in accordance with the overall project plan, and consideration of any alternative options for appropriate corrective action. Most forms of evaluation are based on some kind of variance analyses. • Correcting. This includes implementing the proposed corrective actions for reducing or eliminating the effects of deviations from target.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsDirecting • Directing is the process of converting organizational goals into reality through the use of organizational and project resources. It involves directing other people in order to ensure that their actions are appropriate to achievement of the objectives. • Typical directing activities include: • Setting up the project team. • Team training and development. • Supervision. • Individual and team motivation. • Coordination.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsTeam building • Team building is the process of taking a series of individuals from different functional specializations and welding them together into a unified project team. • There is an ongoing team-building requirement throughout all stages of the project life cycle because people join and leave the project team, and the project requirements change at the various stages. • The early stages are perhaps the most critical, because the team culture or way of doing things is established. • Generally, there are ten primary sections in any good team-building process.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsTeam building • Individual and team commitment. • Developing a sense of team spirit. • Obtaining the necessary project resources. • Establishment of clear individual and team goals and success/failure criteria. • Formalization of visible senior management support. • Demonstration of effective program leadership. • Development of open formal and informal communications. • Application of reward and retribution systems. • Identification and management of conflict. • Development of heterogeneity and cohesiveness.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsLeadership • Classical leadership traits: • Decision making ability. The project manager must gather all the relevant information and then make good decisions or recommendations based on it. • Problem solving ability. The project manager cannot solve every problem personally but can act as a catalyst for the team’s support to solve problems. • Ability to integrate new team members. • Interpersonal skills. • Ability to identify and manage conflict. • Communication skills. • Interface-management skills. Factor-balancing skills. • Factor-balancing skills.
Essential Project Manager RequirementsLife-cycle Leadership • Project teams are usually formed for a specific project and last only until the project is completed. • It is possible to consider life cycle leadership in relation of stages of team development. • One possible relationship is that exhibited by task-oriented and people-oriented leadership.
2.3. The Project TeamProject teams within Functional Organizations • Most projects are carried out within traditional organizations designed along functional lines. • The most projects within the functional organization would tend to be internal projects for the benefit of the organization itself. • Project teams are established within the existing system, using resources from within one or several functional departments. • In most project management applications, project teams lie somewhere between the pure functional and pure project extremes. • Although projects may be strategically important to the organization, they are highly unlikely to be the reason for their existence. They are likely to be development in nature and would tend to be projects to improve systems, procedures, methods or products.
2.3. The Project TeamProject teams within Functional Organizations • Advantages: • The structure provides excellent flexibility and full use of employees; • Employees are given the opportunity to gain new experience and to develop new skills; • The overall team and cross-functional working attitude of employees is improved; • Individual experts can share their expertise across a number of different projects; • Experts working together can create new synergies that can not evolve in the rigid functional structure; • Employees working on projects are not prevented from following their primary career path within the function; • Project membership offers new potential career paths within the organization; • Making use of internal project team members is often less costly than employing external consultants.
2.3. The Project TeamProject teams within Functional Organizations • Disadvantages: • The function continues to operate as normal despite being depleted of resources by the project. This can become a problem where a number of key people are assigned to projects; • Functional managers often try to “offload” their less efficient or productive people to projects; • People who have worked for a long time in a functional environment may have difficulty in adapting to the demands of the project environment. • There are often communication buffers and bureaucratic layers between projects and senior management while functional units tend to have more clear and longer established communication channels; • Project team members tend to see their project responsibilities as secondary to those of the functional units.
The Project TeamProject teams within Functional Organizations • On the other end of spectrum, the pure project organization exists solely for the purpose of the project or for a group of projects. The project organization is most often set up to deliver a project for an external client or customer. Pure project organizations tend to exist for relatively large, one-off, projects where project team members have responsibility solely for the project.
2.3. The Project TeamTeam multi-disciplinary and heterogeneity issues • The multidisciplinary composition makes the project teams unusual. • Some types of project teams tend to suffer from high level of sentience and interdisciplinary. • Sentience is the tendency for individuals to identify with their own professions and background rather than with the projects or organizations and their goals. • Interdependency is the tendency for teams to depend on inputs from more than one individual in order for the whole system to develop.
The Project TeamTeam multi-disciplinary and heterogeneity issues • Differentiation contributes to sentience and causes teams to fragment. This can lead to breakdowns in communication among groups of specialists where each group is working on its own particular areas. • Integration mechanisms are a basic requirement for teams containing highly differentiated individuals or groups. • A highly integrated team is one where everybody knows exactly what they have to do in order to meet the targets.
The Project TeamTeam multi-disciplinary and heterogeneity issues • Generally, the greater the multidisciplinary nature of the team, the greater is the tendency toward sentience and interdependency. • The greater the range of backgrounds of team members, the more likely is that the group will generate new ideas and become more efficient at problem solving. However there is also likely to be much more discussion and conflict. • Whether the members of a team should be homogeneous or heterogeneous depends on the nature of the project that is to be undertaken.
The Project TeamGroup and team processes • A team is a specific kind of group where collections of individuals work under the direction of a team leader in pursuance of a common objective. • It is important that project managers are aware of both the formal and the informal groups that exist within organizations and the constraints/opportunities they present in executing the project. Informal groups can be as powerful – some times even more so – than formal groups. • The project team is subject to both individual and group behaviors. Individuals tend to behave and function differently depending on whether they are on their own or are acting as a part of a team.
The Project TeamGroup and team processes • Groups tend to perform better at problem solving than individuals: • brainstorm problems more effectively; • consider a wider range of factors; • develop an enhanced logic flow; • Generate more new ideas and original thoughts; • discuss and consider a wider range of potential solutions and implications; • develop better approaches to weighing up the consequences of a range of potential actions; • solve problems more accurately and quickly.
The Project TeamProject team performance • Numerous internal and external factors can influence the performance level of any project team. • The strongest single factors in determining a multidisciplinary group’s performance are heterogeneity and cohesiveness. • Generally, the greater the degree of heterogeneity, the more effective the team will be at solving problems. However, this increase in efficiency is at a cost of increase discussion and conflict. • Cohesiveness is a combination of how much the members of the team want to be members, how well their personal goals are aligned to the team goals, and to the overall commitment and morale of the team members. Generally, the more cohesive the team, the better it will perform.
2.4 Project team staffing, profile and operation • The effectiveness of the team performance and the whole team-building evolution will depend on the characteristics of the individual specialists who comprise the team.
Project team staffing • Staffing a project team with competent people is the first stage in team-building process. In selecting team members, a balance of various sills and experience is sought in terms of • technical skills; • management skills; • administrative skills; • interpersonal skills. • In general, there are many processes and problems accompanying the project team staffing:
Project team staffing • Staffing is generally voluntary. • The project team is staffed in relation to the value of the project. • Project teams are staffed and operated in a less formal manner than functional teams. • Project manager lead by example. • Project teams are flexible and responsive. • Project teams interface. • Project teams innovate and evolve. • Functional managers who provide resources for project teams receive recognition or credit when the project team performs well. • There is some research evidence to suggest that conflict should be promoted during the staffing process.
Project team profile • Project team mix.The project team in the widest possible terms might include: • contractor’s personnel; • subcontractors; • clients; • In-house staff; • any other interested bodies such as inspectors, government, community groups, and lobby groups.
Project team profile • Uniqueness of project teams. • It is well established that every project is unique, and therefore every project team must be unique in order to succeed. • There is no set skills profile for an effective project team. The skills employed must fully reflect the nature of the project. • However there are three specialist project-manager positions that need to be filled: project manager, project planner and project controller. Indeed, it is unlikely that anyone without some knowledge of the industry would be employed in such positions, the primary function in each position is a project management one.
Project team operation • Establishing measurable objectives. • Stakeholders management. • Establishing and planning measurable targets. • Planning and establishing processes. • Leadership. • Membership and identity. • Communication system. • Team separation. • Information technology. • Conditions of optimum efficiency and effectiveness.
Project team operationEstablishing measurable objectives • Identify and acknowledge the stakeholders who will determine whether or not it has been successful. • Work with the stakeholders to determine and state explicitly what their dimensions of success are. • There may need to be a complex trade-off between the conflicting desires of the various stakeholders. • It is important to find out what stakeholders’ expectations of success actually are.
Project team operationStakeholders management • If managed properly, stakeholders will provide a great source of support. • How the team is perceived from the outside will have a significant bearing on whether it is considered successful or not. It is not enough to do a good job; the good job has to be recognized by people outside the project team. • Develop a network of useful contacts who may be able to help or advise the project team as required. • Use the network to identify and provide quality project resources when and where they are required.
Project team operationEstablishing and planning measurable targets • Plans should be prepared in a manner that is understandable and that can be used by the members of the project team. • The plans should be prepared at different levels and should contain as much information as is appropriate for the particular level of communication (overviews for senior managers, detailed plans for operatives etc.) • Have a plan to cover any unexpected events that may occur. • Set realistic and achievable milestones.
Project team operationPlanning and establishing processes • Establish firm ground roles. • Plan for creating an environment where team members are energized to air their opinion, take responsibility, and be creative when confronted by problems. • Develop a plan for managing and developing relationships. This will not happen automatically, and require conscious effort by the project manager. • The rules should be firm, but they should not be unchangeable should circumstances require it.
Project team operationLeadership • Strong, credible leadership is required to provide clear direction and stimulate high performance from its members. • Continual research is required into ways to improve both the internal and the external workings of the team. • Rewarding good performance will motivate members. It is also important to ensure that poor performance is not tolerated.
