What do Project Managers do?

Objectives

• Critically appraise project management as a

profession to address the question, “What do
project managers do?”

• Debate the role of project managers comparing

traditional and contemporary perspectives
Activity 1

Working in a group (you may do this individually

if you are online) please answer the following

1. Based on your past experience, knowledge,

understanding, or your perceptions of project
management, how would you answer the
question: “what do project managers do?”

2. What in your opinion are contemporary project

management practices compared to more
traditional ones?
What you do as a project manager
depends...
• Has the need for a project already been established?
– No? Establish why the business needs the project

• Has the project already been defined?

– No? Identify which project to implement
– Yes? Verify whether the project is appropriate

• Has the project already secured resources?

– No? Build a business case for securing resources
– Yes? Verify that the resources are sufficient
It depends...

• Does the project team already exist?

– No? Build your team
– Yes? Identify the capabilities of your team and any
adjustments you need

• Has the project already been planned?

– No? Plan the project
– Yes? Verify that the plan is appropriate and can be achieved

• Has implementation already started?

Let’s break that down

• Evaluating and selecting a project

– Benefits analysis
• Securing resources
– Business case, investment appraisal
• Planning a project
– Task and resource planning
• Communicating and liaising
– Interface between requirements, implementation and
management
• Monitoring and controlling
– Is the project going to plan? Is corrective action required?
• Completion and handing-over
– How do you know your project is complete? What are you
giving back?
Let’s break that down even further...

Area
What are we doing and why? Scope
Are we on time? Time
Are we within budget? Cost
Is this what we’re meant to be doing? Quality
What could possibly go wrong? Risk
Who does this project affect? Who can influence our Stakeholders,
project? communication
How can we organise and manage our team? Human resources,
organisational behaviour
How can we get resources? Procurement
How to we bring all of these together for our project? Integration, planning
Enough talk! What do project managers
*really* do?

• Relative use of PM Practices

• Papke-Shields, K .E., Beise, C., & Quan, J. (2010) Do project managers practice what
they preach, and does it matter to project success? International Journal of Project
Management 28 (2010) 650–662
Importance of PM practices to better
project performance

Project Management Practice Most Important Makes no

Important difference
Integration ✓
Scope ✓
Time ✓
Cost ✓
Quality ✓
Human Resources ✓
Communication ✓
Risk ✓
Procurement ✓
Status Review ✓

Papke-Shields, K .E., Beise, C., & Quan, J. (2010) Do project managers practice what they preach,
and does it matter to project success? International Journal of Project Management 28 (2010) 650–662
Specific PM practices

Area Practices

Integration Project plans; project charters; stakeholder analyses; feasibility studies

Scope Project deliverables; scope statements; work breakdown structures; scope change
proposals; work breakdown structure updates; scope statement updates
Time Project schedules; schedule updates; schedule baselines; PERT/GANTT charts;
project activity lists; activity duration estimates; activity list updates
Cost Cost baselines; cost estimate updates; cost performance reports; activity cost
estimates; cost baseline updates; time phased budget plans
Quality Quality checklists; defined quality metrics; quality management plans; quality
metric results; quality audits; quality change proposals
Human Resources Project staff assignments; roles and responsibility lists; responsibility assignment
matrices; team building events; HR changes requests
Communication Communication management plans; information gathering and retrieval systems;
information distribution plans; communication requirements analyses;
communication change requests
Risk Risk management plans; contingency plans; risk registers; quantitative risk
analyses; risk register updates; pre-planned risk response mechanisms; status
review meetings
Procurement Contract statement of work; bid documents; supplier proposal evaluation; supplier
evaluation criteria; procurement management plans
What we just did (academically)

• Observation/interpretation of the world

– What do project managers do, based on experience
and reason

• Comparison to literature
– What do project managers do according to evidence
from Papke-Shields et al.
– Does the literature differ from our observations?

• Insights
– What impact does our comparison have?
– Do we agree that Papke-Shields can be trusted?
What you are really doing:
The Project Management Process

Planning Monitoring Controlling

Revisions
Monitoring and Controlling

• Once the project has been planned:

– Allow implementation teams to implement the project

– You monitor their progress for any deviations to the

project plan

– If there are deviations, decide whether you need to

take corrective action to control the project

– If any deviations are significant, determine whether

any changes are needed to the project
Deviations from the Plan (1)

• Schedule (time)
– Initial estimates too optimistic
– Errors are found in the initial planning
– Resources are not available when planned/needed
– Control not applied in good time
– Failure of sub contractors/suppliers

• Cost
– Technical problems require more resources
– The scope of work increases
– The contract price for the job is too low
– Corrective control is applied too late
– Prices change on supply items
– Inadequate control of changes
Deviations from the plan (2)

• Performance (quality)
– Unexpected technical problems
– Insufficient resources when needed
– Quality/reliability problems
– Technology change impacts project
Monitoring and Control of Projects

• Monitoring and control requirements:

– An effective control system
– Adequate available data
– Assessment of spend/progress
– Clear assumptions on plans
– The ability to align progress and plans
– Clear approvals
– Adequate control of risk/change
– Integrated reporting and meetings
Input Data for Project Supervision

Visual Reports/Meetings
Expenditure

Work Package Client Comments

Progress & Procedures

PROJECT
Test
Sub-Contract CONTROL Results
Information
Rework Information
Purchases &
Returns Resource Wages
Labour
Costs/Overheads
Effective Project Supervision

• A Project Manager should:

– decide criteria for success
– take account of the interaction of Time, Cost and
Performance
– use signing-off and approval procedures
– keep detailed project records
– establish his limits of discretion and alarm levels
– take measures to minimise risk
– establish a formal change procedure
– understand the costing system and integrate it with
progress information
– keep plans and objectives under review
Managing Risk/Uncertainty

• Measures include:
– comprehensive briefing
– design reviews
– testing
– early freezing of design
– tracking long-lead items
– checking estimates and contingencies
– reviewing and updating networks
– using sub-contractors
– arranging resources early - keeping options open for
their commitment
– bad weather plans
Work Package Supervision is the Key to
Successful Projects

• It is the Responsibility of the Work Package

Manager to:
– Supervise the activity of the team
– Monitor achievement against specification
– Identify problems, propose solutions
– Recover situation within WP or seek help*
– Issue reports (normally monthly)

• If a problem cannot be contained within the

Work Package the WPM must immediately raise
an Exception Report to the project manager
and the function head
Project Reviews

• Customer Reviews
– The contract will specify the formal project reviews by
customer representatives
– Comprehensive data pack required, usually 3 weeks
in advance
– Discrepancies raised are either closed out at meeting
or by a later written submission.
Project Reviews

• Internal Reviews
– Internal review at key stages are part of good
management and a requirement of most
organisations
– Senior staff often invited who are not directly
involved with the project
– Data pack usually one week in advance
– Review board make recommendations only; they do
not absolve the project manager of responsibility
Reports to Customer (1)

Reports will be specified in contract, normally

expected monthly/quarterly and used as the
basis of formal project review meetings

Typical Contents
• Project Status
– executive summary by project manager
– technical status report
– key problems (status and actions taken)
– schedule report (status and trends)
– Human resources and costs (if appropriate)
– contract matters and change notices
Reports to Customer (2)

• Work Package Progress

– summaries at agreed Work Breakdown Structure
level

• Technical Annexes
– summaries particular to contract

• Schedule Report
– milestones, bar charts, network summary print outs

• Cost and Human resources Report

– details if appropriate to contract
Internal Project Reports

• Typical Contents
– Project Status (technical, schedule, financial)
– Technical summary of key items
– Financial status summary
– Utilisation of project contingencies
– Assets employed graph
– Schedule status report (milestones, barcharts)
– Work package managers exception reports
– Change status reports
– Human resources reports
– Budget/spend/earned value report & trends
– Sales against contract report
Variance and Response

• Examine cause(s) for variance

– (mischarging, poor estimates, under manning etc)

• Take appropriate measures e.g.

– re-estimate/re-plan
– trade off time, cost and quality
– sub-contract items
– reduce scope
– tighten procedures

• Measures may require senior management

agreement and/or contractual modification
Performing a Project Audit

• Primary Activities
– acquiring information
– analysing information to determine relevance,
completeness and accuracy
– drawing conclusions about the status of the project
– presenting the results and discussing them with the
individual(s) who commissioned the audit

• Information Sources
– material provided prior to the audit
– resulting from discussion during the audit
Summary

• Established a context for project environments

– What do we need to consider when
evaluating/planning/implementing a project
• Project scope
• Time, cost, quality
• External and internal stakeholders
• Planning, monitoring, controlling
• Integration, communication
• Procurement
• Risk management