Project Management: A Managerial Approach 4/e

By Jack R. Meredith and Samuel J. Mantel, Jr.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Presentation prepared by RTBM WebGroup

Project Management
A Managerial Approach

Chapter 3

The Project Manager

Project Management and the Project Manager

The Functional Manager vs. The Project Manager
Functional managers are usually specialists, analytically oriented and they know the details of each operation for which they are responsible Project managers must be generalists that can oversee many functional areas and have the ability to put the pieces of a task together to form a coherent whole

Chapter 3-1

Project Management and the Project Manager

The Functional Manager

Chapter 3-2

Project Management and the Project Manager

The Functional Manager
Analytical Approach Direct, technical supervisor

The Project Manager

Systems Approach
Facilitator and generalist

Chapter 3-3

Project Management and the Project Manager

The Project Manager

Chapter 3-4

Project Management and the Project Manager

Three major questions face the project manager:
1. What needs to be done? 2. When must it be done? 3. How are the resources required to do this job going to be obtained?

Project manager is responsible for organizing, staffing, budgeting, directing, planning, and controlling the project.
Chapter 3-5

Responsibilities of a Project Manager

Responsibility to the Parent Organization
Responsibility to the Client Responsibility to the Team Members Above all, the Project Manager must never allow senior management to be surprised
Chapter 3-6

Responsibilities to the Parent Organization

Conservation of resources Timely and accurate project communications Careful, competent management of the project Protect the firm from high risk Accurate reporting of project status with regard to budget and schedule
Chapter 3-7

Responsibilities of the Project Manager

Responsibility to the Client
Preserve integrity of project and client Resolve conflict among interested parties Ensure performance, budgets, and deadlines are met

Responsibility to project team members

Fairness, respect, honesty Concern for members future after project
Chapter 3-8

Project Management Career Paths

Most Project Managers get their training in one or more of three ways:
On-the-job Project management seminars and workshops Active participation in the programs of the local chapters of the Project Management Institute

Formal education in degreed programs

Chapter 3-9

Importance of Project Management Experience

Experience as a project manager serves to teach the importance of:
An organized plan for reaching an objective Negotiation with ones co-workers Follow through Sensitivity to the political realities of organizational life

The career path often starts with participation in small projects, and later in larger projects, until the person is given control over small, then larger projects
Chapter 3-10

Special Demands on the Project Manager

A number of demands are critical to the management of projects:
Acquiring adequate resources Acquiring and motivating personnel Dealing with obstacles Making project goal trade offs Dealing with failure and the risk and fear of failure Maintaining breadth of communication Chapter 3-11 Negotiation

Acquiring Adequate Resources

Resources initially budgeted for projects are frequently insufficient
Sometimes resource trade-offs are required Subcontracting is an option Project and functional managers perceive availability of resources to be strictly limited Competition for resources often turns into winlose propositions between project and functional managers
Chapter 3-12

Acquiring and Motivating Personnel

A major problem for the project manager is that most people required for a project must be borrowed
At times, functional managers may become jealous if they perceive a project as more glamorous than their own functional area Typically, the functional manager retains control of personnel evaluation, salary, and promotion for those people lent out to projects Because the functional manager controls pay and promotion, the project manager cannot promise much beyond the challenge of the work itself
Chapter 3-13

Acquiring and Motivating Personnel

Characteristics of effective team members:
High quality technical skills Political sensitivity Strong problem orientation Strong goal orientation High self-esteem

Chapter 3-14

Dealing with Obstacles

One characteristic of any project is its uniqueness and with that come a series of crises:
At the inception of a project, the fires tend to be associated with resources As a project nears completion, obstacles tend to be clustered around two issues:
1. Last minute schedule and technical changes 2. Uncertainty surrounding what happens to members of the project team when the project is completed
Chapter 3-15

Making Project Goal Trade-offs

The project manager must make trade offs between the project goals of cost, time and performance
During the design or formation stage of the project life cycle, there is no significant difference in the importance project managers place on the three goals Schedule is the primary goal during the build up stage, being more important than performance, which is in turn significantly more important than cost During the final stage, phaseout, performance is significantly more important than cost
Chapter 3-16

Making Project Goal Trade-offs

Relative importance of project objectives for each stage of the project life cycle:

Chapter 3-17

Failure and the Risk of Fear and Failure

It is difficult, at times, to distinguish between project failure, partial failure, and success.
What appears to be a failure at one point in the life of a project may look like a success at another By dividing all projects into two general categories, interesting differences in the nature and timing of perceived difficulties can be found

Chapter 3-18

Failure and the Risk of Fear and Failure

Two general types of projects:
Type 1 - these projects are generally wellunderstood, routine construction projects
Appear simple at the beginning of the project Rarely fail because they are late or over budget, though commonly are both They fail because they are not organized to handle unexpected crises and deviations from the plan These projects often lack the appropriate technical expertise to handle such crises
Chapter 3-19

Failure and the Risk of Fear and Failure

Type 2 - these are not well understood, and there may be considerable uncertainty about specifically what must be done
Many difficulties early in the life of the project Often considered planning problems Most of these problems result from a failure to define the mission carefully Often fail to get the clients acceptance on the project mission
Chapter 3-20

Breadth of Communication
Most of the project managers time is spent communicating with the many groups interested in the project
Considerable time must be spent selling, reselling, and explaining the project Interested parties include:
Top management Functional departments Clients Members of the project team
Chapter 3-21

Breadth of Communication
To effectively deal with the demands, a project manager must understand and deal with certain fundamental issues:
Must understand why the project exists Critical to have the support of top management Build and maintain a solid information network Must be flexible in many ways, with as many people, and about as many activities as possible throughout the life of the project
Chapter 3-22

Selecting the Project Manager

Some of the most popular attributes, skills, and qualities that have been sought in project managers are:
Strong technical background Hard-nosed manager A mature individual Someone who is currently available Someone on good terms with senior executives A person who can keep the project team happy One who has worked in several different departments A person who can walk on (or part) the waters
Chapter 3-23

Selecting the Project Manager

Four major categories of skills that are required for the project manager and serve as the key criteria for selection:
Credibility Sensitivity Leadership and management style Ability to handle stress
Chapter 3-24

Credibility
The project manager needs two kinds of credibility:
Technical credibility - perceived by the client, senior executives, the functional departments, and the project team as possessing sufficient technical knowledge to direct the project Administrative credibility - keeping the project on schedule and within costs and making sure reports are accurate and timely. Must also make sure the project team has material, equipment, and labor when needed. Chapter 3-25

Sensitivity
There are several ways for project managers to display sensitivity:
Understanding the organizations political structure Sense interpersonal conflict on the project team or between team members and outsiders Does not avoid conflict, but confronts it and deals with it before it escalates Keeps team members cool Sensitive set of technical sensors - ability to sense when team members may try to sweep things under the rug
Chapter 3-26

Leadership and Management Style

Leadership has been defined as:
interpersonal influence, exercised in situation and directed through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specified goal or
goals.

Other attributes may include:

enthusiasm optimism energy tenacity courage personal maturity

Chapter 3-27

Ethical Issues
A project manager must also have a strong sense of ethics. Some common ethical missteps are listed below:
wired bids and contracts (the winner has been predetermined) buy-in (bidding low with the intention of cutting corners or forcing subsequent contract changes) kickbacks covering for team members (group cohesiveness) taking shortcuts (to meet deadlines or budgets) using marginal (substandard) materials compromising on safety violating standards consultant (e.g., auditors) loyalties (to employer or to client or to public)
Chapter 3-28

Ability to Handle Stress

Four major causes of stress associated with the management of projects: 1. Never developing a consistent set of procedures and
techniques with which to manage their work 2. Many project managers have too much on their plates 3. Some project managers have a high need to achieve that is consistently frustrated 4. The parent organization is in the middle of major change
Chapter 3-29

Impact of Institutional Environments

A cultures institutions are a part of the environment for every project In general systems theory, the environment of a system is defined as everything outside the system that receives outputs from it or delivers inputs to it
Chapter 3-30

Impact of Institutional Environments

Project managers must consider the following environments and how they may impact a project:
Socioeconomic environment Legal environment The business cycle as an environment

Technological environment

Chapter 3-31

Multicultural Communications and Managerial Behavior

The importance of language cannot be overstated
Communication cannot be separated from the communicator Managerial and personal behaviors of the project manager must be considered in the communication process
Structure and style of communications Managerial and personal behavior
Chapter 3-32

Multicultural Communications and Managerial Behavior

Structure and Style of Communications:
In the United States, delegation is a preferred managerial style In cultures where authority is highly centralized, it becomes the project managers responsibility to seek out information The manager of an international project cannot count on being voluntarily informed of problems and potential problems by his or her subordinates
Chapter 3-33

Multicultural Communications and Managerial Behavior

Managerial and Personal Behavior
In a society with highly structured social classes, it is difficult to practice participative management There is an assumption that the more educated, higher-class managers authority will be denigrated by using a participative style The more structured a countrys social system, the less direct managerial communication tends to be
Chapter 3-34

Summary
The project manager has responsibilities to the organization, the project, and to the project team There are many career paths available to an experienced project manager Typically, a project manager faces unique demands relating to resources, personnel, communication and negotiation
Chapter 3-35

Summary
Two factors critical to the success of a project are top management support and the existence of a problem orientation within the team members Compared to a functional manager, a project manager is a generalist rather than a specialist, a synthesizer rather than an analyst, and a facilitator rather than a supervisor
Chapter 3-36

Summary
There are common characteristics of effective project team members: technical skills, political sensitivity, problem orientation, and high self esteem The best person to select as the project manager is the one who will get the job done Valuable skills for the project manager are: credibility, political sensitivity, and leadership
Chapter 3-37

Summary
Cultural elements refer to the way of life for any group of people including technology, institutions, language, and art The project environment includes: economic, political, legal, and sociotechnical aspects Cultural issues include: the groups perception of time and the manner of staffing projects Language is a particularly critical aspect of culture for the project
Chapter 3-38

The Project Manager

Questions?

Chapter 3-39

The Project Manager

Picture Files

The Project Manager

Figure 3-1

The Project Manager

Figure 3-2

The Project Manager

Table Files

The Project Manager

The Project Manager

The Project Manager

The Project Manager

The Project Manager

The Project Manager

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