Project Management Primer - Introducing Project Management

It seems to me that just about everyone is involved with projects and are therefore project managers by default. It’s become a bit of a buzzword much like the word quality is used in just about every phrase – but securely in commerce.

Best practice methodologies show us that there is a confusion between those who conduct operations and those who manage projects. Both these roles are vital in any organisation but they are radically different from each other. Operational management is often called ‘business as usual’ or BAU.

Operations management therefore is concerned with the continuous management of all part of an organization, and the manager will be focussed on improving efficiency and effectivity while reducing risk. Operations are undergoing and repetitive into the work is continuous or without a finish date. In addition please operations are often repetitive and produce the same results. The watch word here is to maintain and optimize current business operations.

A definition of a project is “a temporary organization that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed business case”. The characteristics of a project are that they are temporary, they introduce change, they are unique in some way, they have levels of uncertainty and hence a risk, and are normally resource from across the normal functional divisions within an organization.

Because of the temporary nature of projects they will have a definite start and end date, result in the creation of a unique product or service, and are completed when they goals and objectives have been met and agreed by the relevant stakeholders.

Stakeholders are defined as anyone with a vested interest in the project. They may be directly involved with the work of the project or stand outside of its but have something to gain or lose as a result of the project meeting its objectives. Most times such stakeholders have conflicting interests which the project manager needs to understand and to resolve so that stakeholder expectations are managed.

From the above a simple test can be carried out to establish if your latest assignment is indeed a project:

Since there is a mass confusion about what constitutes the project, then there is also confusion about what constitutes a project manager. Most of this confusion is understandable as he will cooking a meal for your family could be seen as meeting the above four criteria – but you would certainly not call yourself a project manager of such an event!

It has been defined by of project management brings together a set of tools and techniques which are performed by people, and that these tools and techniques described, organise and lawyers or the work of project activities. Project managers are those responsible for managing the project processes and applying such tools and techniques used to carry out the project activities.

Project management involves applying knowledge, skills and techniques throughout the project in order for it to accomplish the project requirements.

A project manager needs many skills how could be seen as a generalist rather than a specialist. Although the project manager may possess technical skills they are not a prerequisite for the job of the project manager as it is the specialist team who would contain the specialist experts.

The nature of every project is different and therefore project managers in different industries may need different sets of generalist knowledge depending on the application area of the project. In addition this may need to be augmented by the industry environment within which the project is taking place and such extra knowledge may include disciplines, regulatory environments, processes and procedures, etc.

The main area of skills that the project manager needs may be described as general management skills, and indeed, these skills would be typical of an individual who runs their own business as they are very broad in nature:

Written and oral communication skills are vital for project success and many forms of communication will be present within a typical project. The project manager’s job is to ensure that information is explicit, clear and complete as well as being delivered in an appropriate manner.

Project information is often complex and this entire environment needs to be managed by the project manager. Examples here are project documentation, requirements and specification information, emails, project reports, personnel records, contracts and vendor quotations. The project manager will need to track and obtain such information at all times as well as organizing meetings and design and appoint appropriate project teams.

The ability of the project manager to be able to plan is vital. Such skill will require an understanding of the structuured approaches and techniques that are used, and the type of information contained within a tyypical plan.

Because the project manager is responsible for managing the project budget they will need some knowledge of finance and accounting principles. Probably the most important here is the ability to perform cost estimates which bought together the project budget, and there are many methods that may be used to estimate such project costs.

As part of the day-to-day responsibilities here the project manager will often leads to interpret vendor quotes, prepare and manage purchase orders, and reconcile invoices.

The my skill here is that of problem-solving and will focus on first accurately defining the root cause of the problem, and seconds dealing with the symptoms. This will lead to making a decision after examining an analysing the problem. This decision will be the best course of action to take after this analysis and developing a clear understanding of the situation recorded and the first place along with any alternative actions which are available.

Negotiating set the means working with others so that a joint agreement is reached. Every aspect of a project may need some form of negotiation. For example agreeing the scope of the project, budgets, resource requirements, etc.

Influencing is the ability to convince the other party that your way is the best way and go along to implement such actions. There are two aspects to influencing the first being our, which is the ability to get people to do things but they wouldn’t otherwise do. This involves the ability to change minds and the course of events and to influence the outcome.

The second challenge of influencing is to get individuals and groups with differing interests to co-operate together.

It is important to understand the difference between leaders and managers. Leaders impart vision, gain consensus for strategic goals, establish direction, and inspire and motivate others. By way of contrast, managers focus on results are concerned with getting the job done in order to meet requirements.

The project manager needs to recognise that both leadership and management skills are important and the situations where and one or the other should be used.

Very often, the project manager has little formal authority and this is compounded because teams are often formed from individuals in different parts of the organisation. They may never have worked together before and therefore the project manager will be responsible to Foster team building and the environment within which the team can thrive.

Projects often have times when problems arise added is here where the project manager needs to motivate the team in order for keeping productive progress on the project.

David spent 25 years as a senior project manager for US multinationals and now develops a wide range of project-related downloadable video training products under the Primer brand. In addition, David runs training seminars across the world, and is a prolific writer on the many topics of project management. He currently lives in Spain with his wife Jude.