APU Careers Careers & Learning

People Need People for Successful Project Management

project-managementBy Dr. John Richard Horne
Faculty member,
School of Business at American Public University

Sophia came back from lunch and noticed that she had a recording on her phone; it said to be at a meeting in the department conference room at 2 p.m. She had been selected to be the project manager for a new web page upgrade project that her employer, Prism Technologies, had just finalized with one of their biggest clients.

She was thrilled. She’d been on a number of projects already since she’s been with Prism but, never as a project manager (PM), only as a subject matter expert. She was ready for this as the next big step in her career. She’d learned a lot from the earlier projects she’d been on and they had always turned out well, so she was confident she knew how to handle the role of PM.

As the meeting started, the project sponsor, Betty Edwards, was reiterating the importance of this client. The IT director mentioned several new technical approaches needed in this project and that the details of these approaches were not worked out yet. The finance director noted that in order to win the bid, the project was bid very low to the cost line so; the budget needed close monitoring all along. The chief operating officer went on to mention that this project had to be done on time because the start of the next fiscal year, the firm would roll out two other major projects, using many of the same employees on those future projects like this one.

By now, Sophia’s mouth was dry and she reached for a breath mint in her purse. “I’m so not ready for this!” she said to herself. The HR director Sam Nelson then read the names on the list of prospective team members and Sophia realized that she barely knew these people.

What Sophia needs to understand is that she is not alone in this project. Far from it. The fact that these challenges were brought up during the project planning meeting is a good thing. What Sophia will have to learn is that teamwork is at the core of the art and technique of project management. Her success will be based on the success of the individual team members.

A PM has many roles to perform in leading a project–personnel manager, negotiator, budget manager, quality manager, communications manager, and more. However, at the heart of her role as a PM, she has three core roles to focus on: planner, coordinator, and communicator. These are the tasks that she should not delegate to a great extent.

This is not to say that these three core functions are all that there is to run a project. What about the technical parts of this project? Who will identify the technical approaches to be used for the work? Who will keep track of the actual costs and make constant comparisons with the budgeted amounts? What about communications to the client and project sponsor? All these and many more functions must be done in every project. What Sophia needs to realize is that, as the PM, she can delegate much of the work to others on her team.

In fact, Sophia can think about roles and responsibilities of her project based on the below graphic:

pmgraphic

At the bottom of the graphic, there are those functions that only the PM should do and these are the core planning, coordinating, and communicating functions. For instance, she can have one of her team members be responsible for all routine communications such as weekly updates while she retains non-routine communications and those that are sensitive in nature.

She can also delegate to other members of the project team. These functions are designated as “Project team” in the graphic.

There are other functions that can’t be accomplished by core team members of the project team. In many projects, ad hoc team members are identified and noted on the project’s charter. These ad hoc members are assets that can be called upon by the PM; they are not core team members. For instance, there may be a need for a legal review of elements of a contract on occasion. In this case, a named contact within the company’s legal office can be contacted and relied upon to provide support. This type of support is noted as “Within the company” in the graphic.

And finally, there may be a need for resources that are outside the company, such as outsourced services and expertise. This is illustrated as “External to the company.”

The PM’s task isn’t to get the ball in the endzone alone but, rather to get the ball in the endzone using available assets. PMs need to plan the use of available assets, coordinate their actions, and communicate the project structure to the stakeholders, including members of the team.

About the Author: Dr. J. Richard Horne worked for the Marine Corps Logistics Command in Albany, GA as a process analyst/Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and retired in 2015. He has been teaching part-time since 2000 both on-ground and online. His working background has focused on organizational and process improvement and in logistics. He retired from the Army Reserve with 30 years of service in military intelligence and logistics. He is a member of the Project Management Institute, the American Society for Quality and APICS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments are closed.